Coastal and Offshore Marine Fisheries of Kenya: Status and Opportunities.

This review on the status of Kenya’s marine fisheries and opportunities also takes into considerations other regional matters relevant to the management, sustainable exploitation, conservation and research on fisheries, biodiversity and environment on which the fisheries depend. Worldwide, the inshore fisheries are overexploited and declining whereas as regards offshore deep sea fisheries in some world oceans are also overexploited and declining, but the prevailing scenario in the Western Indian Ocean is that the fishery is fully exploited and can decline if measures are not undertaken to promote sustainable exploitation and conservation. These concerns were clearly expressed during the WSSD Summit in Johannesburg in 2002 and readdressed in the NEPAD Workshop for promoting “Fish Summit for All” in Abuja, Nigeria, 2005. In various fisheries resource reviews FAO has documented the various exploitation and management issues of concern at both global and regional levels. Due to the fact that the exploitation and management issues trigger concerns of transboundary nature, it is now becoming an adopted scientific tradition that multidisciplinary ecosystem approach is undertaken to resolve these issues as in the Large Marine Ecosystem (LME) Approach .Thus participation in regional initiatives is being encouraged by global Institutions such as the UN organisations, GEF (Global Environment Facility), World Bank etc. Kenya’s marine fishery lies in the Somali Coastal Current LME in the Western Indian Ocean in which also the Agulhas Current LME is located. The commercial fisheries stocks in the Western Indian Ocean are transboundary and in this region shared by 8 countries. Kenya marine capture fisheries in terms of landings are the least making about 3.2% of the total annual catches in the region whose average is about 200500 tons annually for recorded catches. In this review, the prevailing constraints and challenges that need to be addressed at both national and regional level in order for Kenya to benefit from the shared offshore resources in the EEZ and International Waters are discussed. In inshore waters there are various conflicts not only between small scale artisanal fishers and semi-industrial fishers but including a variety of stakeholders undertaking various activities e.g. hotel industry, marine protected areas, water-sports etc. Restraining of movement or access to fishing grounds and lack of offer of alternatives including improved infrastructure is a very significant challenge as it affects masses of the fishers. The need of addressing the latter conflicts along the coastline using the international model of Integrated Coastal Zone Management for sustainable exploitation and conservation of coastal resources including inshore fisheries is also discussed. The opportunities that exist in offshore investment can successfully be undertaken by establishing the status of the fishery stocks. This reviewed information has been provided and the necessary recommendations made.

Bibliographic Details

Main Author:	Ruwa, R.
Format:	Report biblioteca
Language:	English
Published:	Kenya Marine Fisheries Research Institute 2006
Subjects:	Overexploitation, Coastal zone management, Large marine ecosystem,
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/1834/7096
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