Fishing regulations and co-managerial arrangements: examples from Lake Kariba

Abstract

Tire purpose of this paper is to explore the manner in which fishing regulations in Zambia and Zimbabwe emerged. It show's that although the fishing regulations were aimed at protecting the sustainability of fisheries from a 'scientific’ perspective, their principal purpose was to protect the economic interests of tire dominant groups that designed them. In most cases, these interests were at variance with those of local fishermen thereby leading to the continuous violation and ambiguity in the implementation of tire fishing regulations. The paper further shows that one of the purposes for introducing co-management in the Zambian and Zimbabwean inshore fishery-' of Lake Kariba to improve the observance of fishing regulations. However, this did not lead to a re-examination of the relevance of the fishing regulations from tire fishennen's perspective. As a result, there has been no substantial change in the fishing behaviour that the co-management process sought to correct.