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Uganda Fishing
Lakes, rivers, and swamps covered 44,000 square
kilometers,
about 20 percent of Uganda's land surface. Fishing was
therefore
an important rural industry. In all areas outside the
central
Lake Kyoga region, fish production increased throughout
the
1980s. The government supported several programs to
augment fish
production and processing. In 1987 a government-sponsored
Integrated Fisheries Development Project established a
boat
construction and repair workshop at Jinja, a processing
plant,
several fish collecting centers, and fish marketing
centers in
several areas of Uganda. They also implemented the use of
refrigerated insulated vehicles for transporting fish.
China had
managed the reconstruction of cold storage facilities in
Kampala
in the early 1980s. Soon after that, the government
established
the Sino-Uganda Fisheries Joint Venture Company to exploit
fishing opportunities in Lake Victoria.
Uganda's Freshwater Fisheries Research Organization
monitored
fishing conditions and the balance of flora and fauna in
Uganda's
lakes. In 1989 this organization warned against
overfishing,
especially in the Lake Kyoga region, where the combined
result of
improved security conditions and economic hardship was a
40-
percent increase in commercial and domestic fishing
activity. A
second environmental concern in the fishing industry was
the weed
infestation that had arisen in lakes suffering from heavy
pollution. In late 1989, officials were relatively
unsuccessful
in restricting the types and levels of pollutants
introduced into
the nation's numerous lakes.
A few fishers used explosives obtained from stone
quarries to
increase their catch, especially in the Victoria Nile
region near
Jinja. Using byproducts from beer manufacturing to lure
fish into
a feeding area, they detonated small packs of explosives
that
killed large numbers of fish and other aquatic life.
Several
people also drowned in the frantic effort to collect dead
fish
that floated to the surface of the water. Environmental
and
health concerns led the government to outlaw this form of
fishing, and local officials were seeking ways to ban the
sale of
fish caught in this manner. Both bans were difficult to
enforce,
however, and fishing with dynamite continued in 1989
despite the
widespread notoriety attached to this activity.
Data as of December 1990
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