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Abstract:
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"It is now recognized that there is a renewed interest in traditional forms of small scale fisheries management, which may be defined as prudent self-regulation by fishermen or shore-dwellers based, to a greater or lesser extent, on traditional practices. They differ most noticeably from the (frequently resisted) methods of management by official regulations in that the latter are not drawn up by the fishermen themselves and in that their implementation in tropical artisanal fisheries is made very difficult by the diversity and scattered nature of fishing units and landing places. In contrast, the traditional methods of management have the advantage of being drawn up in relation to the specific constraints affecting the localities where they apply and of being implemented by those who designed them. Their decentralized character seems to suit the problems inherent in West African artisanal fisheries management, specially those of rivers, lakes, lagoons and estuaries, where the widely scattered fishing units, the variety of gear used and the complexity of the stocks exploited is even more marked than in the case of the artisanal marine fisheries. Field studies have revealed the current status and extent of traditional management practices in West Africa. These practices are much more developed in inland fisheries than in marine fisheries due to the fact that it is easier to establish property rights regarding lacustrine, estuarine or fluvial regions. Whereas the wide distribution of these practices alone would justify the preparation of case studies, the nature of the goals at stake make them essential study. These include providing sustained local employment to a large working population, assuring the shore-dwellers' direct access to sufficient protein, releasing a small but valuable surplus for sale on local, and, to a lesser extent, external markets and developing extensive or intensive aquaculture. Nevertheless, this review and analysis of traditional management practices raises the question of whether, after earlier neglect, there is not now a tendency to overvalue them."
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