Victoria-søen: Fiskene forsvinder og når man er fattig i forvejen…

“When I was a boy helping my father in the lake, he could get five baskets full of fish in a night; now I struggle to get even one basket. I get very little money from fishing these days – there is no fish,” he told IRIN.

“These days… I go to Kisumu town [the largest town in western Kenya’s Nyanza Province] where I use my ‘tuk tuk’ [three-wheeled motorcycle taxi] to ferry people for money. If I do not do that, I cannot even take my children to school… I used to save money in the bank, but now it is not easy to feed or clothe my family. It is a struggle to make ends meet,” he said.

When the fishermen return with boats almost empty after a night of fishing on the lake, fish trader Anastasia Magero has to supplement her income by selling vegetables.

“Selling vegetables does not bring enough money. I used stay at the nearby market centre where I used to pay rent, but I can’t do that anymore – I have to walk to the beach from my rural home,” she said. “With reduction in fish, I am getting to know what poverty means.”

An estimated 65.000 people have already lost some income due to reduced earnings from fishing, and another 100.000 could be affected in the next two years, according to Nyanza’s provincial planning office.

The Ministry of Fisheries Development says the fisheries sector supports about 80.000 people directly and about 800.000 indirectly. An estimated 60 percent of households in western Kenya rely on fish for food and as a source of income.

“Our statistics show that many people who used to sell their goods to fishermen cannot do so because they have quickly lost their purchasing power… As fishermen lose jobs, others who depend on them to buy their stuff also do the same,” Dickson Mutwi, senior planning officer in Nyanza, told IRIN.

Lake under pressure