Artisanal Fishers on the Kenyan Coast

Overexploitation of natural resources is often associated with poverty among local populations. A multi-disciplinary team studied artisanal fishers along the Kenyan coast on the Indian Ocean. The main focus of the research was on income diversification of fishers, the pressure on marine resources and the relation between the two. Income diversification did not reduce the pressure on the marine environment. Rather, indications are that many part-time fishers are entering the profession. Moreover, fishers with alternative employment stayed in-shore and used damaging gear more often. Policies to stimulate employment opportunities for coastal communities cannot be expected to lessen the pressure on marine resources and need to be planned carefully in terms of industry location, labour requirements and degree of coastal pollution.

Jan Hoorweg was coordinator of the Coast Environment Research Station, Malindi, from 1995-2000. He is semi-retired and attached to the African Studies Centre, Leiden. His main interests are coastal ecology and issues of coastal development. He is editor of the Kenya Coast Handbook (Lit Verlag 2000) and the Coastal Ecology Conference Proceedings (African Studies Centre 2003, 2009).
Barasa Wangila is Vice Chancellor of Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, Kakamega. He holds a Ph.D. in zoology, has carried out extensive research in fisheries and biodiversity and has authored more than twenty-five academic papers He has served as board director of the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute and as external examiner in several universities and has been on various editorial boards.
Allan Degen is head of the Desert Animal Adaptations and Husbandry Unit, Ben-Gurion University, Beer Sheva. He studies the use of livestock production in livelihood strategies of indigenous populations under both rural and urban conditions. He has done research on Bedouin in Israel, Maasai in Kenya, Kazakhs in Kazakhstan and mid-hill people in Nepal. He is the author of Ecophysiology of Small Desert Mammals (Springer 1997).