Modelling and forecasting of catfish species yield from Mangochi artisan fisheries of Lake malawi in Malawi

Most of the wild fish stocks in Malawi either are fully or over exploited. This challenge underpins importance of forecasting using available data to support sustainable fisheries management. The study aimed at modelling and forecasting Catfish (Mlamba) species yield from artisan fishery on Lake Malawi in Mangochi District as they are becoming important food fish due to decline of more important fish species such as Oreochromis(Chambo). The study was based on secondary data on fish catches between1976 and 2012, collected from Fisheries Research Unit of the Department of Fisheries in Malawi. The study considered Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) processes to select an appropriate stochastic model for forecasting the species yield. Appropriate models were chosen based on ARIMA (p, d, q). Autocorrelation function (ACF), Partialautocorrelation (PACF), Akaike Information Criteria (AIC), Box-Ljung statistics, correlogram of residual errors, distribution of residual errors, ME, RMSE, MAPE and MAE. Selected model was ARIMA (0, 0, 1) for forecasting artisan landings of Catfish from Lake Malawi in Mangochi District from 2013 to 2022. Based on the chosen model, forecast for artisan Catfish landings showed mean of 352 tonnes and mean of actual catches was 362 tonnes. However, catches in year 2022 are projected to be 360 tonnes, slightly below the actual catches mean but above 236 tonnes in 2010, assuming other factors remain constant. Confidence intervals of the forecasts included a zero and as such over exploitation of the species cannot be ruled out. Landings of the fishery will increase to 360 tonnes and remain stable through year 2022 necessitating fisheries managementconsideration to improve the trend. Policy makers should secure sustainable exploitation of Catfish species, among artisan fishery in the study area by controlling all fishing effort that lands the species such as gillnets, beach seines, open water seines among others

Determinants of Household Vulnerability to Food Insecurity: A Case Study of Semi-Arid Districts in Malawi

This paper looks at household vulnerability to food insecurity and its determinants in two semiarid districts in Malawi. A randomly selected sample of 200 households was interviewed. The descriptive statistics revealed that female-headed households were more vulnerable to food insecurity than male-headed households because of low access to resources for food production and purchases. A two-stage least squares regression analysis showed that amongst the main determinants of household vulnerability were income, household size, land size and access to climate information. The findings imply that policies should promote diversification of livelihoods and equal opportunities and rights to access resources. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Lt

Gender, governance and climate change adaptation

This chapter attempts to highlight the role that gender plays in the context of climate change adaptation. It uses a discourse analysis approach to comparatively present a review of the role gender plays in climate change adaptation. Currently, two discourse storylines dominate the exploration of gender and climate change. One tells a story about women being disproportionately impacted by climate change and constructs them as ongoing victims. The other storyline explores the role women play in building adaptation and simultaneously presents women as both being more resilient and having more agency in these contexts. Applying a gender lens to governance could include enhancing the role of existing communities of practice. This chapter attempts to provide a detailed review of and means by which to understand and present how climate change and climate change adaptation is driven by gender and the implications of this for ongoing adaptive governance. This chapter adds to gender analyses by considering the role of communities of practice arguing that their deliberate utilization can enable gender to be productively rather than negatively utilized to build robust, socially just, and innovative adaptation regimes.Melissa Nursey-Bra