Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing as a governability problem: a case study of Lake Victoria, Tanzania

This thesis employs interactive governance theory and governability assessment framework to examine why illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is persistent in Lake Victoria, despite efforts to combat it. IUU fishing threatens sustainable management of fish stocks and livelihoods of fisheries dependent communities. At the same time, inadequacies of the technical and regulatory measures implemented to control it have resulted in calls for alternative approaches. This thesis takes a whole system approach to examine underlying governance issues that pose challenges to tackling IUU problems. The study involved two parts. First, it evaluated the extent to which the properties of the system-to-be-governed, the governing system and the governing interactions contribute to fisheries governance challenges. Second, a survey using paired comparison questionnaires was undertaken to determine fisheries stakeholders’ judgements about the level of damages associated with different fishing-related activities. The investigation reveals that diversity, complexity, dynamics and scale issues in the system-to-be-governed, the governing system and the governing interaction challenges efforts to tackle IUU fishing. In addition, the study shows that there are some inconsistencies in the way fishers and managers judge the impact of some fishing-related activities including those that are officially considered IUU fishing. For example, managers consider IUU fishing activities such as ‘fishing without license’ and ‘landing fish in non-gazetted site’ to be least damaging while fishers consider them to have higher impact. These mismatches between the system-to-be-governed and the governing system need to be addressed, before IUU fishing can be tackled. The thesis offers alternative explanations about why IUU problem persists in Lake Victoria, broadening thus the possibility on how to combat it. The methodological approach and findings of the thesis can be applied in other fisheries to help understand and address similar governance challenges

The Creation of Social Norms under Weak Institutions

Preventing overfishing at Lake Victoria is a typical situation where policies have to rely on norm-based interventions to improve outcomes. Our lab-in-the-field experiment studies how information about high or low levels of previous cooperation affects the creation of social norms in a three-player prisoner’s dilemma game with/without a feedback mechanism. The provision of social information succeeds in creating norms of cooperation only if a feedback mechanism is available. Without feedback, social information cannot prevent the decline of cooperation rates. Exploring the role of the reference network, we find that the effect increases with social proximity among participants

Dagaa Fishery: The Unknown Wealth of Lake Victoria

The paper discusses contribution of dagaa Rastreneobola argentae fishery to Tanzanian economy. It uses data from two studies conducted in Lake Victoria as well as literature retrieved from Fisheries Division and other institutions. Results indicate that dagaa fishery generates an average monthly income over $150 to individual fisher/trader, provided employment and brought in substantial foreign exchange over$2 million annually. This has enabled government to improve road networks, health care and education systems within the dependent communities. However, the fishery is still faced with inadequate technologies for processing and value addition, poor local markets for fish and little exploitation among others. In conclusion, dagaa is an important resource among the fisheries of Lake Victoria. Improved handling and processing and promotion of economic value are likely to increase benefits to the riparian communities as well as sustaining already depleted Nile perch stock

Content and complexity of stakeholders’ mental models of socio-ecological systems

Stakeholders’ interactions with environmental resources are influenced by their mental models of the socio- ecological system of the environmental resource. Individual differences in such mental models are particularly important to identify, as diverse mental models may be associated with different behaviour or policy preferences and affect collaborative conservation efforts. In the present work, we explore stakeholders’ mental models of a socio-ecological system and assess content and complexity differences across fishing experience levels, migration status, and regions. We mapped Tanzanian fishers’ (N = 185) mental models of the drivers of the Nile perch stock fluctuation at Lake Victoria. The findings show that (1) fishers’ mental models were complex and diverse, (2) mental models focused on the causal influence of destructive fishing activities, (3) mental model complexity, but not content, varied across regions, and (4) fishing experience and migration status were not consistently related to mental model complexity or content. These results have important implications for environmental resource management at Lake Victori

Addressing climate change with behavioral science: a global intervention tournament in 63 countries

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions’ effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior—several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people’s initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors

Addressing climate change with behavioral science:A global intervention tournament in 63 countries

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions' effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior-several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people's initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors.</p

Addressing climate change with behavioral science:A global intervention tournament in 63 countries

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions' effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior-several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people's initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors.</p

A Bottom-Up Understanding of Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing in Lake Victoria

Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing is a major concern in fisheries management around the world. Several measures have been taken to address the problem. In Lake Victoria, the alleviation of IUU fishing is implemented through the Regional Plan of Action (RPOA-IUU), which restricts use of certain fishing gear, as well as prohibits fishing in closed areas and during closed seasons. Despite the long-term efforts to monitor and control what goes on in the fisheries, IUU fishing has persisted in Lake Victoria. Inspired by interactive governance theory, this paper argues that the persistence of IUU fishing could be due to different images that stakeholders have about the situation, rather than the lack of management competency. Through structured interviews with 150 fisheries stakeholders on Ijinga Island in the southeastern part of Lake Victoria, Tanzania, using paired comparison questionnaires, the study elicits stakeholders’ perspective about the severity of different locally-pertinent fishing-related activities. The results show that while fisheries stakeholder groups agree on their judgments about certain fishing gears, some differences are also apparent. For instance, fisheries managers and scientists do not always agree with fishing people about what activities cause the most damage to fisheries resources and ecosystem. Further, they tend to consider some IUU fishing-related activities less damaging than some non-IUU fishing. Such disparity creates governability challenges, pointing to the need to revisit relevant regulatory measures and to make them consistent with the knowledge and judgments of all stakeholders. Based on these findings, we discuss governing interventions that may contribute to addressing IUU fishing in Lake Victoria and elsewhere

Socio-economic factors affecting consumer behaviour and preference for farmed and wild fish around Lake Victoria, Tanzania

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