Fish exports drop

Over-fishing in Malawi’s Lake Malawi and Shire river has led to a collapse in the country’s fish exports over the past 20 years, according to media reports. The German-funded National Aquatic Resource Management Programme said Malawi exported 2,000 mt of freshwater fish in 1980, but that this dropped to just 3 mt in 1999 and zero last year. Overall fish landings dropped by 10,000 mt from 78,000 mt in the 1980s to 68,000 mt in 1998. The management programme’s principal advisor, Dr Uwe Scholz, criticised Malawi’s government in the report for not enforcing the new Fisheries Act adopted in 1997. The Act, said the reports, empowers communities to confiscate fishing nets and forbids fishermen from trawling within 1.8 km of shores.