Gordian Mataba
Other projects
15 Jun 2021
Conservation Awareness and Compliance Campaigns towards Conservation of Endangered Manyara Tilapia (Oreochromis amphimelas) and its Habitat in Lake Manyara, Tanzania
The endangered Manyara Tilapia is endemic to Lake Manyara in Tanzania. The fish was added to IUCN red list of threatened species because of overfishing due to overreliance on fishing by the surrounding communities as their main livelihood activity and source of animal protein (Bayona, 2006). Lack of regular conservation education to the surrounding communities is aggravating the problem and is increasing the extinction risk of Manyara Tilapia. Regular conservation campaigns can instil the communities with the sense of importance of conserving Manyara Tilapia and makes them sensitive to this species.
Me and my colleague at Lake Manyara during fisheries data collection in October 2021. @ Gordian Mataba.
Although the phased-out project created awareness to halt overfishing in lake Manyara, this education was not based on the current habitat-specific scientific evidence. This is weakening the potential of awareness creation as a powerful conservation strategy, as it can make communities insensitive to conservation of Manyara Tilapia due to lack of evidence on the effect of their actions. The phased-out project also initiated poultry farming small projects as alternative sources of animal protein to reduce overreliance on fish protein and, hence overfishing. However, these projects were limited in number and geographical coverage, thus hindering their fast regional adoption and outcome. Furthermore, breeding and nursery grounds for Manyara Tilapia in lake Manyara have not been identified and mapped and therefore are not known. Identification of these would help to establish local reserve areas and their protection for the conservation of Manyara Tilapia.
This project intends to promote conservation of Manyara Tilapia for sustainable community livelihood by; (1) upscaling the current villagers’ conservation knowledge through dissemination of evidence-based conservation education in the form of research results from the phased-out project, (2) expanding the geographical coverage of the phased-out poultry farming projects as alternative sources of animal protein and income, and (3) identifying and mapping breeding and nursery grounds for Manyara Tilapia.