Nemus holds Workshop and Focus Groups on Lake Tanganyika, Zambia

Nemus recently held a workshop and several focus groups as part of the Strategic Environmental Assessment for Small-scale Fish Farming on Lake Tanganyika in the Mpulungu and Nsama Districts of Northern Zambia Province. The workshop and focus groups took place in Mpulungu and were held with various communities from around the Lake. The intentions of the Zambian Government, through its Department of Fisheries, for setting up pilot floating cages were discussed, in the hope of supporting the subsequent development of small-scale aquaculture in the Lake as a way of reducing poverty while also preserving a sustainable ecology for the basin.

The workshop aimed to present and explain the assessment and to present its respective work plan. It included a project presentation, highlighting the activity in Zambia and the Strategic Environmental Assessment to be carried out, namely its objectives, phasing and methodology, as well as a proposal of critical factors to be analyzed.

In the second part of the Workshop and in the following days, during technical visits to more than ten riparian communities, the advantages of the project and its interest to the communities were discussed using both open discussion and focus groups, as well as potential complications in its implementation, such as possible conflicts with traditional fishing and tourism, among others. The conditions needed in order to carry out these activities in a sustainable manner, such as access to production facilities and infrastructures for the sale of fish, were also addressed.