This archive report was first published on 17 November 2021.
November 17, 2021, marked a critical moment for the fishing industry in Lake Victoria, as families struggled to cope with the devastating effects of unsustainable fishing practices and pollution.
For Mary Anyango, a fish-seller and mother of seven from Dunga village on the Kenyan shores of Lake Victoria, the situation is dire. 'I am the major bread-earner for the family, but my income is not enough to survive,' she said.
Her 26-year-old daughter migrated to Saudi Arabia in January 2021, where she works as a domestic worker for a Saudi family and earns 28,000 Kenyan shillings ($250) a month – about five times what Mary earns selling fresh fish at the local market.
Lake Victoria, the world's largest tropical freshwater lake and the largest lake in Africa, supports the livelihoods of 40 million people in Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya. However, the lake's ecosystem is under threat due to overfishing, the use of undersized nets, and pollution from wastewater, agro-pesticides, and fertilizers.
According to Brian Waswala, a wildlife and landscape ecologist at Kenya's Maasai Mara University, most of the freshwater feeding Lake Victoria comes via rivers in farming regions where agro-pesticides and fertilizers are used in large quantities. 'There are a lot of issues happening upstream,' he said.
Waswala warned that chemicals entering the relatively shallow lake have a negative impact on the ecosystem and fish stocks, making it 'less and less viable' to make a living from fishing. As a result, cash-strapped families have started to allow young women to migrate to the energy-rich Gulf region, where they predominantly work as domestic workers and earn more money than they would at home.
Ali Juma, a secretary at the Kenya National Fisherfolk Association (KENAFA), whose two daughters have been employed in Saudi Arabia, echoed Waswala's concerns. 'The situation forced our children to migrate,' he said.
Waswala emphasized the need for a new approach to protect the lake's environment. 'People upstream either ignore or just do not care about their actions' impact downstream,' he said. 'It is time that we look at the environment in a different perspective because it is the cornerstone for social and economic development.'
