The Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (Maaif) has pledged to restock two lakes in Kisoro District with fish. Fishermen who operate on lakes Mulehe and Chahafi are excited about the development. The chairperson of the Kisoro Fishermen Association, Mr Charles Machali, said: ‘It has come at the right time. Catching a big fish in the two lakes was difficult because of over fishing that led to fish exhaustion in the lake waters. Although the government did not give us the desired fingerlings of tilapia on Lake Chahafi, we fully accept the cat fish fingerlings given to us and we are ready to follow the guidelines put in place as we wait for the restocked fingerlings to mature,’ Mr Machali said on Tuesday.
Mr Alex Nkurinziza, the defence secretary for fishermen association at Lake Mulehe, added that they will put in place local security sub-committees to ensure fishermen comply with the established guidelines. Mr Dennis Bilungi, the Kisoro District fisheries officer, confirmed the development and explained that a total of 753,200 fingerlings of cat fish will be restocked in Lake Chahafi while 3.9 million Nile tilapia fingerling species will be restocked in Lake Mulehe.
‘The procurement process of all these fries has been completed and we expect the contractor/supplier to begin the restocking exercise next week. After the restocking exercise is completed, all fishing activities on these two lakes shall be suspended for one year to allow the fries to mature,’ he said.
Mr Bilungi added: ‘We shall also restock the lake shores of these two lakes to allow continuous production even after the expiry of the one year ban of fishing activities. ”
He explained that the restocking of the two lakes is being done under the Uganda Climate Smart Agriculture transformation project. The project is funded by the World Bank. He also revealed that Lake Mulehe was last restocked about seven years ago while Lake Chahafi was last stocked four years ago.