The Determination of Economic, Cultural and Environmental Sustainability of Fish Farming Culture in Nigeria

Cultural Inland Fishing Gears

3 fishing community with the used of fences made from rows of traps across the water to form a barrier for fish passages. This practice of fishing termed unsustainable as its indiscriminately without selection of species and sizes catches the fish. Thus, juvenile and small size fish were catched thus deplete the lake fish stock without taking time. Regardless of the depleting consequence of the Dumba fishing method, the cultural fish farmers practiced the Dumba cultural method of fish farming and other fishing gears that were considered unethical to the principles of sustainable development goals as a result of its inefficiency and state of age long inheritance.

Source: Gear Technology Unit, FCFFT, Mile 3, Baga, 2023 [14].

This result shows inconsistency with the findings of Bermeo-Almeida O, et al [15] Sustainable Development Goal 14 (Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, and marine resources for sustainable development) has clear and important implications for fisheries and aquaculture; by extension, achievement of its objective will bring progress across other Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) objectives. Enhanced fisheries management, policy, practices and technology are pivotal in providing quality food to ever more people while ensuring that practices are ethical and sustainable.

The environmental degradation of Mile 3 cultural fish farming community as a result of cultural fish farming method and the used of other age long inherited fishing gears should be avoided by the use of less damaging methods of fishing and application of improved fishing gears in line with the culture of the community that will support healthy lake should be accommodated by the cultural fish farmers and accept change. The less damaging methods and improved cultural fishing gears as the use of beach and boat seines nets, bottom trawls nets, gillnets, handlines and jigs gear, harpoons spear gear, long lines gear, midwater trawls gear, trolling lines gear, pots, poles and lines gears. These less harmful methods and improved fishing gears are more economically, culturally and environmentally sustainable as a result of their advantage over the age long inherited cultural method of fishing as follows:

• Beach and Boat Seines Nets; the catch of unwanted species can be conserved in these methods via the net that have smaller mesh bag called a Cod end which retains the catch.
• Bottom Trawls Net; the variety and amount of bycatch in the cultural method of bottom trawl fisheries is a pervasive problem and heaviness of the crude cultural gear can as well damage sensitive habitants which is avoided in the improved system of operation.
• Gillnets; in case of crude cultural method of application the vulnerable animals in the community ocean can be caught. Such an impacts is reduced in the improved application of the gillnets by setting the netting deeper in the water column to allow animals to swim over and lingers to warn passing sea mammals.
• Handlines and Jigs Gears; the improved application of handlines and jigs gear is considered a more environmentally responsible because there is very little catch of unwanted sea life as a result of the high level of modification on the age long culturally inherited handlines and jigs gears.
• Harpoons Spear Gear: the improved harpoons spear gears are shot with guns. The catch of unwanted sea life is not a concern because fishermen identify the species and size of the fish before it is caught.
• Long Lines Gear; under this improved very important method of gear modification it reduces impacts on other sea life for example sinking drifting longlines deeper allows many animals to swim over them and adding streamers above the water scares away seabirds. And a specially designed fishing hook called a circle hook can make it easier to release other animals that have been accidentally caught.
• Midwater Trawls Gear; the gear does not contact the sea floor when it is used in the midwater zone as well it functions well even without contacting sea floor. It also uses streamer lines to scare away seabirds and avoiding areas with an abundance sea mammal can reduce the amount of bycatch.
• Trolling Lines Gear; under this improved method fishermen can quickly release unwanted species because the lines are reeled in soon after fish take the baits.
• Pots Gears; may have an opening that allows undersized or non-targeted sea life to escape easily. Under this method unwanted species can be released alive and habitant impacts tend to be minimal.
• Pole and Lines Gears; in this case harmful impacts on other species tend to be minimal because fishermen can release unwanted sea life [16].

Less Damaging Fishing Gears

Click to enlarge

Source: Library, Information & Documentation Unit, FCFFT, Mile 3, Baga, 2023.

This result confirmed that of Le –Sann A [17] small- scale fishers in fishing communities are sustained by fishing livelihoods, which require community members sustained access to fisheries capital, such as:

• Natural capital, that is marine ecosystems and the living species they support
• Physical capital, including fishing vessels, gear, landing sites, and processing and marketing facilities;
• Financial capital for sustaining operations, provisions of various items of physical capital and supporting other social and economic activities and sometimes for sustaining or enhancing natural capital as well;
• Human social and cultural capital which involves human skills and information utilized in fisheries activities as well as broader accumulated knowledge containing guidance for how to go about living in general.

The agricultural production processes of the cultural fish farmers of mile 3 fishing community in the cultivation of crops such as millets, cowpea, sorghum and maize in addition to other vegetables and tubes were cultivated when the lake contracted based on receding moisture. Although, the lake chad area was believed to be highly fertile but yet notwithstanding, the natural highly fertile land was applied with other substance such as human and animal excrete in form of fertilizer in addition to the nutrient composition of the soil which actually does not demand artificial nutrient in form of human ideological applications. The surplus nutrient drained in to the lake resulted in fish habitant destructions and emergenced of human infectious deadly diseases most common in the area was the cholera. The Mile 3 cultural fish farmers also engaged in livestock production as secondary livelihood activities such as the donkeys, horses and camels also served as their means of transportation and other species which involved; cattle, sheep and goats were well adapted to the area going by the natural environmental suitability of the lake chad for livestock production. The rearing of the livestock brought about unnecessary grazing of trees, vegetal and grassland cover in most cases emanated to conflict between farmers and herdsmen although livestock production form another important aspect of agricultural sector of the economy but the practiced by the cultural fish farmers of Mile 3 fishing community was not in accordance to the attainment of sustainable development goals. Nevertheless, the fish farmers of Mile 3 cultural fishing community predominantly depended on fire wood for cooking and other fire demanding economic activities. The lake chad is endowed with trees, shrubs and swamp grasses with which the cultural fish farmers used as their local fuel for cooking, fish smoking, making of ropes, constructions of fishing gears, canoes, mats, baskets, paddle poles, thatch canoe, shelter, weapons and many others. The unmonitored and uncontrollable harvests of trees, shrubs and swamp grasses for fire wood and other economic activities by the cultural fish farmers resulted in overexploitation consequently some trees and plant species had vanished in the long run.

This result shows inconsistency with the finding of Fisher WJ [18] the Environmental Sustainable Development Goals; the use of natural resources and the principles of sustainable food systems permeate all of the Sustainable Development Goals, being particularly pertinent to Sustainable Development Goal 12 (Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns) and Sustainable Development Goal 13 (Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts). The output of fisheries and aquaculture produces lower greenhouse emissions for the equivalent nutrition than do most agricultural food systems. At the same time, there are environmental challenges relating to fisheries management, climate change and preventing illegal exploitation. Properly managed fisheries combined with aquaculture practices that foster the sustainable use of resources while preserving aquatic biodiversity are needed to ensure the future of the sector. The role of new technologies in minimizing food loss and waste across the fish value chain will allow for the more efficient use of resources and move towards more complete utilization of fish, thereby reducing the need to extract further resources.

The realization of the cultural fish farmers of Mile 3 fishing community that some resources in the fishing community were in abundance while others were scarced has been considered paramount important in their day to day economic activities to earn a living. This should have guided the cultural fish farmers in how resources were utilized in the process of material extraction as such damages to the environment would have been minimized. The fish farmers of Mile 3 fishing community were unaware that land resources such as lake for fishing and land for cultivation were in abundance relatively not in direct proportion to other land resources as the fisheries, maize, sorghum, vegetable and other trees. Human capital and manmade capital were also scarced in relation to the natural resource endowment of Mile 3 fishing community such as the farming entrepreneurship skills, technical know how of producing an aid for production as mending of fishing gears, craft fabrications, canoe, fishing net, fishing boat, weaving of mats and baskets, construction of smoking kiln, racks and many others. The labour required to harness the community resources endowment too was inadequate as unskilled labour supplied was in higher proportion to the skilled and semiskilled labour in the community. The fish farmers did not realize that some resources in the community were in abundance while others were scarced thus the cultural fish farmers of the community engaged in production processes inconsiderate of the relative scarcity of the factors of production (land, labour, capital and entrepreneur) their focused were the immediate benefit derived. Therefore, the fish farmers were inefficient in the resource utilization of the community hence the operational benefit should not adequately on continual basis even if the community produced operational benefits constantly in the short-run.

This result shows inconsistency with the finding of GFCM [19] the Economic Sustainable Development Goals promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth that can guarantee decent employment and reduce social and gender inequality. The fisheries and aquaculture sector encompass numerous opportunities to enable sustainable development and income enhancement, especially in the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 1 (End poverty in all forms everywhere) and Sustainable Development Goal 8 (Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all). The fisheries and aquaculture value chain extend from harvesting through to processing and marketing. The sector provides income and employment for an estimated 250 million people, it is the central for ensuring the livelihoods of a substantial proportion of the world’s population. In some instances, small-scale and subsistence fisheries may provide the principle source of income for entire communities, providing economic resilience where often sources of alternative employment are limited or non-existent The cultural fish farmers of Mile 3 fishing community did not achieve a good social well-being of the community as the fish farmers failed in accommodating changes in line with new technology, population increased and urbanization, increased in demand for fish, the market structure has expanded and other infrastructural and social amenities requirements in general. Even if the social well-being was achieved the fish farmers did not cope with the changes through adaptation to the changed for example the new production techniques for the system to be stable in the short-run and to maintained the social well-being achieved for a long term period the community must possessed the capacity to accommodate sudden or unexpected changes with fairness among the members of the community with respect to production inputs and outputs. The cultural fish farmers of Mile 3 fishing community did not achieve adequate social-well-being of the community in the short-run, did not accommodated changes in response to the modern world phenomena not to talk of coping with the changes and maintenance of the changes in line with the community adaptation for long term period for the attainment of the social well-being of the community.

This result confirmed that of Pomeroy RS, et al. [20] the fisheries of the North east Nigeria at present are generating benefits for rural communities but there are also strong indications from the current research that the fisheries systems will have to face a range of threats soon. For example, it has been recorded that traditional management systems can breakdown under pressures such as urbanization and environmental change. It seems likely that such trends will increasingly affect other rural communities in the future. It is appropriate therefore that the need to plan is recognized by government in order to anticipate and react to potentials problems.

Although, the Mile 3 cultural fishing community were able to accommodate sudden change as a result of inevitable condition (war and other natural disasters) the Mile 3 fishing community was displaced as a result of insurgent attacked in the year 2015 but the community was a able to resettled back to their ancestral location and continued with their cultural fishing practice. But the community resettled in a nearby fishing town called Baga as a result of the destruction encountered as structures were structures and other essentials were all destroyed. The cultural fish farmers of Mile 3 fishing community still undertake their fishing practice in the same ancestral fishing lakes, zones and fishing spaces as culturally inherited from their ancestors The determination of cultural fish farmers of Mile 3 fishing community to have attained economic, cultural and environmental sustainability in fish farming culture should balanced economic, social and environmental pillars of sustainability there by the culture of fish farming in Mile 3 fishing community said to have achieved true sustainability and a true circular economy. In the case of the community; the culture of fish farming in Mile 3 fishing community did not achieved true sustainability and did not operates in a true circular economy because the economic, social and environmental pillars of sustainability of the cultural fish farming community was not balanced.

This result confirmed that of Sodagar B [21] to achieve true sustainability the need to balance economic, social and environmental sustainability factors in equal harmony.

On the other hand if the Mile 3 cultural fishing community have achieved two (2) pillars of sustainability out of the three (3) pillars of sustainability then the culture of fish farming in Mile 3 fishing community said to have achieved either (1) equitable sustainability, (2) bearable sustainability and (3) viable sustainability depending on the combination of the two (2) pillars out of the three (3) pillars as explained below:

• If the Mile 3 cultural fishing community have attained social and economic sustainability then the cultural fish farming in the community has attained equitable sustainability.
• If the Mile 3 cultural fishing community have attained social and environmental sustainability then the cultural fish farming in the community has attained bearable sustainability.
• If the Mile 3 cultural fishing community have attained economic and environmental sustainability then the cultural fish farming in the community has attained viable sustainability.

The economic of sustainable fish farming culture in Mile 3 fishing community of Borno State, North-East Nigeria has not attained truly sustainable, neither equitably sustainable nor bearably sustainable or viably sustainable.

The outcome of this research work shows consistency with the findings of Thomas DHL [22] review of the concept of sustainability with reference to African flood plain fisheries. Thomas identified three (3) tiers to the use of the sustainability concept with the application of multi-dimensional approach to sustainability to examine the fisheries system in the North-East Nigeria; three key points arise from the result of the present study:- firstly, the underlying environmental fluctuation which characterize the Sahel-savanna region; make any prediction of the size and status of fish resources from year to year very difficult. In other words, it is difficult to judge how sustainable any resource level will be in either space or time. Secondly, the traditional management systems, which have evolved in the North east Nigeria, appear to incorporate ecological, economic and social dimensions. The fishers have an indigenous knowledge of the dynamics of the fisheries resources (ecology), which ensure that a level of fishing activity (economic) is undertaken to achieve a catch and integrate in to local farming systems. In turn, the integration of fishing and other activities, ensures that the local fish farmers have a secure livelihood upon which communities can be maintained (social). Thirdly, the sustainability of the fisheries systems, which have been built upon the institutional arrangements within communities and between communities (and which, define the relationship between resources-users and the resources), are now threatened by various factors. Rapid population growth, increase demand for access to resources, and the redefinition of resource use rights by government or private individuals without the involvement of the local communities, have meant that the delicate balance between ecological, economic and social aspects of resource usage in the Sahel-savanna has been disrupted in certain locations in unsustainable resource usage patterns and tile dissolution of traditional management system.