Poison use in fishing threatens Lake Victoria's resources: expert

The use of poison to catch fish is now rampant in Lake Victoria, posing a serious threat to fish stock in Africa's largest freshwater body, an expert warned Monday.

Shafii Ramadhani, a fisheries expert in Geita Region, described the challenge as "deadly" to the fisheries sector, calling for practical measures to contain the situation.

Ramadhani, who is also a senior fisheries officer, responsible for supervision of fish standard quality, said three districts are highly affected. Among them are Sengerema in Mwanza and Nkome in Geita Region, located on the western part of Lake Victoria shores.

"It is a very serious challenge. Recently, we have seized ten buckets full of immature fish which were being sold by hawkers at markets of Nyankumbu, Shilabela and the Geita town market. Most of those fish were fished through poison," the official said.

The expert said that illegal fishing has been rampant on the Lake Victoria's islands because the culprits are well connected and they are linked to politicians who end up protecting them when they are arrested.

He said this makes the task to curb illegal fishing challenging.

Ramadhani added that his office is now planning to embark on an operation to arrest fishermen who use chemicals and that the operation will be in collaboration with fisheries officers from Sengerema district.

"Fishing using chemicals has been a problem in our districts as the laws are not strict as the punishments they are given are very small," he said.

Lake Victoria is being shared by three east African states -- Tanzania, Uganda and Keny