Perceptive Views of Fishermen on Sustainability of Fishing in the Fosu lagoon in Cape Coast, Ghana

Abstract

Pollution of water bodies such as lagoons has rendered such natural resources unsustainable in terms of fishing activities. The Fosu lagoon in the Central Region of Ghana is suffering the same fate. The black chin tilapia catch which was the main source of fishing activity has reduced now-a-years while fishermen loose the economic incentive of their fishing activities. This study examines the perception of fishermen who fish in the lagoon. It looks at how the fishermen perceive the pollution of thelagoon ingeneral and how it is affecting fishing activities vis-à-vis sustainability of fishing in the lagoon. Sixty fishermen were sampled for the study. The purposive and snowball sampling methods were used in sampling the population. The Descriptive statistic technique was employed to analyze the data. Majority of the fishermen were of the view that the lagoon is not polluted though contaminated.They contended that fish catch was not sustainable when assessed in terms of lagoon habitat, overfishing, tilapia-stock depletion andpollution. It is recommended that measures should be taken to reduce if not eliminate pollution of the lagoon. The paper concludes that both sustainable fishing and pollution of the lagoon could be managed using modern scientific methods.

Keywords: fish-stock depletion, habitat destruction, over-exploitation,pollution, sustainable fishing.