Lake Victoria provides livelihoods to many locals of Kisumu, Homabay, Migori, and Busia counties who eke out a living through fishing.
This is now being threatened by the quick decline of fish in the fresh water body that also covers East African nations of Uganda and Tanzania.
Kisumu County Director for fisheries Mr. Kenneth noted that the decline of fish in Lake Victoria is being caused by an increase in the number of people in counties neighboring the Lake who have turned to fishing for livelihood.
Speaking in Kisumu on Monday, Mr. Luga also attributed the decline to illegal use of un-approved fishing nets.
“We have nets for fishing omena (dagaa) and you find some people using the nets for fishing omena to go and fish for Nile-perch, which is not allowed,” said Luga.
He added, “At the same time, we have protected fishing grounds; those are the breading areas and when people go to those areas and fish using omena nets, they remove the small ones.”
He also said the life of fish in Lake Victoria is threatened by contaminated water being released into the lake by various industries.
The director said that they are putting in measures to control illegal use of un-approved nets in order to improve the number of fish in Lake Victoria.