Sri Lankan reservoir fishery: a case for introduction of a co-management strategy

The inland fisheries of Sri Lanka are essentially artisanal on most of the reservoirs in the country. The annual inland fish production declined drama tically after 1990, when state patronage for the development of the inland fisheries was discontinued for 4 years. This decline was shown to be a resu lt of growth overfishing of the two dominant cichlid species which accounte d for over 90% of landings. This was a result of using small mesh (<6.9 cm) gillnets in the absence of the State-sponsored monitoring procedure in the fishery after 1990. This indicates that it is necessary to monitor inland fisheries management in Sri Lanka through a centralized authority in the cu rrent situation. However, in some Sri Lankan reservoirs, fishing communitie s can be categorized as 'organized' because they collectively make decision s to define procedures for the rational exploitation of the fishery resourc es. In reservoirs with 'organized' fishing, the communities themselves have developed mechanisms to regulate the landing sizes of dominant cichlid fis h species through community-based fisheries management strategies. In such reservoirs, over-exploitation of fish stocks was not evident, even after 19 90, when state-sponsored monitoring procedures were suspended. Based on the se observations, an alternative approach is recommended for the management of Sri Lankan reservoir capture fisheries in which the Government and resou rce-users have equal responsibilities in the management of the resources.