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International Journal of Marine Science 2015, Vol.5, No.6, 1-7
http://ijms.biopublisher.ca
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area of the BMU. Collaborate with the Director of
Fisheries, TAFIRI and or Local Authority, to identify
fish breeding areas on the basis of indigenous
knowledge and identify and clearly demarcate them as
breeding and nursery areas.
Promote the improved handling and marketing of fish
including construction of associated infrastructure and
improved access to market information. Participate in
vetting of boat owners and fishers for licensing and, in
collaboration with government officials, ensure
licenses are granted to those registered with the BMU.
The BMU committee is also required to issue migrant
fishers with identification notes/letters to introduce
them to new locations.
Methods
Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used
in collecting information. This involved a structured
questionnaire which was used to collect information
from fisheries stakeholder groups (boat owners, crew
members, artisanal processors and traders) and Key
Informant Interviews (KIIs) with members of the
BMU executive committee and village leader in each
of the visited site. Information was sought on
mechanism put in place by the BMUs in regulating
fisheries and activities which are pro-poverty
alleviation. A stratified random sampling technique,
where respondents were first categorized into their
occupational activity in the fisheries and then
randomly picked to participate in the survey as they
came to the landing site, was used to select
respondents for questionnaire. The target was to
interview 10% of respondents’ from each category.
The KIIs respondents who comprised BMU
chairperson, secretary and women representative, and
village chairperson were purposively sampled and this
was done in order to target the persons with more
knowledge and understanding on the study topic. KIIs
was also important to corroborate some information
from the questionnaire and also to get more
information that could not be captured from the
questionnaire. From the survey a total of Sixty-two
represented by (14 boat owners, 23 fishing crew, 22
artisanal processors and traders) responded to the
questionnaire and eight representatives of local BMU
and village leadership were interviewed through KIIs.
The survey was carried out in two BMUs (Kayenze
and New Igombe) in Ilemela and Magu districts
respectively in Mwanza region of Lake Victoria
Tanzania in the months of January and February 2014.
The BMUs were selected because previous National
monitoring and evaluation survey carried out in 2008
considered them among the best performing BMUs in
terms of implementing fisheries activities and
involving other non-committee members in carrying
out these activities. So the examination of perception
of fishers in these BMUs would provide a better
understanding on how the BMUs have performed..
Completed questionnaires from the field were
recorded and checked against the codes for
verification. Quantitative data were combined and
analysed using SPSS (Version 16), summaries of the
data were generated as frequencies, means and
percentages and presented in tabular forms. More
elaborate statistical analysis of variable relationships
were done for selected data, using a chi-square to test
whether there is significant difference between the
activities and also to assess whether the responses
provided by fishers differed between the BMUs.
Further analysis using ordered logit analysis was also
done to assess whether social statuses such as
education, gender, occupation in the fishery and time
spent in the fishery has an influence on how fishers
perceived the performance. For the KIIs, content
analysis method was used to analyse qualitative
information, particularly recorded dialogues which
were broken into meaningful themes or tendencies.
Fishers’ attitudes towards BMU performance
A Likert scale of one to three where one represented
‘not effective’, two ‘somehow effective’ and three
‘very effective’, was used to rate fishers attitudes on
performance of BMUs in undertaking a number of
activities. From this, over 90% of fishers indicated
BMUs to be very effective in solving conflicts,
formulating laws, and keeping inventories. However,
the fishers ranking of BMUs performance was low
in data collection, patrolling fishing grounds,
initiating development projects and conducting
meetings (Table 2 columns 1 to 3). Further analyses
were done on the responses given by the fishers to
assess whether or not there is relationship between
fishers attitude towards specific BMU activities.
The assumption is that one who answers ‘very
effective’ and ‘somehow effective’ supports the view
that BMUs have shown some effectiveness than
those answering ‘not effective’. On the basis of this
the following hypotheses 1 were tested: