Learning and Application of Indigenous Knowledge by The Fishers of Kigungu landing Site on Lake Victoria (Uganda)

Abstract

This study describes and analyses the modes of transfer of indigenous fisheries knowledge and skills among the fisher community of Kigungu Landing site. It also looked at how the local knowledge held by fishers about the ecology of Nile Tilapia and Nile Perch fishes of Lake Victoria compares with the existing ecological scientific literature about those fishes. The study aimed at addressing the gender characteristics and roles in fishing, pedagogical principles and modes of learning in the fishing vocation, and to compare the ethno-ecological information provided by fishers with the existing scientific literature about the fishes mentioned. Data were obtained by interviewing fishers and landing site women using standardized interviews and participant observation. Twenty one (21) fishers and 8 women were interviewed respectively. The information collected from respondents included teachers of the vocation, age at joining the vocation, learning contents, modes of knowledge transfer and reproductive season, feeding, migratory behaviors and habitat of Nile Tilapia and Nile Perch and the indigenous science of navigation in the lake. The motivation for this research was to seek information about how fishers learnt the vocation?; how they found their way to and from the fishing grounds; and how they located fish stocks before they could set their fishing gear. We still know very little if any how fishers apply indigenous knowledge in fisheries and how they interpret weather (nature) in relation to fishing and how such knowledge is preserved and passed on to the next generation. Findings from this study revealed that Fishers comprised of only male while a few women provided employment and auxiliary services to fishers. Both male fishers and women were youths. The teachers of the vocation were close relatives (fathers, brothers, friends and uncles) and the fishers joined the vocation at the ages of as early as 10 to 30 years old. Learning was by doing through interaction with others, assisted by physical demonstration and verbal instructions from skills masters. Fishers used celestial bodies and land objects to trace their way the water. Local ecological knowledge held by most fishers agreed with available scientific literature about these fish species; however the reproductive biology of Nile perch, a fish they (fishers) know very well could not be established amongst them. The present study highlighted some contribution that the local fishers of Kigungu landing site could make to improve the formal training of vocational fisheries scientists in formal training institutions and in the management of fisheries recourses. It further provided a hypothesis to be investigated in future research whether living close to urban dwellings limited the transfer of indigenous knowledge among such community. Further it recommended future studies to find out why fishers olderthan 40 years were absent from Kigungu landing site and a possible explaination if this absence had something to do with limited indigenous knowledge (reproductive biology of Nile perch) and scarcity of indigenous fishing gear at the landing site.