Lake Malombe fishing communities' livelihood, vulnerability, and adaptation strategies

This paper presents a case study from Lake Malombe, Malawi. It demonstrates Lake Malombe fish stock fluctuation and its implications on fishing community livelihoods. The main challenges that fishing communities are confronted with and their adaptation strategies developed over the years. This study’s findings suggest that Lake Malombe riparian communities are not regarded as vulnerable so long as they have access to fishing. Fishing supports their livelihood, but declining catches and other factors (siltation of the lake, climate change (heavy rain, drought, and heavy wind), increased mud in the Lake (IML), and lake level fluctuation) beyond their control also expose them to risks and vulnerability. The strategies on how they have survived over the years from the shocks and stress triggered by the decline in fish stocks from the lake are not sustainable in the face of increased human pressures and other environmental drivers. Therefore, an effort towards the governance of the complex socio-ecological systems in which fishery is embedded is required to understand the conditions that define fishers' adaptation strategies. The study further recommends that a combination of coping strategies should be developed to define the fishing communities' level of adaptive capacity and create flexible socio-economic conditions within fishing communities to generate a robust system that can deal with stress.