Assessing the impacts of climate variability hazards on women engaged in capture fisheries:

Abstract

The study assessed the impacts of extreme weather events on the different actors of the fish value chain of the Victoria Nile fishery at the three landing sites namely Kabeto, Kalama and Nsagabiyiire in Namasagali subcounty to determine the changes in income, animal protein intake, risks encountered as well as the adaptive measures undertaken by the fisherfolks to enhance their resilience to the hostile weather events caused by climate variability. Random and Snowball sampling techniques were used to gather information from the respondents. Equestionnaire designed in Kobo collect tool was used to collect primary data, secondary data from published journals, articles, reports on related studies were used to gather different insights on the study. The results showed that income of the fisherfolks changes with the seasons and these changes can be either be positive or negative depending on the circumstances and the type of fish one deals in. Dagaa traders are more vulnerable to flood effects where as traders dealing in other fish species are more vulnerable to the effects of dry spells. The consumption of other fish species with the exception of dagaa is highest during seasons of heavy rains when catches are high and the consumption declines during dry spells when catches become very low and the prices rise. Results also show that fish is the main source of animal protein to the households of Namasagali as only 13% of the respondents can afford meat as an alternative animal protein source during the dry spells when fish becomes scarce. The findings showed that flooding of roads and landing sites during seasons of heavy rains greatly affects the accessibility to the market areas and the landing sites hence indirectly affecting effective trading activities due to transport hinderance. There are no government related programs that extend financial or extension services to help the fisherfolks to cope with the effects of climate variability hazards. Most of the traders cope with the effects of floods by use of personal protective gears to cross the muddy roads and also do some preservation and value addition to reduce post-harvest losses due to surplus fish supply yet with reduced market access due to flooding of the pathways.