Fisheries of Kenya's Coast : A Socio-Ecological System in Transition

The Kenyan South Coast is a scene in transition - old forms of survival and management slowly but surely giving way to modern and new systems. This has largely been occasioned by people trooping in large numbers for diverse interests, resulting into severe competition for space and resources either for consumptive use by the local population as is the case with artisanal fisheries exploitation or non-consumptive use by the tourism development proponents. In this shift from local traditional management of resources to modern day policy oriented management supported by the Government agencies, participation and input by the locals has been wanting and the new approaches remain largely contested. Further, this has not been helped by the rapidly increasing population mostly due to immigration from the neighboring lands. This work depicts the struggle of artisanal fishers to survive against this onslaught. Their indigenous forms of resource exploitation and the fishery resources of the area. It concludes by making plausible suggestions on the way forward.