Ecological and livelihood change in fishing : A study of artisanal capture fisheries and cage-aquaculture on the Volta Lake of Ghana

The focus of this research was to find out the effects of cage-aquaculture on indigenous small-scale artisanal fisher people on portions of the Volta Lake in the Eastern Region of Ghana. This objective was structured into three sub-questions. The first question sought to determine the extent to which the enclosure of space for cage-aquaculture activities conflicted with other users of the Volta lake. The second question also sought to establish the relationship between cage-aquaculture and ecological change. The third question sought an explanation as to whether policy changes for aquaculture development contributes to the sustainability of rural fishing livelihoods. In order to achieve this objective, qualitative interviews were conducted through a research assistant. The primary data was complemented with secondary data from published documents. A political economy and ecology perspective was used together with the Sustainable Rural Livelihood Framework for analytical purposes. The first findings of the study revealed that the effects of cage-aquaculture activities on other users of the lake extended beyond direct restriction of fishing activities to restructuring economic activities thus making rural people in the community vulnerable to external influence and exploitative relations. The second finding revealed that the relationship between cage-aqua-culture and ecological change was influenced by political factors that established exploitative interactions with ecological systems. Finally, policies for the development of cage-aquaculture was seen to be worsened the structure of distribution of benefits and thus weakened the sustainability of rural fishing livelihoods.