Editing Lake Victoria (section)

==Fisheries==
[[File:Ugandan fishing boats.jpg|thumb|Fishers and their boats on the shore of Lake Victoria]]
{{Main|Fishing on Lake Victoria}}
Lake Victoria supports Africa's largest inland [[fishery]] (as of 1997).<ref name="Geheb97">{{cite thesis |author=Kim Geheb |year=1997 |title=The Regulators and the regulated: fisheries management, options and dynamics in Kenya's Lake Victoria Fishery |degree=[[PhD]] |publisher=[[University of Sussex]] |url=http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=1&uin=uk.bl.ethos.336275}}</ref> Initially the fishery involved native species, especially tilapia and haplochromine cichlids, but also catfish (''Bagrus'', ''Clarias'', ''Synodontis'' and silver butter catfish), elephantfish, [[ningu]] (''Labeo victorianus'') and marbled lungfish (''Protopterus aethiopicus'').<ref name="LVFO2016">Lake Victoria Fisheries Organization (2016). {{cite web |url=http://www.lvfo.org/index.php/lvfo/lvfo-secretariat/5-lake-victoria-fisheries-an-introduction |title=Lake Victoria Fisheries: An introduction |access-date=2017-03-27 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160915061916/http://www.lvfo.org/index.php/lvfo/lvfo-secretariat/5-lake-victoria-fisheries-an-introduction |archive-date=15 September 2016 }}</ref><ref name="Njiru2005">{{cite journal | last1 = Njiru | last2 = Waithaka | last3 = Muchiri | last4 = van Knaap | last5 = Cowx | year = 2005 | title = Exotic introductions to the fishery of Lake Victoria: What are the management options? | journal = Lakes & Reservoirs: Research and Management | volume = 10 | issue = 3| pages = 147–55 | doi = 10.1111/j.1440-1770.2005.00270.x | bibcode = 2005LRRM...10..147N | url = http://karuspace.karu.ac.ke/handle/20.500.12092/2060 }}</ref> Some of these, including tilapia and ningu (''Labeo victorianus''), had already declined in the first half of the 20th century due to [[overfishing]].<ref name="Lowe2009"/><ref>{{Cite iucn | author = FishBase team RMCA & Geelhand, D. | title = ''Labeo victorianus'' | volume = 2016 | page = e.T60318A47182908 | date = 2016 | doi = 10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T60318A47182908.en | access-date = 14 January 2018}}</ref> To boost fishing, several species of non-native tilapia and Nile perch were introduced to the lake in the 1950s. Nevertheless, the natives continued to dominate fisheries until the 1970s where their decline meant that there was a strong shift towards the non-native [[Nile tilapia]] (now 7 percent of catches), non-native Nile perch (60 percent) and the native [[Lake Victoria sardine]] (30 percent).<ref name="Lowe2009"/><ref name="Njiru2005"/> Because of its small size, the abundant open-water Lake Victoria sardine only supported minor fisheries until the decline of other natives.<ref name="Njiru2005"/> At the peak in the early 1990s, {{convert|500000|t}} of Nile perch were landed annually in Lake Victoria, but this has declined significantly in later years.<ref name="Lowe2009"/>