Finger Ponds: Enhancing the Natural Productivity of Wetlands and Floodplains

The Fingerponds project will develop and test an innovative, integrated system for culturing fish - called fingerponds. This system uses semi-intensive techniques to enhance the natural productivity of wetlands and floodplains.

Fish are being cultured in artificial ponds during the dry season in order to provide a food source for local communities. The project will assess the potential productivity, suitability and sustainability of the system, taking into account natural, aquacultural and socio-economical aspects.

Riparian people of the Lake Victoria basin are vulnerable to reduced protein levels during the dry season.

Moreover, over-fishing and wetland degradation have led to a decline of subsistence fisheries yields in Lake Victoria, leaving local communities deficient of proteins. Hence, there is a need to enhance appropriate fish production and agriculture.

Fingerponds utilise innovative semi-intensive fish production techniques to provide additional protein in the dry season.

Fingerponds are excavated at the landward edge of wetlands in the dry season, and fill during the flood cycle, thereby trapping fish as the flooding recedes. During the following dry season, the ponds are enriched with manure while the trapped fish grow and can be cropped. The land in between is cultivated with seasonal crops.

Aquacultural, hydrological and ecological studies provide the know-how for development of management strategies for the ponds.

The effects of addition of natural fertiliser and of additional vegetation on fish production will be investigated.

The contribution of fish-pond yields and agricultural harvests to the welfare of the villagers will be assessed.

Riparian communities with limited resources throughout Africa may benefit from the system.

The main objectives are to:

1. establish criteria for optimal fish yields
2. assess socio-economic benefits and
3. develop and leave for use a practical, fish production tool with guidelines.

Fingerponds will be located in 6 villages, distributed in three countries (Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, 2 villages in each country) in order to assess fish yields under a range of sociological and environmental conditions. Within each village, we will test the effects of additional fringe vegetation and manure addition in a full factorial design, yielding a total of 24 ponds.

Controlled fishing through the dry season will supply protein for the village people and for trade. Fingerpond construction, cultivation, security, care and maintenance, and records of fish catches, harvests, fertiliser additions, general husbandry and marketing will be co-managed by villagers who will receive training and supervision.

The 4-year research programme (i) evaluates the systems for potential development within "wetland wise-use" strategies, and (ii) aims at understanding the ecological processes that govern production in fingerpond systems.

The project includes studies on water and nutrient balances, food webs isolated in the ponds, fish yield and possibilities to optimise them, models to assess the sustainability and productivity of the food webs and socio-economic costs and benefits.

We will test the following hypotheses:

1. Fingerponds enhance the fisheries potential of wetlands to the benefit of local people;
2. The flood cycles substantially affect fish yields;
3. Addition of manure and
4. Increasing the vegation/water interface zones increases fish yields;
5. Associated seasonal raised-bed agriculture for food production is cost-beneficial.