Fisheries in arusha region, Tanzania

Arusha Region does not have a tradition of fishing despite its large areas of freshwater lakes. The Regional Fisheries Officer (R.F.O.) reports that many of the lakes contained no indigenous species and introductions of tilapia and catfish were started in the late 1 940's and 1950’s. The introduced species came from Malya fish ponds near Mwanza and Hombolo Dam near Dodoma. Fishing seems to have taken some years to become established and may even have started in some areas by fishermen from southern Tanzania moving north to exploit these new fishing areas. Commercially fishing, some thirty years later, is now firmly established in several Districts along with the associated processing and marketing "industries”.