Cage fishing stirs controversy as "Telephone Fishermen" take over Lake

Farmers undertake cage fish farming in Lake Victoria at Nyatambe beach in Suba South, Homa Bay County on December 30, 2017. [James Omoro, Standard]

Optimism and celebrations greeted the introduction of cage fish farming in Lake Victoria 10 years ago. Conservationists hailed it as the best intervention in saving the lake ecosystem.

But fishermen now claim it has rendered them jobless and enriched a few “telephone fishermen” who run the cages.