Climate Change and the Political Economy of Fish Production in the Lake Chad Basin

Abstract

The world is overwhelmingly confronted with the challenges of climate change and extreme poverty, both of which are on the rise globally with the increasing dependency on fossil fuel for energy. Among the implications is the high level of dryness, rise in sea level, desert encroachment, and among others. Even so, water bodies such as lake, bonds and tributaries are the most affected. This is evidenced with the rapid shrinkage of the Lake Chad (LC) which sustains over 30 million people across 4 countries. The fast disappearing of the sixth-largest inland water body in the world and the largest endorheic Basin in Africa which is of paramount importance as an agricultural heartland has resulted to food insecurity, hunger, and poverty in the Lake Chad Basin (LCB). Against this background, the paper examines the impact of climate change on fish production in the LCregion. It creates a nexus between the shrinkage of the LC water body and the reduction in fish production in the LCB. Theoretically, the study anchored on social production and reproduction as a framework of analysis. Relying on the documentary method of data collection, the paper found that the rise in global temperature accounts for the rapid disappearance of the LC water from more than 25,000km² in the 1970s to less than 2500km² presently. The paper also found that the due to this shrinkage, the region is experiencing a sharp decline in the output of fish production, and consequently, reduction in the income level and GDP of the fishing communities of the LCB. Based on these findings, the study recommended that the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) should initiate a program for an annual transfer of water from either River Congo or the Atlantic Ocean into the LC in other to save the endorheic freshwater lake from drying up.