Bioeconomic approach to rebuilding small Haplochromine cichlids of Lake Malombe, Malawi

The paper deals with the surplus production models of Verhulst Schaefer that were applied to the small haplochromine cichlids fishery to investigate the sustainability properties of the stock and management of the fishery. The basic objective of this paper is to illustrate the way in which bioeconomic analysis can achieve long run sustainable exploitation of the fishery. For this purpose, conventional economic model was used along with biological population growth model to develop a bioeconomic model. The parameters of the bioeconomic model were estimated using data of catch, effort, price and cost of small haplochromine cichlids fishery from 1976 to 2011. Standard reference points were analyzed and profit function was introduced to analyse the fishery economic rents. In order to achieve maximum level of economic rent from the fishery maximum economic yield solution was determined and recommended for adoption in the management of small haplochromine cichlids in Lake Malombe.