Climate change impacts fishing

PEOPLE along the Matan Fada in north-west Nigeria remember the river's abundance as being typified by fish literally falling from the trees, but those days are gone.

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The waterway, which was home to a UNESCO-listed fishing festival, is disappearing, locals say, as rainfall plunges and temperatures rise as part of the impact of climate change.

Husaini Makwashi, 42, a fishing community leader in the riverside town of Argungu, said he had not seen migratory birds such as pelicans and a water duck species, locally called dumulmulu, in a while.

"When a certain bird (species) arrived, it meant that the rainy season was approaching and people would start repairing their roofs and preparing their fields," he said.

Sat on the edge of the Sahel, a semi-arid belt stretching along the Sahara desert's southern rim, Argungu in Kebbi State is vulnerable to climate change, experts say.

The town has seen the "desert approaching very fast", said Nigerian Conservation Foundation director Joseph Daniel Onoja.

For decades, Argungu held an international fishing festival, which included competitions in hand fishing and wild duck catching.

Legends abound about life on the river - crocodiles don't come out of the water on Fridays, and 50 years ago, all you had to do was bend down and pick up fish from the river.

But rising temperatures and excessive evaporation are contributing "to the shrinking of water bodies", said Talatu Tende, an ecologist at Aplori, an ornithological research centre in Jos city.