Seth Mensah Abobi

As part of my doctoral project, I study reservoir (man-made lakes) fisheries and ecosystem models. I focus on understanding the use and limitations of fisheries models which are capable of delivering results on fish exploitation and stock status; and for making policy and management decisions on four target species namely Auchenoglanis occidentalis, Oreochromis niloticus, Sarotherondon galilaeus and Coptodon zillii from the reservoirs of Northern Ghana. The research stay at the Department of Biology, University of Bergen (UiB), Norway, was very helpful in studying skills and applications useful in assessing this small-scale inland fisheries of Ghana.

The host, Prof. Jeppe Kolding of UiB, is renowned for his works on inland fisheries in Africa. He has over 20 year experience conducting research in Africa using methodological approaches and tools which thrivingly describe data from the region.

The stay covered activities on both theoretical and practical approaches to fisheries management. I participated in two taught courses: BIO339 - Ecosystem and Fisheries Assessment Models by Prof. Jeppe Kolding and BIO336-Fish Capture and Capture-Based Stock Monitoring by Prof. Arill Engås of Institute of Marine Research, Norway. I introduced some of the Master students who attended the Ecosystem and Fisheries Assessment Models course, to the use of TropFishR (an R package developed at ZMT, Bremen, Germany) for tropical fish stock assessment.

During the stay, Prof. Kolding introduced me to the use of Pasgear fisheries program and other techniques for tropical fish stock assessment. Pasgear is a customized database package developed by the host, Prof. Kolding and Åsmund Skålevik. It is primarily intended for experimental or artisanal fishery data. The package is developed to facilitate the entering, storage and analysis of the often huge amounts of experimental fishery data, or catch and effort data, accumulated in the research institutes of many countries and It is particularly useful for test-fishing data from multi-mesh gillnets, which a characteristic of the reservoir fisheries that my doctoral project focuses on. Impressively, I was able to restructure my data, following the Pasgear protocol and I can process, assess and analyse the data in Pasgear.

I was also extended an invitation by Prof. Kolding to attend Small Fish for Food and Nutrition Security workshop, Bergen 8-9 March 2018, organized by the multi-disciplinary SmallFishFood network. The SmallFishFood network emerged out of the growing body of evidence showing that catching small fish, such as small indigenous species (SIS) in freshwater systems and sardines and anchovies in the ocean, which are sun-dried and/or smoked, domestically distributed, affordably purchased and consumed whole, is the most high-yielding, eco-friendly, low-carbon, nourishing and pro-poor way of utilizing aquatic resources. This was an interesting workshop with talks and presentations focusing on SDG2 (Zero Hunger), SDG3 (Good Health and Well-Being), and SDG14 (Life Below Water). SmallFishFood is a project to towards the alleviation of food insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The research stay at UiB is a memorable part of my doctoral study. The host and the other staff of the Department of Biology were very welcoming. It has extended my network, as it brought me into contact with leading scientists in fisheries science. The city of Bergen is naturally beautiful and I enjoyed walks to the mountains that surround it.

I wish to express my profound gratitude to Prof. Jeppe Kolding for the invitation and for making my stay delightful. I would also like to thank my academic supervisor, Prof. Dr. Matthias Wolff (ZMT/University of Bremen) for supporting and facilitating the research stay and GLOMAR and ZMT for the financial support that made the research stay possible