CHAPTER ONE
1.0       INTRODUCTION
1.1                  BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
            In recent years there has been a growing concern that the fisheries in most water bodies in Nigeria a have been increasingly over exploited leading  to reduction in socio- economic benefits far local communities and they regional economy in general.  It has been estimated that most of the world’s major inland fisheries are now at their maximum level of exploitation (FAO1995) for example before now the formal East central state now consist of (Anambra Imo Enugu and Abuja) were know for their richness in terms of natural resources particularly in the area  of  fish production. For instance during 1980’s about 40% of the total fish supplied in Nigeria were produced form these region.  But as time goes on   there become a drastic decline in fish production from these region.
This became a matter of specially concern to the people of these region. However it is on record that recently specifically in March 2005 that president Obasanjo in his official visit to Delta State was asked why the present government is hesitating in signing into law a bill that would pave way for the draining of River Niger in the region in order to allow for confluence of Rivers so as to increased fish spawning.  His answer was” there are more it takes to attaining  full production in fisheries production than only to draining Rivers”
Meanwhile, combinations of factors were though to be responsible. Firstly environmental changes caused by drought and dam construction has resulted on lower fish production.  Secondly an intensification of fishing effort has been brought about increased  communalization the introduction of modern  gears restriction (such as gears net mesh net etc) which are used in capturing  fish. Furthermore welcome and  Barthey discovered that catches  from in-land fisheries are Indic line state due to deteriorating quality of aquatic environment and  poor management. Similarly  Nigeria  and Biosphere (an association responsible for  the studying of intercalation ship between man and living organism) in 1990 organized an educative seminar on Nigerian water bodies which in broad sense includes flood plain lake reservoir and swamp
Despite all these protective effort capture fisheries remains highly vulnerable to over exploitation and degradation.  It follows therefore that if fisheries enhancement are to be successful the problems of overexploitations and  degradation must be address in parallel from  the out-set. In response to the need for better understanding of in-land fisheries management and to investigate the possibilities for designing a more effective approach to fisheries management the researcher takes Osimiri Dudu flood pond in Anambra State as a case study.  A particular focus of the project is to investigate whether traditional management system which were perceive to be successful and well adopted to local condition could   be use as a basis for community based approach to fisheries management in the  future in in-land fisheries management.