The fact that the media is the fourth estate in governance hierarchy speaks volumes of the crucial role it plays in providing effective checks and balances in its quest of informing, educating and entertaining the masses.
It is against this appreciation that States must not slack in protecting and guaranteeing total media freedom by enacting laws that allow the media to flourish without obstacles.
Malawi Parliament passed the Access to Information Bill which provides for the deployment of information officers in ministries, departments and agencies to facilitate the flow and access of information by those needing it.
While this is commendable, Reporters Without Borders ranks Malawi on position 80 out of 180 countries on the press freedom index as there is persistent political influence on the media and reporters are still being subjected to threats and cyber-harassment.
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Nonetheless, it is apparent that private sector players, donor agencies, politicians and several non- State actors in the country keep embracing the media in their programmatic activities and advocacy agendas.
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This clearly underpins the crucial role the media plays in democratic society, which cannot be underestimated.
As the country is midway implementing the first 10-year plan of the Malawi 2063 development plan, aimed at building an inclusively wealthy and self-reliant nation, issues of sustainable fisheries and commercial oriented aquaculture investment cannot be left behind.
While the fisheries sector is categorised as capture fishery, fish farming and aquarium trade, the role of the sector is beyond measure in as far as futuristic economic development matters.
In 2022, capture fisheries alone produced a landed value of K219.45 billion from a combined annual landed volume of 186,732 metric tonnes, which represented a 7.64 percent increase from the previous year.
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This demonstrated an enormous potential of the sector towards economic development of the country.
There is need to harness the sector’s contribution by enhancing sustainable fishing practices, especially in open waters and attract more serious investors in cage-fish and mega fish farming.
In 2022, a total of 7,147.74 metric tonnes of fish was harvested from ponds and cages, which demonstrated that if more serious investments are done, this would triple for increased economic earnings.
Relating to role of the media to this narrative, there seems to be little in-depth publicity being carried out to highlight fisheries as a tool for economic prosperity through proper business analysis.
This key information is not readily available on official platforms of institutions mandated to oversee fisheries, trade and investment.
Of late, the local media has been seen covering fisheries and fish farming issues on event basis, upon invitation, which is not enough to move and inspire an investor consider acquiring trawlers for deep water fishing, securing access rights within Lake Malawi for cage farming or embark on mega pond-based fish farming.
Event reporting only highlights strides being undertaken by the sector to improve fisheries and aquaculture governance, but is devoid of providing detailed breakdown on returns of investments.
It is unfortunate that a decade down the lane, no other meaningful investors have come into fish farming apart from Maldeco Fisheries, Chambo Fisheries and few others that are at semi–commercial level.
Experts indicate that the whole of Lake Malawi is a possible site for cage culture investment while about 80 percent of land is ideal for pond construction.
If all angles of investment are captured and utilised, we can easily transcend this country into a blue economic revolution, thus realising the sector policy goal of increased aquaculture production from 3,600 tonnes to 10,000 tonnes and even beyond.
Meaningful investments in the fisheries and aquaculture sector have the potential to trigger a boom in other supporting industries such as fish feed making, equipment supply, processing and marketing, banking and transportation and others within the value chain.
This has a combined potential of raking in over K1.5 trillion. But for the nation to realise this, there is a need for aggressive media involvement in reporting fisheries and aquaculture.
The Department of Fisheries must revisit the role of the Community Outreach Unit by capacitating it to be proactive in establishing effective communication channels that bridge the knowledge gap between the general public, industry professionals and researchers.
This will promote consumer interest in sustainable aquaculture products, an environmental communication framework to assess their sustainability.
The Department of Fisheries at national and local level representation must take a proactive stance in wooing investors through organising fisheries investment forums, participation at agriculture fairs and symposia where a display of products and innovations for investment has to be well elaborated.
The banking sector must be convinced on the feasibility of aquaculture projects which can offer long-term loans on the understanding that fish farming takes a reasonable period to start producing results for the market.
