For years, Eric Ndagijimana’s father, Barthazard, poached fish from Gishanda Lake in eastern Rwanda to feed his family. The subsistence farmer struggled to make ends meet and used to catch fish illegally from the lakes of nearby Akagera national park until a government crackdown on poaching in 2010 pushed him and others to Gishanda.
The unchecked plundering depleted the lake’s stocks of tilapia. Soon there were no fish left to either eat or sell.
