Lake Poso Fish

Valuable assets to this world's ancient lake

Getting to know the fish in Lake Poso, Sulawesi.

Partnering with Shoal, we started our Fish Program in Lake Poso. We are looking for three Critically Endangered fish endemic to Lake Poso: Duck-billed bunting (Adrianichthys kruyti), “Rosen’s” bunting (Adrianichthys roseni), and Poso bungu (Mugilogobius amadi)

For +1,5 years, we have built and nurtured partnerships with Rono fishermen in Lake Poso, and four local youth. Together with them, we surveyed at least twice a month, late at night and dawn.

Program in numbers

  • 2022

    Year started
  • ---

    People involved

Activities

  • 1
    Building trust with the community
  • 2
    On-going fish survey
  • 3
    Capacity building
A small introduction

What we do
(so far)

1

Building trust with the community

How we started

We interviewed fishermen around Lake Poso to understand their fishing practices, then joined them fishing to learn the techniques.
1

number of villages

being surveyed

2

fisherman followed

2

On-going fish survey

We surveyed a priority area in Lake Poso to look for the critically endangered fish species. We started with one location and increased this in 2022 and onwards.

We found four species: Adrianichthys oophorus, Oryziazorthognothus, O. nigrimas, A. poptae. There is a decline in the number of rono fishermen due to decreased fish catch and the income from fishing was not worth the tedious efforts to harvest rono. Across months, we obsevered a fluctuation and differences in rono species.

3

Capacity building

We visited universities, schools, and local nature lover groups, and held discussions with young people around Lake Poso about endemic fish conservation.

This is the first step to recruiting more young people as local conservation heroes in Lake Poso. What we share is a sense of pride and affection for nature, as well as knowledge about research and conservation. During 2023, 42 young people participated in our discussions, including the nature-loving student group Sandikaka, Tentena Christian University, and several high schools

Program supporters

These are the supporters of our conservations efforts for this program. Click on their name to visit their website.

Current supporter

ASAP

Current supporter

Stiftung Artenschutz

Would you also like to support this program?