An aerial view of fishermen fixing the lamps on their stands before getting ready to go fishing. The stands float alone out in the water to attract the small silver fish, which the fishermen then come and collect using nets. After leaving the lights out in the water, the fishermen circle back and check on them every hour to retrieve the fish.
An old type of kerosene lantern which fishermen used to use in the past.
A solar lamp being fixed by Odongo Eric at the lakeshore on Rusinga Island. The fishermen make the stands using a light tree branch. Each squad of fishermen will handle about 10 light stands each night.
A fishing squad sets off to the lake, the boat powered by petrol. However, the fishermen are moving to using electric-powered engines to go completely green. In May, a group of fishermen were testing out a set of electric engines for the first time.
At around 5-6 pm in the evening, Odongo the fisherman puts together all the solar lamps before heading out fishing. It takes the fishermen about 20 minutes to prepare the boats and mount the lights. Then, they will stay out on the lake all night until morning, only coming back to shore at dawn. There are about 300 fishermen who live and work on Rusinga Island. All are now using solar lamps.
Otieno Ngare, a member of the same fishing squad as Odongo, views the lake shore as the fishermen set off for a whole night on the water. Four to five fishermen generally share each boat. About ten teams go out at a time, mostly on the darkest nights of the moon cycle.
Odongo Eric, a fisherman from Rusinga Island, Lake Victoria in Kenya, uses a solar-powered light to capture silver cyprinid fish one night in May. Odongo has been fishing for five years. He recently switched to fishing with solar lamps instead of kerosene in an attempt to reduce his carbon footprint and be part of the global climate change mitigation movement.
The floating solar-powered lamp in position to attract the silver fisher. The lamps are placed just after sunset to provide light that attracts the silver fish to the surface. Later, the fishermen spread their nets below the light to catch the fish.
A solar-powered light floating on a fishing stand, Lake Victoria. The solar-powered lamp can be delineated by its white light, as opposed to yellow light, which is produced by kerosene lamps.
Two solar-powered lights floating on the lake, as the fishermen cast their nets to catch the silver fish. The catch was small this May evening and sold mainly to locals as a source of household food. During the high catch periods, some fish is also sold to animal feed companies in Nairobi.
At around 11 p.m., Otieno Ngare retrieves his casted net out from the lake containing some silver fish. He will revisit the lamps every hour to check for fish.
A fisherman measuring his catch to a potential buyer.
A fisherman selling his catch after a whole night fishing.
The fishermen sell the silver fish in basins. This amount would cost approximately KES 1,500 (USD $15).
Fishermen and market women meet in the morning to sell their catch to buyers at the lakeshore on Rusinga Island. In recent years, the silver fish catch has been low. Even though solar lights have improved the efficiency of the fishing process, the increased pressures on the lake from climate change, pollution and overfishing have reduced the fish catch, according to island fishermen.
Nyakandito, a fishmonger from the island, carries the wet silver fish to be dried before taking it to the market.
It is the end of one night of fishing, and the fishermen go home to rest as they wait for the evening to fall again.
Michael Kepha, the former Beach Management Unit Chair, fixing a kerosene lamp to show me the effort it used to take the fishermen to light their lamps. It took him 30 minutes to light just one kerosene lamp. Now with solar, all the fishermen have to do is switch a button to turn on the light. Kepha was very cautious that the fire did not burn him in the process of lighting the lamp.
A kerosene lamp floating on the fishing stand, Lake Victoria. The lamp produces yellow light from burnt kerosene, which is derived from petroleum, a fossil fuel. When the fishermen relied on kerosene, the light would last only for a few hours, and they had to check and refill the lamps when they were in the water. Now, the solar lamps can last the whole night.