In view of the global evaluation of the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreements (SFPAs) that will be carried out by the Commission in 2021, the author highlights the key points which will need to be assessed from the perspective of the impacts on African coastal communities. The author also suggests essential improvements to be made for the future of SFPAs so that they better respond to the needs of these communities.
West Africa has pioneered several decades of artisanal fisheries management reform. Yet there are still major obstacles to co-management: a lack of political will reflected in low budgetary allocations; inadequate and poorly targeted support for fisher organizations; poorly defined roles and responsibilities of fishers in co-management; lack of enforcement of inshore exclusive zones; and inadequate defense of human rights and particularly the important role of women.
JOINT LETTER: 11 African artisanal fisheries organisations and development NGOs send a letter to Commissioners Virginius Sinkevicius and Jutta Urpilainen asking them to use the crucial voice of the EU through Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreements and the EU-Africa partnership to address the impending food crisis in the West African region linked to the fishmeal and fishoil production.
The Spanish presidency of the EU is seeking to finalise the negotiations for a corporate accountability directive before the end of December 2023, which would see European based companies take some degree of responsibility for what they do in third countries. We look at some key issues at stake for the third countries small scale fishers.
2022, the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture (IYAFA), has been a pivotal year for small-scale fisheries, meeting the UN’s goal of raising awareness about the role they play in employment, food security, nutrition, livelihoods, culture, and coastal communities well-being. Beyond recognition, there is an urgent need for concrete action in securing their access to marine resources and markets, as promised by States under Sustainable Development Goal 14.b.
Joint statement - In the delivering on 30x30 and financing conservation, debt for nature swaps are gaining momentum. However, debt swaps should be rejected as they lack transparency and give undue power to foreign organisations over the policies of marine resources management of developing and small-island states.
The final declaration fails to appropriately acknowledge the role and importance of the biggest group of users of the ocean, - the artisanal fishers-, while it encourages private-public partnerships, capital market instruments and other forms of financing, that might end up destroying coastal fishing communities.
African and European artisanal fishers, together with their international partners, issue a joint declaration before the UN Food Systems Pre-summit underscoring their concerns about the overall process, the lack of consultation of small-scale fisheries stakeholders, and the promotion of large-scale industrial aquaculture by some of the UNFSS organisers.
Coinciding with the celebration of the International Women’s Day, and looking at the upcoming International Year of Artisanal Fisheries in a year from now, the author reviews the dedicated Gender Guide for the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines on Small-scale Fisheries, published by FAO and ICSF in 2017.
This position paper explores the false promises of industrial aquaculture, highlights the key sustainability issues of promoting farming of carnivorous fish species, such as salmon, underscores the environmental and social impacts throughout the whole value chain and explains why the EU should stop promoting seafood coming from industrial aquaculture and instead focus on promoting sustainable small-scale and low impact fisheries and aquaculture.
For small-scale fisheries organisations it is important that the international push for transparency is not dominated by anti-IUU campaigns. Poor information sharing between governments and small-scale fisheries affects a much wider set of issues relating to tenure rights and ensuring fair and sustainable access to fish.
Masifundise explain the new policy in South Africa for securing community rights to fisheries, which they describe as promoting human rights and the well being of small-scale fisheries in ways that will undo the harms of the previous 'rights based approach', based on individual transferable quotas. The new policy for small-scale fisheries is however yet to be fully implemented.
