The International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) has just published the latest issue of SAMUDRA Report, its triannual journal on fisheries, communities and livelihoods, which is now available online for free download (https://icsf.net/samudra-articles.php?id=10371).
The current edition, SAMUDRA Report No. 92, dated December 2024, features, mainly, two sets of articles – one dealing with reflections on the second international Small-scale Fisheries (SSF) Summit, held in Rome in July 2024, and the other focusing on the 16th Conference of Parties (COP16) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
SSF Summit
Referring to the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (the SSF Guidelines), Nicole Franz, Equitable Livelihoods Team Leader at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), points out that the objective of the second international Small-scale Fisheries (SSF) Summit, held in Rome in July 2024, was “to further develop and consolidate the Global Strategic Framework in Support of the Implementation of the SSF Guidelines (SSF-GSF), as a partnership mechanism giving small-scale fishery actors, government representatives and other stakeholders a space to collaborate at a global level”.
Echoing this imperative need for partnership, Elena M. Finkbeiner, Director of Coastal Community Fisheries, Center for Oceans, Conservation International, and Associate Professor of Practice, Coastal Science and Policy, University of California Santa Cruz, California, US, reiterates how conservation NGOs are in solidarity with the SSF movements: “We will always respect and never undermine your rights, realizing that there is nothing about you without you and the right to your own voice, and that working with you also means funding you”.
Looking forward, Gaoussou Gueye, President of the African Confederation of Professional Artisanal Fishing Organizations (CAOPA), Senegal, hopes that future summits would turn into unique opportunities to deepen the dialogue between SSF professionals and governments.
A similar sentiment is echoed by Vivienne Solis Rivera of CoopeSoliDar R.L., Costa Rica, and a Member of ICSF, who suggests that FAO and other organizations interested in the conservation and sustainable use of the oceans should be required to support, and continue to support, fisher movements to conduct such meetings every two years.
Sebastian Mathew, Executive Director of ICSF, points out how at the 36th Session of the FAO Committee on Fisheries (COFI) several participants suggested that issues relating to SSF would have been better served had they been discussed under a stand-alone agenda item.
Ronald Rodriguez and Elyse Mills, also of ICSF, note that the second SSF Summit built upon discussions that emerged during the first Summit in 2022, focusing particularly on tenure rights and social development as key themes of concern for small-scale fishworkers globally.
Pradip Chatterjee, President of the National Federation of Small-scale Fishworkers (NFSW), India, conveys the Summit participants’ feeling that SSF organizations should have a permanent international hub at the FAO to co-ordinate activities among themselves and make timely interventions on critical issues.
Shalini Iyengar, a PhD candidate at the Department of Anthropology, Yale University, US, suggests that future summits should foster more, and deeper, conversations among SSF leaders, recognizing the diversity of perspectives within the global SSF community, while also supporting women and indigenous leaders within such global platforms.
CBD COP16
Reflecting on the initiatives and actions involved in the whole-of-society mobilization for biodiversity, Ronald Rodriguez, Programme Officer at ICSF, emphasizes that continued engagement with the processes related to the CBD will ensure that small-scale fishworkers are recognized as active participants in the negotiation and implementation of the agreements.
Meenal Tatpati, Research and Policy Associate, Women4Biodiversity, India, states that gender-sensitive indicators are essential for measuring progress towards the commitments made by the Parties to the CBD regarding gender-responsiveness in the implementation of the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
Shruti Ajit, Programme Officer at Women4Biodiversity, highlights one of the pivotal moments of COP16 — the establishment of a permanent Subsidiary Body on Article 8(j) and related provisions for the full and effective participation of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities in the work undertaken under the CBD.
Peering ahead, Sudha Kottillil and Shruthi Kottillil of the Global Youth Biodiversity Network (GYBN) Partnerships & Fundraising Team, India, feel that while COP16 led to extensive discussions and decisions on marine ecosystems, integrating the complexities of these ecosystems into policy implementation remains a significant challenge.
The editorial Comment in SAMUDRA Report No. 92 urges Parties to the CBD to use an ecosystem- and human rights-based approach that combines conservation with sustainability to ensure the protection of the interests of subsistence, small-scale and artisanal fisheries and fisherfolk.
In the opening article in this edition of the journal, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean, Ambassador Peter Thomson, referring to the third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3), accentuates how small-scale fisheries is at the heart of ocean conservation.
SAMUDRA Report No. 92 also includes several other articles and reports from countries like Tanzania, Indonesia, the Philippines, Mexico, Chile and India, among others, alongside two reviews on fisheries publications as well as an obituary on a pioneering scholar of the industrial model of fisheries.
From the Philippines comes an article on a study into the various tenure instruments for small-scale fishing communities in the archipelagic country that shows how rights, responsibilities and remedies are enforced and mediated by the State.
In Chile, warns an article from the Executive Director of the Ecocéanos Centre, a new fisheries law is being mooted against a backdrop of corruption, overfishing and the exclusion of artisanal fishing and indigenous communities from decision-making processes.
The Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest, spread across parts of India and Bangladesh, is the focus of another article by the Secretary of the National Federation of Small-scale Fishworkers (NFSF), India, which details how the livelihoods of fishing communities there are being threatened by new development initiatives.
SAMUDRA Report No. 92 can be accessed at:
https://icsf.net/samudra-articles.php?id=10371
ICSF is an international NGO that works towards the establishment of equitable, gender-just,self-reliant and sustainable fisheries, particularly in the small-scale, artisanal sector.
For more, please visit www.icsf.net