International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) FAO Sub-Committee on Fisheries Management: First Session
Agenda Item 5: Climate Resilient Fisheries
Statement
The International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) welcomes the agenda paper on climate resilient fisheries and the attention given to reducing vulnerability of small-scale fisheries to the impacts of climate change through adaptive, mitigation and financial interventions such as improving sea safety of small-scale fishing vessels, exploring renewable energy opportunities and ensuring access to climate finance for small-scale aquatic food producers. These interventions can potentially contribute to a just transition.
ICSF further welcomes FAO efforts to providing guidance on building resilience to climate change and disaster risks for small-scale fisheries, with special attention to a human rights-based approach.
ICSF encourages FAO to integrate these efforts into ocean-based adaptation and resilience measures and to recognize that adaptation can contribute to mitigating impacts and losses as highlighted in the First Global Stocktake of the UNFCCC.
In regard to adaptation, FAO can assist the Early Warnings for All initiative of the United Nations to protect everyone, including fishing communities in remote areas, through universal coverage of early warming systems against extreme weather and climate change by 2027.
FAO can also extend its engagement with early warning systems and shock-responsive social protection programmes to all coastal fishing communities in need of urgent support and mainstream fishing communities into adaptive social protection measures. In this context, ICSF supports the intervention made by Indonesia. Such social protection measures ought to include alternative livelihoods, and to benefit men and women along the value chain.
ICSF welcomes India’s statement on reducing carbon footprint towards climate resilient fisheries in marine capture fisheries, and the role of seaweed and mangroves in carbon sequestration. In this context,
ICSF supports the call to generate financial resources for climate resilient management measures, keeping in mind the U.S. warning that what works for industrial fisheries may not work well for small-scale fisheries, and to shift from a short-term to long-term perspective on fisheries management, while mainstreaming climate change.
ICSF supports the interventions of several delegations, especially Australia and New Zealand, in support of Indigenous and local culture and knowledge. Under knowledge management, in the wake of climate change impacts redrawing marine and inland fishing grounds, shorelines, and redistributing resources away from traditional fishing grounds, after documenting such serious instances, FAO may look into how Indigenous and traditional knowledge can still be made relevant for fisheries management by helping it to adapt to new realities.
Last but not the least, any financial assistance to adapt to evidence-based climate change impacts is to be treated as non-actionable fisheries subsidies, contributing to improved resilience and well-being of fishing communities.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The statement is available in French and Spanish
