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OUR WORK

Right to Resources

The survival of marine and inland fishing communities depends on access to fishing areas, on their collective rights, and adjacent areas for housing fish processing and other community and occupational needs.

Sustainability depends upon effective management of marine and inland fisheries resources. Upon ensuring that overfishing and overcapacity do not degrade the ecological conditions, that they do not harm the breeding stocks of fish. It depends on the collective responsibilities of fishers and fishworkers, regulatory institutions and governments.

ICSF aims to protect and strengthen both collective rights and responsibilities. How? By promoting responsible small-scale fisheries (SSF) through a rights-and-responsibilities framework both in the marine and inland context. By advocating policies that recognize the customary rights and traditional knowledge systems of fishing communities.

With their future dependant on the health of fisheries resources and their distribution, fishers have a great stake in their sustainable management. ICSF programmes help them acquire additional knowledge and skills to adapt their practices to changing conditions. Through training, sound communications and diverse stakeholder involvement—including women, youth, indigenous people marginalized groups—to participate in decision making.

Several ICSF programmes in 2008-2019 analysed, prepared and promoted the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (SSF Guidelines). Along with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the government of Thailand, ICSF organized a civil society preparatory workshop in Bangkok. Before 2008 it held major workshops in Asia (Siem Reap, Cambodia), Eastern and Southern Africa (Zanzibar, Tanzania) and Latin America (Punta de Tralca, Chile).

These events are part of an extensive campaign for secure and equitable tenure rights to fishery resources, not just in the waters but across adjacent land and forests. When fishing rights take into account social and cultural conditions, it helps improve programmes for socioeconomic uplift and environmental protection.

Current Programmes

In light of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (CCRF), the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (the Tenure Guidelines), the SSF Guidelines and the SDGs, ICSF has initiated the Making the Small-scale Artisanal Fishing Zones Work! campaign to enforce/create small-scale artisanal non-towed fishing gear zones (SFZs) to benefit fishing communities using these gears and practices in a sustainable manner. The campaign seeks coherence between equitable development of fishing communities and conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in at least three countries before 2024.

Although SFZs or similar area designations exist at the informal level in many coastal nations, the formal creation of SFZs at the national and subnational levels in South and Southeast Asia has a history dating back to the 1970s. In India, for example, SFZs have been created at the subnational level since the 1980s. However, there are no recognized tenure rights to the SFZs. The SSF Guidelines are aware that creating exclusive zones alone are meaningless unless secure tenure rights to the fishing grounds, to land and other resources that form the basis for their social and cultural wellbeing are also granted. The enforcement of the formal SFZs also need to uphold conservation and sustainable use of fisheries resources. Governments, fishworker organizations and informal institutions such as traditional panchayats (village councils) in India need to recognize the importance of these elements.

In India, ICSF has initiated the campaign in the state of Andhra Pradesh, starting first with the most disadvantaged (fisher and fishworkers engaged in harvest of fish using no craft or non-motorized traditional craft), paying special attention to the SFZs that are adjacent to the low tide line and earmarked for small-scale artisanal fishing communities. In 2020, ICSF completed the survey of literature and data on fishing practices in marine capture fisheries in India and the social development of coastal fishing communities. Through virtual consultations with its local partner in Andhra Pradesh, ICSF completed the design of the study questionnaire and its translation into Telugu, the local language. The survey documents the various characteristics of the fishery (viz., craft and gear combinations, fishing grounds, species, seasons, conflicts between competing user groups and traditional tenure arrangements and systems of resource management); the social development of non-towed fishers and their families; and their perception in relation to securing rights of relevance to these arrangements, especially to defend their access to marine living resources.

This survey is to be undertaken in two more provinces but is delayed due to the COVID-19 situation and will resume as soon as the public health conditions allow to do so. It will then be extended to Sri Lanka and Indonesia in partnership with relevant fishworker organizations or NGOs

Resources

ALDFG: A Small-scale Fisheries Perspective by Sebastian Mathew

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Problue Global Engagement Forum Lost At Sea: Combating Abandoned, Lost and Otherwise, Discarded Fishing Gear  Salons de l’hôtel des Ars et Mtiers, 9 bis avenue d’lena, 75116 (Paris, France), Sunday,...

ICSF’s interview with Christophe Béné, Senior Policy Advisor at the CIAT, Colombia

ICSF’s interview with Christophe Béné, Senior Policy Advisor at the CIAT, Colombia

Making Small-scale Artisanal Fishing Zones Work!: Research study on the tenure rights of the most vulnerable and marginalized fishers in Srikakulam, Visakhapatnam and East Godavari districts of Andhra Pradesh by Vishakha Gupta

Under Indian legislation, i.e. various state Marine Fishing (Regulation) Act (MFRAs), small-scale traditional fishers are granted exclusive rights to near-shore marine waters, ostensibly to protect their rights and livelihoods. However,...

Report on the Responsible Governance of Tenure in Lake Victoria Fisheries

This report aims to determine how responsible governance of tenure can be implemented in accordance with the SSF Guidelines in Lake Victoria, Tanzania. In this study, qualitative and quantitative research...

Traditional knowledge Use for the Sustainable Management of Marine and Fishing Resources

This study documents three experiences in Central America where traditional knowledge has been used to improve marine spatial planning and frame a new policy oriented towards human rights approaches to...

Organizational Arrangements in the Fisheries of Kerala: A Case study of Kerala State Cooperative Federation for Fisheries Development Ltd (Matsyafed) since 90’s in Kerala

Kerala, having only 590 km coast line quiet often became one of the leading fish producing States in India and a record production of 8.4 lakhs tones of fish was...

Inland Fisheries, Food Security and Poverty Eradication: A case study of Bihar and West Bengal

This study is undertaken, to gain some insight into the status of inland fisheries in India, and highlight some of the research lacunae in this sector, in the hope that...

Small-scale Fishing in Central American Indigenous People: Governance, Tenure and Sustainable Management of Marine Resources

This is one of the first studies focusing on indigenous territories, artisanal fisheries and SSF guidelines. The cases are a first approach to discussing and analyzing relevant social and human...

Eyes On Their Fingertips: Some Aspects of the Arts, Science, Technology and Culture of the Fisherfolk of Trivandrum, India

Eyes on Their Finger Tips deals with the traditional marine wisdom of a set of people and the rarest of rare experiences they have had at sea. Through these numerous...

A Participatory Study of the Traditional Knowledge of Fishing Communities in the Gulf of Mannar, India – in Tamil

This is the first in a series of case studies undertaken by the ICSF to document the traditional knowledge of fishing communities dependent on marine and coastal resources in protected...

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Review of the state of world marine fishery resources – 2025 by FAO, 2025

Marine fisheries are crucial to the food security and nutrition, economy and overall well-being of coastal communities. Maintaining the long-term prosperity and sustainability of marine fisheries is therefore not only...

Ocean Action Panel 5: Fostering sustainable fisheries management including supporting small-scale fishers by UNOC, 2025 (Advance Unedited), dated 29 April 2025

The present concept paper was prepared pursuant to paragraph 24 of General Assembly resolution 78/128, in which the Assembly requested the Secretary-General of the 2025 United Nations Conference to Support...

Exploring the role of inland fisheries area-based management in conserving freshwater biodiversity Edited by Juan Francisco Lechuga Sánchez and Amber Himes-Cornel, 2025

This technical paper is an initial step towards exploring the potential identification of other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) in inland waters where fisheries and fisheries-related activities take place. It...

The Deadly Route to Europe: How illegal fishing and overfishing in Senegal is driving migration by EJF, 2025

This report documents the impacts of overfishing and illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in Senegal. It examines how the resulting declines in fish populations are driving increased forced migration...

The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2024 by United Nations

The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2024 details the significant challenges the world is facing in making substantial strides towards achieving the SDGs based on the latest data and estimates. It...

Will the UN Ocean conference uphold small-scale fishers as “Ocean rights-holders”?: Policy brief by Joelle Philippe, CFFA, 2025

In this article, the author looks at the 0 draft political declaration of this high-level summit on Sustainable Development Goal 14 “life below water” in the light of the demands...

Revised length of India’s coastline, Government of India circular dated 29th April 2025

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MR-1401111/2024-TRW (S) Government of India Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways Transport Research Wing Room No. 102A, IDA Building Jamnagar House, New Delhi- 1100 I I Dated: 29th April, 2025...

The ocean and human rights: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment by Astrid Puentes Riaño

In the present report the Special Rapporteur on the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, Astrid Puentes Riaño, considers the relationship between the ocean and human rights...

Review of the implementation of the International Guidelines for the Management of Deep-sea Fisheries in the High Seas by Anthony Thompson and Keith Reid, 2024

The International Guidelines for the Management of Deep-sea Fisheries in the High Seas (DSF Guidelines) were adopted by FAO in 2008. The first and only review of the implementation of...

The contributions of coastal small-scale fisheries toward the sustainable development goals: A Kenyan case study by E.N. Fondo et al., 2025

Small-scale fisheries (SSFs) contribute significantly to the economies of coastal developing nations, offering employment and food, and supporting sustainable development goals (SDGs). Despite increasing focus on SSFs, data, and knowledge...

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