The fisheries sector is highly polarised. At one extreme, semi-industrial export oriented operations create huge benefits for boat owners and generate large foreign exchange earnings. These operations depend on high levels of technology and capital. At the other extreme, communities struggle to survive from small-scale subsistence fishing.

Fishworkers are people who earn a living handling and processing fish catches, adding value to the product. Some definitions include everyone applying their labour in the sector. The International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) was founded in India in 1986 to promote and defend small-scale fisheries (households who catch fish as a livelihood option) and artisanal fisheries (traditional fisheries involving households as opposed to commercial companies, with simple equipment and relatively small fishing vessels, if any). The ICSF is a global network promoting fisheries that are sustainable, community based, co-managed, fair for men and women and that provide shared benefits throughout communities. These are core values.

However, the ICSF no longer supports all small-scale fisheries practices. In many places, the nature of small-scale fishing has changed in the last twenty years:

• The temporary migrations of workers to fishing from agriculture and other sectors are now permanent.
• Rural communities have disappeared into urban sprawls. These communities no longer exist as separate entities, or may have been displaced, so no longer retain their separate identity as fishing communities.
• Many national artisanal sectors have doubled or more in size, due to population growth, permanent in-migration and outside investment. For example, the 1996 census in Peru listed 6,000 vessels and 30,000 marine fishermen. Estimates for 2006 are 10,000 vessels and 80 to 100,000 fishermen.

These changes are caused by the overexpansion of small-scale fisheries, poor management and governance. To improve the contribution of small-scale fisheries to sustainable development, policymakers must:

• recognise the small-scale fisheries model for entire Exclusive Economic Zones (the area of sea over which a state has special rights over the exploration and use of marine resources). With technological advances, most small-scale fishing operations now have the capacity to fish an entire Exclusive Economic Zone and provide the most cost-effective, labour intensive and potentially fair way to do so
• protect the livelihood, settlement and fishing access rights of small-scale fishing communities
• promote trade in fisheries products that enhances food security whilst sustaining resources
• campaign to remove subsidies that unfairly benefit larger fisheries over unsubsidised artisanal fisheries
• promote benefit-sharing arrangements for small-scale fishing communities
• facilitate the legal movement of fishworkers across international borders
• recognise the rights of fishworkers to safe working conditions, including access to social security
• recognise the role of women in sustaining fisheries and fishing communities.

Source(s):
'Allocation of Fisheries Resources: A Small-scale Fisheries Perspective', Presentation to the ‘Sharing the Fish – Allocation Issues in Fisheries Management’ meeting, by Chandrika Sharma and Ramya Rajagopalan, ICSF, 2006 (PDF)

id21 Research Highlight: 17 November 2006

Further Information:
Brian O’Riordan
ICSF Brussels Office Secretary
Sentier des Rossignols 2
1330 Rixensart
Belgium

Tel: +32 265 25201
Fax: +32 265 40407
Contact the contributor: briano@tiscali.be

International Collective in Support of Fishworkers

Other related links:
'Sharing the Fish 2006' conference

'Helping fishing communities to have their say'

'The problems caused by HIV/AIDS within fishing communities'

'Small-scale fishing: a range of livelihood benefits for poor rural people'