An official website of the United States government
As the global push for sustainable development intensifies, public and private actors in fisheries and ocean management are encouraged to support United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14, “Life Below Water.” For those involved in small-scale fisheries (SSF), the emphasis must shift toward “life above water” (Jentoft, 2019), reflecting the complex social, cultural, and heritage values that define these communities. To create lasting SSF sustainability, programs must be inclusive and community-driven. This shift requires transdisciplinary capacity building and youth engagement, fostering experience sharing and collaboration for transformation. Initiatives like Too Big To Ignore and Coast 2 Coast take this approach, focusing on relationship building, shared responsibility, and inclusive engagement to shape meaningful, grounded change.
more »
« less
COVID-19 highlights the need to improve resilience and equity in managing small-scale fisheries
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the fragility of global and domestic seafood markets. We examined the main impacts and responses of the small-scale fisheries (SSF) sector, and found that mitigation and preparedness strategies should be prioritised to boost resilience in SSF. We provide five policy options and considerations: (1) improving access to insurance and financial services; (2) strengthening local and regional markets and supporting infrastructure; (3) recognising fisheries as an essential service; (4) integrating disaster risk management into fisheries management systems; and (5) investing in Indigenous and locally-led fisheries management. Response and recovery measures need to explicitly build strategies to maintain or boost inclusion and equity in SSF.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 2108566
- PAR ID:
- 10638943
- Publisher / Repository:
- Nature
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- npj Ocean Sustainability
- Volume:
- 3
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2731-426X
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Small-scale fisheries (SSF) are highly susceptible to changes in weather patterns. For example, in Nosy Barren, Madagascar, SSF use traditional pirogues with handcrafted sails that rely on seasonal wind and sea conditions. As climate change is expected to increase the intensity and frequency of severe weather, it is important to understand how changes in weather affect SSF fishing efforts. Yet, a gap exists in the understanding of how changes in meteorological conditions affect small scale fishers. This study combines fishers’ meteorological knowledge of weather conditions that allow for small-scale fishing with long-term remotely sensed meteorological data to quantify how fishing effort, defined as available fishing hours, of SSF in coastal Madagascar has changed between 1979-2020 in response to long-term weather trends. Results show a significant decrease in available fishing hours over the examined time period. Particularly, we found that a decrease in available fishing hours between 1979-2020 with a loss of 21.7 available fishing hours per year. Increased adverse weather conditions, likely associated with climate change, could decrease fishers access to crucial resources needed for the food and livelihood security. Climate change adaptation strategies will need to account for changing weather impacts on fishing availability.more » « less
-
Rising global seafood demand poses increasing challenges for sustainable fishery management. This is particularly the case in the Global South, where many small-scale fisheries are likely to expand as they gain access to larger markets. Using Chile as a case study, we assess brachyuran crab fisheries and provide a forward-looking view on the sustainability challenges of possible increases in demand by bringing together data on supply, demand, management, and, literature review. Dominated by two species (Metacarcinus edwarsii and Cancer porteri), production has centered in southern Chile and has fluctuated over the past decade, with landings declining since 2018. Between 20% and 30% of crab caught is exported, mostly to the United States and Belgium. In Belgium Chile is the third largest supplier. Few management regulations and monitoring programs exist. Limited spatio-temporal stock assessments, suggests the status of the dominant crab species may be jeopardized. Apart from ecology, the state of knowledge is limited across socio-economic, market, and fisheries management dimensions. There are initiatives to improve with an established Fisheries Improvement Project (FIP) in southern Chile. However, the lack of evidence of policy and management improvements has inactivated the FIP until the developed management plan proposal, based on an adaptive and precautionary approach (considering biological, ecological, economic, and social objectives) be approved by the government. This work reveals the importance of understanding the dynamics between supply and demand from holistic perspectives as well as the role of local efforts for resource sustainability in the context of increasing national and global crab demand.more » « less
-
Uncertainties about the magnitude of bycatch in poorly assessed fisheries impede effective conservation management. In northern Peru, small-scale fisheries (SSF) bycatch negatively impacts marine megafauna populations and the livelihoods of fishers which is further elevated by the under-reporting of incidents. Within the last decade, accounts of entangled humpback whales (HBW) ( Megaptera novaeangliae ) off the northern coast of Peru have increased, while Eastern Pacific leatherback turtles (LBT) ( Dermochelys coriacea ) have seen over a 90% decline in nesting populations related in large part to bycatch mortality. By leveraging the experience and knowledge of local fishers, our research objectives were to use a low-cost public participation mapping approach to provide a spatio-temporal assessment of bycatch risk for HBW and LBT off two Peruvian fishing ports. We used an open-source, geographic information systems (GIS) model, the Bycatch Risk Assessment (ByRA), as our platform. Broadly, ByRA identifies high bycatch risk areas by estimating the intersection of fishing areas (i.e., stressors) with species habitat and evaluating the exposure and consequence of possible interaction between the two. ByRA outputs provided risk maps and gear risk percentages categorized as high, medium, and low for the study area and seven subzones for HBW in the austral winter and LBT in the austral summer. Overall, the highest bycatch risk for both species was identified within gillnet fisheries near the coast. Bycatch risk for most gear types decreased with distance from the coast. When we separated the ByRA model by port, our map outputs indicate that bycatch management should be port specific, following seasonal and spatial variations for HBW, and specific fishing gear impacts for HBW and LBT. Combined with direct bycatch mitigation techniques, ByRA can be a supportive and informative tool for addressing specific bycatch threats and marine megafauna conservation goals. ByRA supports a participatory framework offering rapid visual information via risk maps and replicable methods for areas with limited resources and data on fisheries and species habitat.more » « less
-
Coastal ecosystems and human communities are threatened worldwide by climate change, and shocks from social, market and political change. There is an urgent global need to promote resilient food production and livelihoods in the face of these shocks. Small-scale fisheries (SSF) in rural settings can be particularly vulnerable as they frequently lack the resources, rights and infrastructure to respond to shocks originating outside the focal systems. We examined ecological and social outcomes of environmental extremes in a SSF socio-ecological system (SES) by using long-term oceanographic (between 2010-2019) and ecological (2006-2018) data tracking change in a kelp forest ecosystem of Baja California, Mexico, and concurrent documentation of proactive and reactive actions of a fishing community organized in a cooperative. Results indicate a complex landscape of ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ among species and fisheries exposed to unprecedented environmental extremes, including marine heat waves and prolonged hypoxia, and a suite of adaptive actions by the local fishing cooperative, and others in the region, that have helped confront these rapid and drastic changes. Cooperatives have established voluntary marine reserves to promote recovery of affected populations and have invested in diversification of activities enabled by access rights, collective decision-making, and participatory science programs. Results indicate that local actions can support social and ecological resilience in the face of shocks, and that enabling locally-driven adaptation pathways is critical to resilience. This case study highlights the crucial importance of strengthening and supporting rights, governance, capacity, flexibility, learning, and agency for coastal communities to respond to change and sustain their livelihoods and ecosystems in the long run.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s44183-024-00100-7
