Challenges in Regulating Small-scale Fisheries in South-east Asia

1. Major challenges to regulating small-scale fisheries and trade in South-east Asia, with emphasis on LRFFT Meryl J Williams, AsiaPacific-FishWatch APEC Workshop Market-Based Improvement in Live Reef Food Fish Trade Bali, 1-3 March 2011

2. Exploding 2 Myths

3. Regulations? Just build more capacity!

4. Regulations: Just build more capacity! • Governments & industry emphasize exports • Strong economic incentives • Sustainability less important • Regulating LRFFT only one of many priorities • ‘What’s wrong with it?’ • Can these fish be sustainably harvested? • Compared to other small scale fisheries, offshore expansion • Regulations can corrupt • LRFFT full of opportunities for corruption and crime

5. Regulations: Just build more capacity! • Crowded regulatory landscape • Devolved authorities • Multiple gov’t levels • Pre-existing systems • Conservation systems • Neither gov’t nor self-regulation is enough • Dispersed geographies • Challenges of transboundary trade • Major capacity gaps • Multiple needs • Improvements will be incremental • Information inaccessible • Little public knowledge

6. Regulations? Just build more capacity!

7. Trade? Just transform the markets!

8. LRFFT supply and demand not readily influenced • Collaboration and confrontation are difficult • Markets • Trade bans not likely, not sold through supermarkets, EU • China, HK, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Singapore • Strong cultural, status drivers • Supply • What are fishers’ alternatives? • Trade: Just transform the markets!

9. Threats to certification (GEF-STAP 2010) • Weak certification standards • Noncompliance with standards • Limited participation • Adverse self-selection • Trade barriers low • And often circumvented • Buyers reach the most remote suppliers • Need well functioning regulatory system • Information difficult to obtain, access • Public awareness complex • Trade: Just transform the markets! NYT 2010. Live fish for China, Bali

10. Trade? Just transform the markets!

12. 6 Rules

13. S. Sulawesi Bajau fisher moving live fish to export company’s net cages 2010 NYT James Morgan • Demand and supply sides • Pathways, participants, dynamics • Power structures and dependencies • PFS=ECY + SEP (van Santen 2006) Politically feasible solution = effective commercial yield + socio-economic and environmental program

14. C.W. Kee, The Star , Malaysia, 2006/04/15 • Demand • Age-cohorts, cultures, classes develop different expectations • What champions and opinion makers could reach key market segments? • Supply • Market presentations of LRFF conceal labor processes and social relations of their production (Gaynor 2010)

15. http://genderaquafish.org/ • Work around lack of capacity • Work with positive elements, e.g., scientists, environment groups, journalists, academics, school teachers, religious leaders • Create new stakeholder/interest groups outside and inside supply chains, e.g., scientists, students, local people, women, high-end restaurants • Confrontation and trade bans can work, but use with caution • Strengthen the mainstream • Regional and national priorities identified at RPOA-APEC 2010 workshop, approved by RPOA Coordinating Committee

16. * = priorities are country specific

17. http://asiapacfishwatch.org/ • Mine existing knowledge • Aggregate credible information from all sources • AsiaPacific-FishWatch • To make knowledge accessible to consumers • Under construction by Asian Fisheries Society

18. Look for synergies within the crowded regulatory landscape

19. Rule 5. Don’t over-simplify • Multiple gov’t levels on fisheries • RPOA, national, devolved/decentralized • Pre-existing systems under social transformations • Customary Institutions in Indonesia (ISCF 2009) • Managing Coastal and Inland Waters (Ruddle & Satria 2010) • Conservation driven systems addressing fisheries • COREMAP, CTI, MPAs

20. Rule 5. Don’t over-simplify • Avoid ‘seeing like a state’ (James C. Scott, 1999)

21. Watch out for ‘Black Swans’, such as • Climate change, earthquakes, urban and agriculture waste, oil/food price shifts • Technology and market changes • Beware aquaculture promises for high end LRFFT species! • And the opportunities for action

22. Replace the Myths with the Rules

24. RPOA Table of Human and Institutional Capacity Building Needs for Marine Capture Fisheries, From Da Nang Workshop, December 2010 /2

25. RPOA Table of Human and Institutional Capacity Building Needs for Marine Capture Fisheries, From Da Nang Workshop, December 2010

26. [1]Country specific priorities, depending on unique circumstances of each country; stage and system dependent