Towards a diagnosis for small scale fisheries in developing countries

1. Towards a diagnosis for small scale fisheries in developing countries Stephen Hall Director General, WorldFish Center

2. Objectives of this session • What information is needed to judge the basic health of a stock or capacity of a fleet? • What characteristics of a fishery (stock abundance, fleet capacity) should be prerequisites to the use of capacity-or effort-enhancing fisheries subsidies? • Do these questions differ for “small-scale artisanal fisheries”?

3. This Talk • The characteristics of small-scale artisanal fisheries [in developing countries] • Definition of small-scale • The developing country context for SSFs • The functions SSFs serve • SSF subsidies, overcapacity and overfishing • Thoughts on the “management problem” and the changing landscape for SSFs • The implications of those characteristics • Overcapacity and overfishing • Dangers in the current subsidy debate • Opportunities the WTO could offer.

4. A Coarse Topology Justice Potter Stewart’s definition will often prevail. Focus for this talk

5. Small-scale, but large benefits • > 95% of the 200 million people involved in fishing are small-scale fishers, processors and traders. • > 90% of people working in SSFs are in developing countries. • Developing countries produce and consume 70% of the world’s fish • This will grow to 80% by 2020. • Small scale fishers account for 70% of the production.

6. Safety Net Economic Driver • An important cash generator. • Strong economic multiplier effects. • Sometimes export focused • Economically resilient (esp compared to industrial fisheries). • Part of diversified livelihood strategies. • Contributes to food and nutrition security. • Vulnerable sector • Often landless • Marginalized • Poor access to services The SSF sector has two faces SSF are a key entry point for investing in poverty reduction and human development. The Challenge: To invest in ways that secure the benefits small-scale fisheries can deliver and make them more resilient to current and future threats.

7. Fisheries will receive more attention as a development driver • The NEPAD CAADP - small-scale fisheries: an important investment opportunity. • More countries are putting SSFs into their PRSPs • West Africa: 4 countries in 2000 - 14 in 2007 • “The enormous potential of fisheries and aquaculture for Africa’s integrated development, needs to be urgently and seriously addressed …. for the desired [MDG] goals to be fully realized.” President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo

8. Sustaining the benefits is very hard, but possible (and essential) • SSFs support of pro-poor development • A complex, multi-faceted problem, • Many interdependencies and entry points. • Failure to embrace this complexity has led to piecemeal solutions and faith in magic bullets. • Increased fishing capacity without effective governance • eg 23 boat building initiatives in Somalia • Modernization and centralized fish processing • eg Lake Turkana experience • Simplistic approaches to fisheries co-management • eg Cambodia fishing lot reforms Over-fishing and over-capacity are pervasive problems. But how often are subsidies the cause?

9. Drivers of Overcapacity and Overfishing Environmental Stressors After Kurien (2005)

10. Drivers for SSF Environmental Stressors Markets Subsidies Overcapacity & Overfishing Processing Technology Access

11. The dominant (developed world) management paradigm doesn’t help. Re-inventing SSF Management is imperative • BIOLOGICAL (yield/rent maximization) >>>ECOLOGICAL, SOCIAL or ECONOMIC objectives. • The biological foundation of SSF must shift to: • Avoid seeking optimum or maximum production. • Adopt simple empirical indicators of stock status. • Four useful ‘states’ ?: ‘collapsed’, ‘declining’, ‘don’t know’, ‘increasing’. • Even when SSFs can it is not obvious that they should always adopt current “best practice” management approaches. • We need to broaden the context in which we think about and manage small-scale fisheries. • Shift to a socio-ecological paradigm. • Think about the limits to the possible

12. Shifting to a socio-ecological paradigm • Technical identification of optimum resource state not feasible or especially sensible. • Establishing bounds of ecosystem resilience is more useful (but hard). • Goal – manage for social and economic objectives set within bounds provided by ecosystem reversibility (limits to the possible). Within reversibility criterion “over-fishing” individual species may be ‘ok’

13. Lake Chilwa • Lake size an important correlate of the catch. • Large and opportunistic fleet, many of whom migrate from surrounding regions to fish. • Size of the fishery and the number of participants varies with lake size. • Agriculture and infrastructure projects threaten marginal habitat used by the fish. • Protecting the margins of the lake may be more effective than trying to control the fleet or its catch.

14. Emerging Approaches? • Emerging approaches are part of the solution: • Precautionary principle (Code of Conduct) • Ecosystem approaches to management, • Co-management • Adaptive management. • BUT taking the main points of reference from within the fishery will not be enough. • The process, the participants and the approach to objective setting and management need re-visiting.

15. A thorough (re-) evaluation of a fishery and the context in which it operates. A process for recognising choices. Sets the stage for: Allocating rights Identifying institutions that should form the management constituency Deciding objectives A General Framework Diagnosis

16. Towards a diagnosis • Structured analysis, better decisions. For any SSF we need to ask: • Where does it fit in the wider economy (what purpose does it serve)? • Which drivers have most effect on the fishery? • Socioeconomic factors within the fisheries sector? • External factors (conflicts, dams, pollution, coastal development, climate change, etc)? [we subsidise these too] • What are the key relationships and dependencies and what assumptions are we making? • What are the pathways to impact? • What is the most appropriate management constituency? • What is the most important focus for management? • It may not be monitoring and compliance. The framework for such a diagnosis - a work in progress

17. How do we know if we have over-capacity or are over-fishing in the SSF sector?

18. There is no simple answer • Context matters. • “Over-fishing” may be a consequence of conscious (or implicit) management decisions when participation is a social goal. • Goals for developing countries are diverging. • Over-capacity is a dangerous concept in a developing country context where small-scale fisheries serve a safety net function. • Many SSFs support part-time fishers who only enter when times are hard eg when crops fail, or in particular seasons. • Many fishers are highly migratory. • Adopting a socio-ecological paradigm leads to different questions. • How do I know when effects would become irreversible? • Is the status of the resource compromising management objectives?

19. Employment Profit Yield New Consensus Traditional (Implicit) Management Focus Benefits Ecosystem preservation Fishing Effort Explicit objectives are key Hilborn, 2007 The objective is shifting for many developed country fisheries, but much less so in developing countries.

20. Concerns • Looking for pre-requisites for subsidies within the existing (biological) management paradigm. • May lock in, or drive countries toward, existing (narrow) management approaches that have proved inadequate. • eg Investment in western MCS and “biology focused” management at the expense of other options. • May stifle the development and introduction of better approaches. • Undue emphasis on barriers to subsidizing SSFs in developing countries • May stifle interest in legitimate and much needed investment in securing and sustaining the benefits SSFs deliver. • Takes the eye off the bigger issue of subsidy to developing country fleets (small scale and industrial).

21. Opportunity • WTO rules perhaps could encourage investment in SSFs rather than scaling up. (small can be beautiful) • Lake Tanganyika. • Policy support and direct subsidies to the purse-seine fleet yet the ‘industrial’ fishery still declined. • BUT the ‘artisanal’ fleet tested and adapted new fishing techniques • Quickly out-competed the purse-seine fleet; • Continued to link with dispersed markets throughout the conflict in E.Congo • Coped with severely disrupted inputs (fuel oil, engine spares etc) and market links • The right set of rules could help drive sensible investment in SSFs. • Rules for developing country SSF’s need to be conditioned by a wider perspective on objectives.

22. Thank You

23. Exemption from ASCM Disciplines Developed Countries Developing Countries Exemption Criteria(Kurien’s Proposal)