Securing a Just Space for Small-Scale Fisheries in the Blue Economy

Philippa J Cohen,Terry P Hughes,David J Mills,Christina C Hicks,Edward H Allison,Louisa S Evans,Len R Garces,Emmanuel K Mbaru,Rosalie Masu,Stephen J Hall,Svein Jentoft,Michael Fabinyi,Neil L Andrew,Blake D Ratner,Joshua Cinner

doi:10.3389/fmars.2019.00171

Abstract

The vast developmental opportunities offered by the world's coasts and oceans have attracted the attention of governments, private enterprises, philanthropic organizations, and international conservation organizations. High-profile dialogue and policy decisions on the future of the ocean are informed largely by economic and ecological research. Key insights from the social sciences raise concerns for food and nutrition security, livelihoods and social justice, but these have yet to gain traction with investors and the policy discourse on transforming ocean governance. The largest group of ocean-users - women and men who service, fish and trade from small-scale fisheries (SSF) - argue that they have been marginalized from the dialogue between international environmental and economic actors that is determining strategies for the future of the ocean. Blue Economy or Blue Growth initiatives see the ocean as the new economic frontier and imply an alignment with social objectives and SSF concerns. Deeper analysis reveals fundamental differences in ideologies, priorities and approaches. We argue that SSF are being subtly and overtly squeezed for geographic, political and economic space by larger scale economic and environmental conservation interests, jeopardizing the substantial benefits SSF provide through the livelihoods of millions of women and men, for the food security of around four billion consumers globally, and in the developing world, as a key source of micro-nutrients and protein for over a billion low-income consumers. Here, we bring insights from social science and SSF to explore how ocean governance might better account for social dimensions of fisheries.

Highlights

The world’s coasts and oceans offer vast opportunities to support economic development and are increasingly prominent in the discourse on global environmental futures (Lubchenco et al, 2016)
This is illustrated by an uptick in global ocean-focused conferences that have previously framed conservation as the leading agenda, which emphasize a focus on the “Blue Economy” (Bennett, 2018)
Contemporary ocean governance reforms commonly recognize the potential for economic wealth alongside the risks of ecological sustainability

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The world’s coasts and oceans offer vast opportunities to support economic development and are increasingly prominent in the discourse on global environmental futures (Lubchenco et al, 2016). A rights-based approach rolled out using individual transferable quotas fundamentally differs in its underpinnings and implementation from a human-rights approach; the latter being advocated by small-scale fishers and their supporters (Allison et al, 2012; World Forum of Fisher Peoples et al, 2016) and which stresses alignment to a broader human-rights based approach to international development, adopted by many international development agencies since the late 1990s (Ratner et al, 2014) For those with an eye on human rights and wellbeing, the implementation of (fishing) rights-based strategies designed strongly toward an economic rationale raise serious concerns that fisheries benefits will largely be captured and controlled by a relatively few powerful entities (Béné et al, 2010; Cardwell, 2015; Høst, 2015). The cost and delayed rewards of such reform may be beyond the capacity of many poor countries (Béné et al, 2010) and may meet with strong political resistance which would increase social and economic costs

OCEAN FUTURES

Findings

CONCLUSION