Background and Rationale of the Workshop

Workshop on Asserting Rights, Defining Responsibilities: Perspectives from Small-scale Fishing Communities on

Coastal and Fisheries Management in AsiaPreah Khan Hotel, Siem Reap, Cambodia

3-6 May 2007

Background

The importance of protecting rights to livelihood and of securing rights of small-scale fishworkers to resources—on land and sea—has been a recurrent theme in all the events organized by ICSF (e.g. South Asian Workshop and Symposium on Coastal Area Management 1996; Indian Ocean Conference 2001; Latin America Workshop 2005; East Africa Workshop, Tanzania 2006)

The importance of small-scale fisheries, and of protecting interests and preferential access rights of small-scale fishing communities is recognized in several international instruments (Chapter 17 of Agenda 21, 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity Jakarta Mandate, 1995, The 1995 UN Fish Stocks Agreement, and the 1995 FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries)

Rationale of the Workshop

For fishing communities, both marine and inland, safeguarding the right to access fisheries resources, and to continuous possession or enjoyment of coastal residential habitats and other lands traditionally used by them is important

These rights are currently being threatened or challenged in various ways

Ensure existing rights, within the framework of sustainable utilization of living resources

Recognize norms developed by fishing communities to regulate access, resolve conflicts, and to ensure equity

Rights to fisheries

Overfishing pressures have often been attributed to open access nature of fisheries and rights-based approaches to fisheries management have been proposed (individual quotas, group quotas, transferable quotas, etc),

Discussion on rights-based fisheries has been largely confined to fisheries in temperate ecosystems

Whether or not such an approach is conducive to small-scale fisheries in developing countries, particularly Asian ones, is moot

To examine the underlying assumptions of rights-based approach (overcapacity leading to overfishing; overcapacity attributed to open access nature of fisheries; that rights-based approaches are the only effective way in the long run to meet biological, economic and social objectives of fisheries management)

Rights to fisheries (cont)

Explore the debate on rights-based approach in conjunction with positions and demands of small-scale and artisanal fishworkers vis-à-vis allocation and management of fisheries resources, to identify areas of convergence and departure, with a view to proposing coastal and fisheries management regimes appropriate for fisheries in the Asian context

 

Rights to coastal lands

fishing communities in several parts of Asia find themselves displaced from their traditional lands

communities lack formal titles to the coastal lands they have customarily lived on and used for keeping boats, drying fish, gathering crabs, shellfish and seaweeds, as well as doing subsistence farming

ways to secure the rights of communities to coastal lands customarily used by them

Objectives of the Workshop

Review experiences of traditional and modern rights-based approaches to fisheries management and discuss their relevance and scope in the Asian context;

Contribute to improving the overall effectiveness of fisheries management by promoting responsible small-scale fisheries and the rights of small-scale fishing communities; and

Advocate for policies that recognize the rights of fishing communities to coastal lands customarily used by them.

Some Issues for Consideration

What are the norms developed by fishing communities to regulate access, resolve conflicts, and to ensure equity? How to win recognition for unwritten “rights”? Why is it important to win this recognition? What is the status of fishing capacity in Asia? Are marine and inland fisheries in Asia facing a collapse? How far is it true to state that Asian fisheries are, in general, ‘open access’? Is introduction of property rights necessarily the best solution to the fisheries management problems specific to Asia? How far rights-based approaches are coherent with customary rights? What are the coastal and fisheries management regimes appropriate for fisheries, in both small- and large-scale? To what extent are communities lacking formal titles confronted with problems of accessing their traditional lands for various purposes?

Thank you