INTERNATIONAL COLLECTIVE IN SUPPORT OF FISHWORKERS

ContentsSAMIJDllA ..... 35 JULY 2IlO3 TRlANNUAl.1tEl'OkT OF lCSF

0 COMMENT 1

0 INDIAFor a few rupees more 3

0 PAClFlC OCEANEstablishing a foothold 7

0 NORWAYA social contract for fisheries? 14

0 ANALYSISHijacked by neoliberal economics 19

0 REPORTEmpowering participation 26

0 NOTICETrading in fish as food 29

0 INDIAGanging up 31

0 NOTICEUnder the sun 36

0 PASSAGESReturn us our healthy bodies 37

0 ICERIAHook.. line and sinker 41

0 REPORTFishing for labour standards 46

0 NEWS ROUND-UPKenya. Tanzania. Un:;;;da, OliIeMauritania. Brazil, apan. Spain 50

Comment

Welcome labourThe<e are """" exismg _ (five Conventions aM two Recommendallons) 01 !heInternationaJ l.abou' 0Igatizati0n (LO)Iha1 .... odopIed in 1920. 1959 aM 1966. Since!hen. as tar as !he 1IillfId 01 fisheries is concemed, ognificant changes have oc:c:ooed. Themos1 impor1ant among lhem are !he 1982 Unilod Nalions ConYentJoo 00 !he lAw 01 !heSea aM !he emergence 01 developing lXUlIries as !he woMs Iargesllish prodl.<:ef>.The<e are now aboot 'El1IlIl p8!SOOS wotking solely in capture fisheries. woridwide

The olher sig1fficant development in !he past two decades has been !he emergence ofsmall-scale fisheries as an important source of employment. Income, nutritional securityaMlO<Bign exchange in many coastal devoIoping notions. Aided by ....... fTIIIliatufizedforms of p«lllUIsion. naVigation aMlish detection techniques. smal-scaJe Iishe<s a.. nowIistWlg tar beyond lheir tradilionaJ IisIing QIWlds. sometimes extending to olher exclusiveeconomx:zooas(EEZS)aM!hetighseas.A~_oo_is. lhere!ool.a ..-no development not rrit lor rduslnaI fisheries, but also lor !he smaI-scaJefisheries.~ its c:tlanil"'l JlftIliIe aI CNfI( !he developing 1IillfId.

The proposed agenda lXlIlCOtlWlg a~ _ 00 _ in .... 1istWlg sectaat !he 92nd Session of !he lntema1ionaJ Ubour Coofor8nce in.kroe 2004 (see page 46)8lMsageS a 10IaI ll!'Iisioo of !he exismg _Ids ~ !he ight of !he extension ofItnIamenlaI~ iVld riI;1is at_Ill all Wlllkers. as IaxI down in !he LO Declara1Jonof FlIldamenlaI~ and RighIs at WOII< aM its FoIow-<.\l.' Two of !he eXIStingConventions, lor 8X8fI'4lIe. do not apply to .... smaI-scaJe fishing _. namely.~ Corlificates ConYention 1966 aM _ of C<ews (FIShermen)Convention, 1966. 80Ih are peninen1 when we oonside! !he changing seascape ofsmaI-scaJe IistWlg vesseis.

Standards 00 occupational safety and health aM social security wi! aise be part 01 !heproposed agenda. Under !he proposed Convention and Recommendation. !he 110 alsoIntends to provide protection for persons WOfkIng on both large and small fishing vessels.This Is a welcome move, considering thaI the majority of the world's fishers wor1( Insmall-scale fisheries.

ILO has circulated aquestionnaire among governments, whose replies are to be preparedin consultation with the most representative of organizations of employers and w~ers.

The most representative fishWOf'ker organizations should engage their national labourministries to organize such consuttations. Tllat would be an excellent opportunity 10participate in defining the scope 01 such astandard 00 wor!<..

The IistWlg 1IillfId ~ COfTllIex. aM ~ ~ an OO8JOUS laSk to ItunI< 01 an al-encompassjng_ 00 _ in !he IisIing sector Iha1 appies to boOt1 _ aM smal-scaJe_ n~. howe'Ief. impor1ant to haveSlXIl a_1ha1wi enstJt8lhat 'fishermen.by Yirtue of lheir wOII<, do not laB 1tvoogtI!he aack of social proledion prrNllIed III olher_. as poinI8d out by !he LO lAw aM _ report. The <:IleIJenge wi! be IIIde'IeIop an We _ such a _ wi go a long way" proI8Cbng!he _ of lhose wm labour 00 IistWlg_. boIh large- aM srnaI-scaIe. especiaIy,,!he EEZSofothef_and!he tigh seas.Sl.<ha~ _ 00_can also be of !18a1 support 10 fisher.; " !he BYeIl1 of capacity.-or in siIuaIions of0'I0tlishing Iha1 <XlI.ld lead 10 rispIacement of fishers.

W. see !he proposed _ on _ in !he IisIwIg secta as an iqlortanl socialIllS1n.mentIO~fisheriesooose<Vatiooandmanagementi'ibalMlS. We..-nothis ntialive of LO.

SAMUDRA JULY 2003 1

ARABI NSEA

0" "riC o Gujara

RA

Gujarat

For a few rupees more

The boatworkers of Veraval in the Indian State of Gujarat are a harried lot, facing a bleak future

It is just a mass ofhumanity—‘suppliers’ as they arecalled—scrambling over several boats

to carry baskets of fish to the marketingshed, or crushing ice at the crushers on thelanding site and carrying it off to the boats,or fetching water and stores for the boat.Some of them even look jolly, dressed upas if to go off to the cinema, for this is theironly day at shore. Some look so young andshould be in school or playing aroundrather than carrying heavy weights at theharbour.

In between all that movement, there areyells, shouts and commands, in alanguage that does not sound familiar—alarge bunch of these workers do not speakGujarati, the language of the place. Yes, itis quite a sight, and when one gets closerto these people, one is amazed by thestories they tell. They are the people onwhom the fishing industry of Veravaldepends, and not a single one ofthem—over 20,000 this season—has aspace of his own in this town.

They hail from other parts of Gujarat,mainly from Valsad, the southernmostdistrict of the State, and a large number ofthem come from across the country, fromAndhra Pradesh on the east coast of India.Interestingly, none of the boatworkers arefrom Veraval itself.

Veraval is the largest fishing harbour ofGujarat, which was developed in the1960s. Traditionally, too, it was a port butmainly for sailing vessels, large woodenvahans which carried grain, chilli,groundnut and, later, cement and sodaash to Rethnagiri in Maharashtra andKozhikode in Kerala, and from there someof them took spices and terracotta tiles tothe Middle East, sometimes bringing backdates to Gujarat. It was mainly the Kharwacommunity that was engaged in this

trade. The actual fishing—generallyestuarine fishing—was done by thepoorer Kharwas, using gillnets andsmaller canoes, and by Muslim fishermenwho were skilled hook-and-line andgillnet fishermen. There were a handful ofKharwas who used plank boats of fairlylarge size (up to 32 ft) and made multidayfishing trips with gillnets.

In the mid-1950s, the vahans began to getmechanized, and, by the mid-1970s, theybegan to decline with the development ofroadways. Trawl fishing was launched bythe Department of Fisheries in 1962 withthe idea of demonstrating the technology.

By the mid-1960s, the government ofGujarat had realized the need to developa fishing port at Veraval, as the potentialof fish export was already beingdemonstrated by Maharashtra, itssouthern neighbour.

The Kharwas, whose vahans werebecoming redundant, plunged theirmonies into the fishery, but not knowingmuch about fishing themselves, engagedthe Valsad skippers and crew on theirboats. With the completion of the port in1978 and with the stimulus from theFisheries Department and encouragementfrom one enterprising exporter of Keralaorigin, who also happened to be in theDepartment, the gillnets were soontransformed into trawls, and shrimp wasthe main target.

Largely illiterateGovernment subsidies were rootedthrough co-operatives and were meantonly for the Kharwa community. Thecommunity, largely illiterate, wasdependent on the Fisheries Departmentand some community leaders who weresomewhat educated or had an economicstanding from the seafaring trade.

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Here too, it was the processor whotook the lead in makingadvances to the boatowners and

this is how the actual fishing for exportcommenced. It did not take long for a fewenterprising Kharwas themselves toacquire trawlers and supply fish to theexporter. In the initial stages, theseadventurous Kharwas acquired five to 10trawlers, as business depended on thesize of the turnover. They also set the toneof the industry—they were managers oftheir boats. They employed crew fromother areas on a salaried basis andregarded it as a business. Trash fish,which easily made up half the catch, wasalso in demand. In the early years, muchof it was dried and sent to the southernStates of India and even to the northeast.By 1984, because of the presence of largeribbonfish, the high open-bottom trawlwas introduced and Gujarat saw a newspurt in the fish catches.

During this phase, the poorer Kharwaswent into the fishery, taking advantage ofthe government subsidies both foracquiring boats and for diesel. Some ofthese poorer Kharwas had worked ontraditional craft before, but many hadworked with the bigger Kharwar’suppliers’ as wage labour. Seeing thepotential in the industry and the fact thatothers were making big profits, they putall they had into the industry. Instead ofgetting on to the boats themselves, theyfollowed the others, engaging crew from

the outside, while they themselves turnedinto shore managers of their boats.Around 40 per cent of them acquired onlyone boat each, which they managedthemselves or through their sons, and allthey would do would be to wait for thatboat to return after four days at sea. (Thisduration has become eight to nine daysnow, in 2003.)

The number of trawlers grew by leaps andbounds between 1986 and1994. While in1984-85, there were about 1,030 trawlers of32-48 ft length in the district, by 1995-96there were 4,191, which made up 58 percent of the trawler fleet of Gujarat. Thiswas also due to the liberalized exportregulations and the fact that ribbonfishwas in big demand in China at that time.Seeing the large profits in the business,several salaried Kharwas went into theindustry and the number of boatsincreased. By 1999, there were 6,749 smalltrawlers in Gujarat. The southern States ofIndia were already seeing the downwardslump in the fishery. Fishworkers were inthe dumps in other pats of the country andso this growing industry in Veraval wasalluring to these workers who migratedthere and were willing to work under verydifficult conditions.

Total workersAt the peak time of the Veraval fishery,which was around 1998-1999, there wereabout 4,000 boats, each with six workers,which made a total of 24,000 workers

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4 SAMUDRA JULY 2003

working for eight months of the yearwhen the port was open. Since 1999, thecatches have fallen, and several boatsoperate only for four to five months aseason. But since around 2001, one-fifth ofthe fleet has not operated at all because theboats are either too old or because thecatch per unit effort has declined sodrastically that fishing is no longer viable.Kharwa owners who have otheroccupations—several have salariedjobs—do not find it profitable enough tospend time managing the boats. Some ofthem have also borrowed money fromtheir employers, which they have torepay.

The boatworkers of Veraval rangefrom 14 to 60 years of age. Some ofthem came as experienced

fishermen but a lot of them have learnt theropes on the job. Gurumurthy fromSrikakulam in Andhra came to the Kandlaport in Gujarat at the age of 13 to work asa casual labourer, loading and unloadinggoods at the harbour. He had completedhis seventh standard at school, but had togo to work as there was no other incomein his family and he had three sisters tolook after. After working a couple of yearsthere, an older fishermen took him on to afishing boat, where he worked as a cook.While on the boat, he learnt the work onboard and then became a boathand orkhalasi. He remembers getting typhoidduring his first boat trip, after which hehad to go home. But he returned soon afterhe got well and continued to work. Someyears later, he moved to Veraval andgradually became a tandel, the key personamong the workers. Now, for the past sixyears, he has been regularly based atVeraval, bringing with him others fromhis district. Several of the deckhands tellthe same story as Gurumurthy, manystarting as cooks at very early ages andgradually graduating to higher positions.

Despite all the hardships, for boatworkerslike Gurumurthy, life is more gainful herethan back home. Most of those who comefrom Andhra are from fishing villages;often, hundreds come from a singlefishing village. But in the case of thosefrom Valsad, this need not always be thecase. Several of the tandels and khalasishave come from an agriculturalbackground, or had been wage workers inconstruction or other fields, and have

learnt the fishing work on the job. Thosewho have been traditional fishermen fromthe Valsad area are called mota bhais (bigbrothers), and they are probably thebest-paid too. They also have the fortuneto work on the better and bigger boats,while the Andhra tandels get the smallerand older boats—and lower salaries. Boththe Valsad and Andhra skippers bringtheir teenage sons along, together withtheir brothers and other relatives.

The tandel is the key person among theworkers. It is with him that the boatownermakes the deal for the next season. He isgiven an advance of aroundRs60,000-80,000 at the end of one season inlieu of the next, which is four months off.It is his job to recruit the crew, which hedoes mainly from his own village, givingeach of them a small advance as well. Mostof the crew do not know exactly what theywill get for the season, but it is generallyaround Rs2,000, while the tandel getsaround Rs. 8,000-9,000 a month.

Once they take charge of a boat, this willbe their home for the next eight months.The cabin room is the cleanest space on theboat. This is the room dedicated by theowner to God, and the place where thedeckhands eat and sleep. There they havea clock and a calendar, with which theyreligiously keep track of the time.

They start right away, soon after theowner has supplied the boat withprovisions to take care of the crew’s food,and so on. The crew does all the loadingand unloading of the material on board.Their fishing trips are generally of eight tonine days duration now. When they areback in the harbour, they get exactly 24hours to offload, reload and get to acinema if they can. While on the boat, theyare not allowed to consume liquor. Theyuse sea water to bathe and wash theirclothes. They also have to sort the fish tosome extent, to make sure the goodvarieties are well preserved. The boat isoften decorated with lines on which theydry some of the fish too.

Sending moneyThe boatowner handles all the accounts.He also sends money to the families of theworkers on their request. But settlementsare made only at the end of the season, atwhich time they are at his mercy, as most

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of them are illiterate. If they feel they havenot been treated well, they do not workfor the same owner the next year. Veryfew continue to work for the same ownerfor more than three years.

Some boatowners have been letdown by tandels who collect theiradvances and do not return. It has

also happened that tandels have notreceived their full settlement at the end ofthe season. Everything in the businessruns on trust. A worker is allowed to gohome once during the season. This is theonly time he gets to communicate withhis family and to take money home.

The Veraval harbour now has a moderntoilet facility, which is a welcome change.The condition of the water in the harbouritself—a dirty blue-red andfoul-smelling—could be the result ofhuman waste. But the workers refute thisconclusion, saying it is due to waste fromthe processing plants that is released intothe harbour.

The Veraval fishery has been built on thesweat and toil of these boatworkers. Butfor them, the future is grim—they can seethe boon gradually fading before theirown eyes, as the unmanaged fishery spinsinto steady decline.

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This article has been written byNalini Nayak ([email protected]), a Member of ICSF,and A J Vijayan ([email protected]) of Protsahan, an Indian NGO

6 SAMUDRA JULY 2003

Fisheries agreements

Establishing a foothold

The European Union has an increasingly important role in the tuna fishery of the western and central Pacific Ocean

Pacific island States conduct theirfisheries policies through a numberof channels—at the national,

subregional and regional levels. The twokey bodies for co-ordinating fisheriespolicy are the subregional Parties to theNauru Agreement (PNA) and the regionalSouth Pacific Forum Fisheries Agency(FFA). Also important in terms ofproviding scientific and technical advice(for example on stock assessments) isanother regional body, the Secretariat ofthe Pacific Community.

In September 2000, Pacific island Statesand distant-water fishing nationsconcluded negotiations to establish aninternational management andconservation regime for the tuna fisheriesof the western and central Pacific. Amongother things, this regime (dubbed theTuna Commission) will seek to establish atotal allowable catch or level of fishingeffort for the region’s tuna and otherhighly migratory fish stocks.

The tuna fishery of the western and centralPacific is primarily made up of industrialpurse-seine, pole-and-line and longlineoperations. These occur both in theexclusive economic zones (EEZs) of PacificStates and on the high seas. The mainspecies targeted by these fisheries areskipkack, yellowfin, bigeye and albacoretuna.

According to the Oceanic FisheriesProgram of the Pacific Community,annual catches of the four main tunaspecies have increased significantly since1998. The total tuna catch for 2000 wasestimated at 1,862,269 tonnes. Thepurse-seine fishery accounted for 56 percent of this total, followed by thepole-and-line fishery (19 per cent) and thelongline fishery (12 per cent), with theremainder (13 per cent) taken by troll gear

and a variety of other artisanal gear,mostly in eastern Indonesia and thePhilippines.

According to preliminary estimates, thepurse-seine catch in 2001 was about835,000 tonnes. Most of this was taken bydistant-water fleets operating in theregion, made up of 29 American, 41Taiwanese, 35 Japanese, 27 Korean, 14Spanish and 10 Filipino vessels—a total of162 vessels. Domestically basedpurse-seine vessels in the Pacific islandregion accounted for an estimated 136,000tonnes. The domestic fleet includes 19vessels in Papua New Guinea (PNG), fivein the Federated States of Micronesia(FSM), five in Marshall Islands, one inKiribati, two in Vanuatu and three in NewZealand—former vessels of the UnitedStates (US) fleet. According to FFA, in 2001,the Spanish fleet recorded a catch of only2,400 tonnes, a reduction ofapproximately 10,000 tonnes. Only tenvessels were licensed in 2001.

The tuna longline catch in 2000 was about217,000 tonnes, which was a record catchfor the region. Bigeye and yellowfincomprised 62 per cent of the catch, whilealbacore comprised 37 per cent. Most ofthis catch was taken by large-vesseldistant-water fleets of Japan (216), Korea(166) and Taiwan (149). There were 108Chinese longliners registered on the FFARegional Register in the 2000-01 period.However, there has been a significantgrowth in the domestic and locally basedlongline fisheries in such countries as FSM,Fiji, Palau, PNG, Samoa, Solomon Islandsand Tonga.

Japanese fleetMuch of the pole-and-line catch was takenby the Japanese distant-water fleet,comprising 40 vessels and accounting forabout 65,000 tonnes. There are also

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domestic pole-and-line fleets inIndonesia, Solomon Islands and FrenchPolynesia. The general trend, especiallyfor domestic operations, has been agradual reduction in the number ofvessels active in this fishery due toeconomic factors and technologicaladvances in the purse-seine fishery.Pole-and-line fleets formerly operating inPalau, Kiribati and PNG are no longeractive.

The following summary statementson the four key tuna species wereadopted in August 2002 by the

inaugural meeting of the ScientificCoordinating Group, which was formedto provide scientific advice to thePreparatory Conference for theCommission for the Conservation andManagement of Highly Migratory FishStocks in the western and central Pacific.

Skipjack tuna: appears to be capable ofsustaining the current catch withoutadverse effects to the overall stock.

Yellowfin tuna: the stock is likely to benearing full exploitation. Any increase infishing mortality of juveniles is likely tomove the yellowfin stock to an overfishedstate.

Bigeye tuna: indications are that the stockis nearing full exploitation. The catchesand fishing mortality of juveniles haveincreased greatly over the past decade.Any increases in juvenile fishingmortality are likely to move the stock toan overfished state.

South Pacific albacore tuna: indicationsare that albacore appear to be only lightlyexploited; therefore there are currently noconcerns with respect to the status of thestock.

These summary statements are qualified,especially for yellowfin and bigeye tuna,by the issue of uncertainty. This follows,in particular, from the lack of monitoringof purse-seine catch of juvenile yellowfinand bigeye tuna, which tend to beconfused with skipjack tuna. A furthercause for uncertainty is the impact ofclimate change, in particular ElNiño/Southern Oscillation events. Thistends to affect catch distribution andstock abundance; however, the link

between climate variability and stockproductivity is still unclear.

In addition to concerns about biologicallimits being reached, at least for bigeyeand yellowfin, there are concerns abouteconomic limits being exceeded. This isdue to the problem of overcapacity and aglobal oversupply of tuna, especially inthe canning market. As a result, somevessel operators have taken steps toreduce fishing effort in order to restrict thesupply of canning raw material and raiseprices.

The tuna canning market improved in2001 after several years of record lowprices for skipjack tuna. Prices recoveredin the Southeast Asian, European, LatinAmerican and African markets. This wasalso the case—although less marked—foryellowfin prices. However, prices foralbacore for the canning market fellsignificantly. The price of pole-and-linecaught skipjack landed in Japan increasedduring 2001.

Imports of fresh yellowfin into Japan fromPacific island countries totalled more than5,000 tonnes in 2001, an increase of 34 percent compared with 2000. This was mainlydue to the growth in imports from PNGand Fiji. Japanese imports of fresh bigeyein 2001 also increased to about 4,000tonnes.

Most assessments suggest that there aretoo many purse-seine vessels operating inthe tuna fisheries of the western andcentral Pacific. The recent growth inpurse-seine capacity is due to newentrants (such as the Spanish vessels) andto the introduction of larger vessels. Thereis also an increase in the number of locallybased vessels, with the development ofshore-based processing facilities.Restrictions on purse-seine operations inthe eastern Pacific are thought to beresponsible for the growth of Spanishinterest in fishing in the western andcentral Pacific.

Excessive fleetThe number of purse-seine vessels activein the region is considered excessive fromboth a conservation and economic point ofview. This is despite a regionalarrangement to limit the number ofpurse-seine vessels licensed by Pacific

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island States (the Palau Arrangement) anddespite a steady reduction in the numberof US vessels operating in the westernPacific. Studies to date have shown thatthe profitability of the purse-seine andlongline fishery could be greatly increasedby reducing purse-seine fishing effort. A20 per cent reduction in purse-seine effort,for example, would double theprofitability of the fishery by improvingcatch rates. The impact of purse-seinefishing through use of deeper nets andfree-floating fish aggregating devices(FADs) is also considered responsible forthe falling longline catch rates for bigeyetuna in the western and central Pacific.

There has recently been increasedinterest by offshore investors inestablishing tuna loining plants in

the region. Domestic or locally basedvessels are expected to supply theseplants. This may put more pressure onincreasing the number of licensesavailable for such vessels and stayingwithin the limits set under the PalauArrangement. Member States of the PalauArrangement are at present considering aproposal to limit purse-seine fishing daysrather than allocate a certain number oflicences to various flag States.

Japan is the largest distant-water fishingnation in the region (active in all threemajor fisheries). It also has the longestestablished fishing presence in the region.Japan has bilateral fishing agreements

with eight Pacific island States. These arepredominantly rollover types ofagreements comprising a head agreementbetween the governments and subsidiarygovernment to industry agreements. It isthe subsidiary agreements that determinethe rate of return and other conditions offishing. Access fees are paid on a per tripbasis wholly by the Japanese fishingindustry. However, the Japanesegovernment provides fisheries grant aidand technical co-operation as an indirectsubsidy (or top-up) to the access fee. Theaccess fee is on average about 5 per cent ofthe catch value, using the previous threeyears catch to calculate the fee level.Almost all Japanese-caught tuna is landedin Japan.

Bilateral agreements also exist betweenPacific island countries and fleets fromTaiwan and Korea. Fees are based on thecatch and prices for the previous year andby applying the target rate of return (fiveor six per cent of the value of the catch).Taiwan, which has the second largest fleetpresence in the region, has diplomatic tieswith only four Pacific island States(Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, MarshallIslands and Palau).

Access agreementsThus, access agreements tend to bebetween the coastal State government andfisheries associations. Taiwan is the onedistant-water fishing nation activelyexpanding its fleet, both longline and

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purse-seine. However, it has been themost difficult fleet to control andregulate. Taiwanese and Korean fleetsoffload their purse-seine catch tocanneries in Fiji and American Samoa.Other catch is transshipped at Pacificisland ports for the fresh-and frozen-tunamarkets.

The US is the only distant-waterfishing nation to have amultilateral fisheries access

arrangement in the region. This isbetween the US government and themember States of the FFA and was firstconcluded in 1987. Recent negotiationssaw the extension of the treaty for anadditional ten-year period (to June 2013).The US fleet (purse-seine only) landsalmost all its catch in American Samoa forprocessing in the two US canneries locatedthere.

In exchange for access, the US tunaindustry pays US$4 mn per year as licencefees (to the Pacific island parties). The USgovernment provides US$14 mn annuallyunder an associated Economic AssistanceAgreement. Of this total package, about85 per cent is allocated to countriesaccording to catch volume within variousEEZs. The remaining 15 per cent isapportioned equally to all partiesirrespective of catch in the form of projectaid and technical assistance.

In July 2002, a bilateral agreement wasconcluded between the EU and Kiribati.This followed a bilateral agreementconcluded in late 1999 between Kiribatiand a Spanish industry group. It isexpected that the European-flaggedvessels operating under the industryagreement will in future operate underthe EU agreement (since it providesgenerous concessions to the industry).

The agreement is initially for three yearsand allows purse-seine and longlinevessels to operate in the Kiribati EEZ. Forthe immediate future, it is likely that onlypurse-seiners will fish under theagreement. The agreement is heavilysubsidized by an EU financialcontribution (set at Euro 546,000 for thefirst year, corresponding to 8,400 tonnesof tuna). Approximately 19 per cent ofthis contribution will be allocated to‘targeted measures’ to support Kiribati

participation in fisheries organizationsand its institutional capacity.

Until the mid-1990s, the only EUinvolvement in regional fisheries wasthrough regional funding programmes,for example the South Pacific MarineResources Development Programmefunded under the European DevelopmentFund. While the EU provided importantassistance, the relationship was notwithout problems. For example, in 1996,differences between the EU and themember States of the FFA led to thetermination of a financing agreementunder which the EU was to have funded aregional surveillance programme and aposition in the FFA.

The prospect of a fisheries agreementbetween the Pacific island States and theEU was first mooted in 1997. It was firstdiscussed within the regional fisheriesforums (FFA and PNA) in 1998. Twodevelopments at that time are likely tohave had an important influence on thetiming. The first was the move taken inmid-1997 by Pacific island States anddistant-water fishing nations to beginnegotiations towards establishing amanagement regime for the region’s tunastocks, in line with recent developments ininternational law of the sea. This wasknown as the Multilateral High-LevelConference (or MHLC process). It is likelythat the EU (particularly Spain) was keento establish a foothold in the region andestablish a ‘real interest’ in the Pacific’stuna fishery in anticipation of the fisherybecoming subject to an internationalmanagement and conservation regime.

The second development at that time wasthe beginning of negotiations for asuccessor to the Fourth Lomé Conventionbetween the EU and the African,Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group ofnations. It seems that there was a viewamong Pacific island trade officials that alink should be drawn between fisheriesaccess and post-Lomé trade anddevelopment co-operation.

Links rejectedTheir strategy may have been to use thelure of fishing access to secure a morefavorable outcome for the region in thenegotiations with EU. However any linkbetween fishing access and the post-Lomé

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negotiations was emphatically rejected byPacific island fisheries policymakers intheir meetings in 1998 and 1999.

Much of the discussion on the EUfishing interests in the region bythe Forum Fisheries Committee

(FFC, the governing council of the FFA)centred on the possible impact of such anagreement on EU funding arrangements inthe region.

Officials were especially concerned aboutpossible linkage between fisheries accessand the negotiations for a successor to theLomé Convention. There were alsoquestions raised about the EU’scommitment to the 1995 UN Fish StocksAgreement, given that the EU had enteredreservations regarding the high-seasboarding and inspection provisions.

Overall, there was a reluctance to enterinto an access arrangement with the EU atthis time as it would possibly provide apretext for full participation of the EU inthe MHLC process. Forum island countrieswere generally averse to opening up theMHLC process to newcomers who did nothave an established fishing presence in theregion.

They were also wary about the EU, givenits reputed behavior in other regionalfisheries management organizations andreputation for poor compliance in manyfisheries arrangements.

At the fourth session of the MHLC processin Honolulu in February 1999, the EU wasformally admitted as an observer.Meanwhile, the FFC succeeded in gettingthe MHLC to adopt a resolution “calling onall States and entities to exercisereasonable restraint in respect of anyregional expansion of fishing effort andcapacity”. This resolution was followedup at the fifth session of the MHLC inSeptember 1999 by an even strongerstand. The Conference, “noting theadvanced stage of negotiations towards aConvention...” decided not to increase thenumber of new participants in the MHLCprocess. Nor would new members beadmitted until after the conventionentered into force. This would precludethe EU from membership of the interimregime to be established following theadoption of the convention.

Despite these resolutions, Kiribaticoncluded an agreement with a Spanishfishing company OPAGAC—the first suchagreement with a European fishing fleet.Under this agreement, 14 purse-seinevessels would have access to Kiribatiwaters for a period of 12 months fromOctober 1999.

Interim regimeIn the lead-up to the sixth and penultimateround of the MHLC in April 2000, the EUmade a strong bid for full membership ofthe interim regime. It made its claim on thegrounds that the EU was a full contracting

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party of other regional fisheriesorganizations and that flag vessels of theEU were already fishing in the area to becovered by the convention.

The issue of EU membership of theinterim regime provoked heateddebate at both the sixth MHLC and

the FFC meeting convened on thesidelines. In a strongly worded statementto the conference, the FFC groupreaffirmed their support for themoratorium on new members that wasadopted at the previous session.

The EU decided to abandon the idea of amultilateral approach to fisheries accessin the Pacific region, deciding instead topursue bilateral access agreements withcertain island States.

Letters were sent in late 1999 to six FFAmember States, seeking to formalize EUinterest in bilateral fisheries access.

Positive responses were received by all(except Marshall Islands) andexploratory talks were held with Kiribatiin late March 2000.

At the same time, France, through itsterritories, also pursued discussions withPNG and Solomon Islands on possibleaccess arrangements and aMemorandum of Understandingestablishing a framework for access wassigned with PNG in mid-2000. This would

allow purse-seine vessels access to itswaters.

At the seventh and final session of theMHLC process in September 2000, theConvention for the Conservation andManagement of Highly Migratory Fish inthe western and central Pacific wasformally adopted. A resolutionestablishing a preparatory conference, tolay the groundwork for the new regimethat would be established once theconvention entered into force, was alsoadopted. As expected, this resolutionrestricted full membership to those Statesand entities that had participated as fullmembers in the MHLC process. Perhaps asa sign of its disapproval, the EU was notpresent at this final session.

The first session of the PreparatoryConference (PrepCon 1) was convened inNew Zealand in April 2001. In advance ofthis meeting, the EU again sought toparticipate as a full member. In requestingfull membership, the EU stressed thecontribution that it had made to regionaltuna assessment programmes. Some FFCmembers (for example, Kiribati) were bynow sympathetic to this EU request, andwilling to support full EU membership.But there remained strong reservationsfrom a number of others.

The second session of the PrepCon wasconvened by PNG in February 2002. Thismeeting was immediately preceded by aninformal consultation on “mechanisms topromote participation”. The informalconsultation spent most time addressingthe issue of EU participation. Once again,the EU had written in advance of themeeting stating its case for admission as afull participant to the PrepCon process.Once again, it emphasized its support forthe development of the Pacific islandStates, in fisheries and in other fields.According to the EU head of delegation,this support and commitment“distinguishes (the EU) from otherpotential aspirants for membership of thePrepCon”.

Issue debatedThe issue of EU participation was debatedat length in the FFC meeting held prior toPrepCon 2. The focus of discussion was aUS proposal that would allow the EU a seatat the table of PrepCon (hence full rights

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to contribute to the proceedings), whileretaining its status as an observer. Itwould not be able to accede to theconvention until its entry into force, norhave voting rights within the PrepCon.

While there remainedreservations about setting aprecedent for others to follow,

there was also some support for the USproposal as it applied to the EU, especiallyas the EU had pledged in its letter to thePrepCon not to support a reopening of theconvention text. On these grounds, the EUwas allowed a seat at the table and itparticipated fully in the deliberations ofPrepCon 2.

This development may be regarded as apolitical victory for the EU. It signalled amajor elevation in its status within thePrepCon process. It also reflected animprovement in its relations withPrepCon members compared to theprevious session, when it was viewedwith some scepticism, if not suspicionespecially by some members of the FFC.

The conclusion in July 2002 of an accessagreement between Kiribati and the EUhad immediate consequences for theallocation of purse-seine licences underthe Palau Arrangement. The agreementprovides for a minimum of sixpurse-seiners and a maximum of 11purse-seiners. Given that the EU now hasan allocation under the PalauArrangement (albeit a very small one), itis possible for the EU to conclude accessagreements with other Pacific islandcountries. However, it would be requiredto use the same vessels as licensed underthe Kiribati agreement in order to complywith the Palau Arrangement. This maychange if there is a further reduction of theUS fleet (freeing up more licenses) or a shiftto allocation by fishing days and not byflag.

There appears to be interest among anumber of other Pacific island countries inconcluding access agreements with the EU.This reflects a desire by countries toincrease revenue from access fees but alsoto facilitate domestic industrydevelopment. The perception amongsome fisheries officials in the region is thatthe terms of the Kiribati agreement arebetter than those of other bilateral

partners, in terms of access fees and thepotential for development of shore-basedfacilities and fishing capacity. The Kiribatiagreement also provides for theemployment of local seamen on the EUvessels.

The Kiribati access agreement has beenhailed as a model fishing agreement by EUofficials, as it is based on principles ofsustainability and good governance. Theagreement meets the various regionalminimum terms and conditions of access(including observer coverage and use of avessel monitoring system). It is alsoclaimed that the Kiribati agreement has astrong scientific review base, usingregional scientific advice and stockassessment.

Beyond these positive assessments, thereare broader considerations that arise fromthe formal entry of the EU into the westernand central Pacific fishery. This includesthe economic impact of increased fleetcapacity, especially of the purse-seinefleet. Any benefits that may have beenderived from a reduction of the USpurse-seine fleet have been offset by the EUvessels and other new entrants. Thisunderscores the weakness of existingregional regimes to effectively control thesize of the purse-seine fishery and thecompeting pressures on Pacific islandStates (to maximize revenue whileconserving the stocks). The failure tonegotiate a multilateral access agreementwith the EU was in part due to competingnational interests among Pacific islandStates and a reluctance to ‘give up’potential benefits from bilateralagreements. Similarly, the failure torealize significant gains in domesticindustry development in Pacific islandStates (and domestic basing of fleets) may,in part, be attributed to the incentives thatisland States continue to give foreignoffshore fishing arrangements.

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This article, by Sandra Tarte([email protected]), University of theSouth Pacific, Suva, Fiji, is based ona paper presented at the 13thEurope Pacific Solidarity Seminar inStrasbourg, 11-13 October 2002


Fisheries management

A social contract for fisheries?

The level of conflict among fishermen in Norway would seem to call for a social contract for the fishery

I come from an area in Norway—farnorth of the Arctic Circle—where themost important industry was always

fisheries. We would not have been able tosustain ourselves and to live ascomfortably as we did, if it hadn’t beenfor the fishery and our marine resources.In fact, it is the riches of the ocean,combined with the free and easy access,that explain the dispersed settlementstructure along the northern coast ofNorway. What happened with the fisheryhad a crucial impact on our economy, onour communities and our way of life. Dueto the Gulf Stream we are, in spite of theArctic location, blessed with mildtemperatures, and, due to the easilyavailable fish resource, we never starved.

These days we exploit other things fromour waters—oil, for example. But the oilis not what we eat. In the north, where Ilive, the oil industry does not providemany jobs either. During the last 25 years,salmon aquaculture has gainedimportance, but still, it cannot replace thecapture fisheries; the cod, the herring, theshrimp, the saithe, the haddock, thecapelin and the mackerel that we harvest,process, and—in the case of 95 per cent ofthe total catch—export. The expectationis, though, that aquaculture will becomeincreasingly important for our regionaland national economy. There is now alsoan enormous optimism with regard to thenew marine biotech industry.

The optimism is only matched by thepessimism that for the time being reignsin the traditional capture fisheries, whereone crisis somewhere in the system isfollowed by another crisis somewhereelse. At present, we’re down. Now it is thesituation with the cod in the North Seaand the strong Norwegian currency thatcreates worries. In the early 1990s, we hada severe resource crisis with the cod in the

Barents Sea. Since then, there have beenups and downs.

Norway’s fisheries have traditionallybeen free and open. It was possible foreveryone to start a career in the fisheries.The crisis that hit the cod fishery in 1990eliminated that freedom—probablyforever. Before 1990, we had a quota anda licensing system for the offshore,large-scale fleet, whereas the inshore,small-scale fishery was subject to fewrestrictions. But in 1990, the governmentsuddenly had a severe problem on itshands and had to do something rapidlyand drastically. The coastal fisheries weretransformed from open-access to closed.Today, 95 per cent of the fishery is subjectto quota management. Now a youngperson, in order to establish himself as afisherman (in Norway a fisher is almostalways a he), must not only afford a boat,but he must also have the financial muscleto buy a quota. And quotas are currentlyvery expensive, if indeed available at all.

These days a fisherman must also livewith a heavy battery of rules andregulations that confront him every dayhe goes out to fish. He also faces a controland inspection system on the fishinggrounds as well as when he lands his fish.This is a system that works on theassumption that he is a potential felonwho would do everything he can to cheat.For a young fisherman, this has alwaysbeen a fact of life.

Management systemFor those who were recruited into thefishery in the 1970s and the 1980s,however, the change that has happened inthe 1990s is breathtaking. The newmanagement system was not introducedovernight. It has taken more than 10 yearsto build it. Gradually, new rules wereadded. Also, more and more resources

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were spent on enforcement, which, ofcourse, revealed more violations, or eventriggered them. The outcome of thisvicious circle is a management system socomplex that fishermen complain thatthey risk breaking rules they never knewexisted.

It should be added, though, that muchof this management system was notimposed on the fishermen. In many

instances, they asked for it. Rulespertaining to the fishing operations haveresulted from demands from thefishermen themselves, often from onegroup of fishermen who wanted someform of protection against another group,for instance, a group that fish with adifferent type of gear. I am sure that thiskind of dynamics is not unique toNorway. The quota system wascontroversial when it was introduced. Itwas accepted as a preliminary measurethat would be abolished once the codstock was back to normal. The cod stockrecovered in the mid-1990s, but the quotasystem remained without much protestfrom the fishermen. Today, there are fewin the industry who want to get rid of it.Changes, yes, but removal, no.

It is a notable fact that Norwegianfishermen, through their nationalassociation, are fairly well organized andare, therefore, also highly active andinvolved in fisheries policy-makingincluding resource management. They are

in a position to influence the managementsystem and rules put in place.Traditionally, fishermen in Norway wereable to speak with one voice. Today,however, there is much moredisagreement among them. The nationalfishermen’s association has, for someyears now, been on the brink of collapsedue to internal strife. The large-scalevessel-owners have repeatedly threatenedto break out. Many small-scale fishermen,those that fish close to shore and withtraditional gear, did so in the early 1990s,and formed their own association, TheNorwegian Coastal Fishermen’sAssociation. Its membership has beengrowing ever since.

The national fishermen’s association is, inreality, a federation of suborganizations ofdifferent gear groups and regionalassociations. (The Coastal Fishermen’sAssociation does not belong here.) It usedto be able to strike agreements and reachconsensus on important political and legalissues. The quota system introduced in1990 has changed all that. The fishermenas a group have, therefore, lost much oftheir power in Norwegian fisheries ascompared to processing and aquaculture.

Fewer numbersIt has not helped Norway’s fishermen, ofcourse, that they are getting fewer andfewer in numbers. In 1950, they were100,000; today they are 14,000 and theirnumber will most likely continue to drop.

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This makes fishermen less of a force inNorwegian politics. One should perhapsexpect that it would make themmore—and not less—united. Instead, thelevel of conflict among fishermen hasincreased. The reason has much to dowith the fish resources becomingincreasingly scarce. I would argue,however, that the quota system itselfmust take much of the blame. When fishquotas become a privately held right—asis largely the case with the Norwegiansystem—unavoidably it creates a systemof privilege. Winners will, of course,support the system, while the losers willcondemn it.

In Norway, quotas are attached to thevessel; thus, the quota inflates theprice of the vessel dramatically when

it is sold. Since vessels are freely boughtand sold, so also are quota rights. Such asystem is bound to have an effect on thestructure of the industry. In essence, thisis also what the system aims at. But itbenefits those who can muster enoughcapital. In our situation, the large-scaleoperators in the southwestern part of thecounty come out as winners, whilesmaller operators who dominate in thenorthern fishing communities are losingout. We see, therefore, a geographicalconcentration of fishing capacity andquota rights that is threatening theexistence of many fisheries-dependentcommunities. Conflicts in Norwegianfisheries thus also have a regionaldimension.

This is not a unique situation for Norway.It is happening everywhere where quotasare bought and sold. Iceland has gonefarther than Norway and otherScandinavian countries in introducing asystem that turns fishing quotas into amarket commodity. This has changed theIcelandic fishery and has concentratedfishing rights in fewer hands. It hastransformed the nature of fishing, therelations between fishermen, andbetween the fleet and the processingsector. It has altered the very meaning ofbeing a fisherman. Some see this as notonly inevitable, but also as commendable.

No doubt, there is too much fishingcapacity out there. Many problemswould have been solved if this capacitywere reduced. Individual transferable

quotas (ITQs) may be a means of obtainingsuch a goal. But the downscaling also hassocial and cultural consequences that canbe quite dramatic. Iceland is a goodillustration, and Norway is not a bad oneeither. No wonder, therefore, that a quotasystem that allows the market todetermine who will prevail in thisindustry is controversial. Currently, theissue is burning hot in Denmark.

In 1994, the Fishermen’s Associationagreed on an allocation key between thelarge-scale, ocean-going fishing fleet andthe coastal, small-scale fishing fleetregarding the cod stock, leaving theformer group with 35 per cent of the totalallowable catch (TAC). It was also agreedthat when the TAC is low, the coastal fleetshould have a higher percentage thanwhen it is high. Later, other species wereincluded.

In 2001, a long-term allocation key formost species was agreed upon, whichgives specific groups of vessels a fixedshare of all TACs. In many ways, this isremarkable. First, it is a rather fragilecompromise among groups of fishermenwho have conflicting interests pertainingto quota allocation, but who share theview that it is their responsibility to arriveat a workable agreement. Second, thegovernment has accepted the dealwithout objections.

In 2002, for example, the FisheriesMinister proclaimed that he would notalter the arrangement one iota but stick tothe key agreed by the partners involved.He was heavily criticized in the media forabstaining to intervene in such animportant issue of distribution. One may,of course, question whether that was asensible thing to do for a fisheries ministerwho is ultimately responsible for allaspects of fisheries.

Greater trustNevertheless, it can be interpreted as a realdevolution of management authority,signalling a great level of trust in theorganization’s ability to act responsibly.(There is, of course, a less flatteringinterpretation: the minister—and thepolitical system—finds it politicallyconvenient to leave controversial issues ofpublic concern to the parties involved.Political opportunism, rather than

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genuine devolution, is thus perhaps thename of the game.)

Whether the agreement willcontinue to receive supportamong the fishermen and the

government in the future remains to beseen. If it does not survive, fishermen maybecome even more divided than they aretoday. If conflict cannot be avoided, it isbetter to have the fishermen fighting oneanother each time the allocation key isrenegotiated than having them fighting allthe time. Bringing fishermen into aresponsible partnership may also allowthem to break out of the role of the villainthat the current management systemplaces them in. No voluntaryorganization, such as the NorwegianFishermen’s Association, can surviveconflicts that are never addressed andresolved in an orderly fashion.

Our management system depends onsuch an organization. Both the fishermenand the government need it. In fact, it wasthe government, which, in the late 1920s,took the initiative to form theorganization. The government neededsomeone in the fishery to deal with whocould speak on behalf of all the fishermen.The fact that the fishermen were able tounite has since then been an importantprecondition for their power inNorwegian fisheries. When the crisis hit in1990, the government had a representativevoice of the fishermen that it could listen

to and seek advice from. The apparatus fornegotiation was already in place. The twoparties did not first have to establish aworking relationship before they couldstart to address the crisis.

Fisheries management cannot be focusedon one thing only—for instance, economicefficiency. There are many other concernsinvolved and we need to address them inways that do not alienate those who havemost at stake—those whose lives aredependent on both healthy fish stocks andhealthy fishing communities. The issuesare of such a nature that we need tothoroughly debate what to do. Whenthings are complex, diverse and dynamic,we need to be flexible. Our convictions areconstantly challenged by new events, andwe cannot be dogmatic as to solutions.Instead, our perspective must be broadand inclusive.

Importantly also, we must be able to learnfrom experience, to learn from each otherand debate what we learn, because wenever learn the same things from what weexperience.

Different conclusionsIn Norway, we still debate what welearned from the fisheries crisis of theearly 1990s, and typically, people drawvery different conclusions. There arethose who argue that we didn’t learn athing. When the crisis was over, we wentback to the old habits. Therefore, perhaps,

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history is bound to repeat itself. This issomething we can hardly afford. Norwaycertainly cannot permit a new decimationof the herring stock, as happened in thelate 1960s. It took 30 years to rebuild it.Neither can we allow another Barents Seacod crisis as we had in the early 1990s.

We have to learn to live with thefact that conditions in thefishery will remain unstable

and that there will always be a crisissomewhere in the fishery. But if we askourselves what this means, whatconclusions we can draw from this factpertaining to fisheries management, whatthen would be our answer? How do wedeal with all the complexities, diversityand dynamics that the fishing industrymust somehow relate to? Do we build anequally complex, diverse and dynamicmanagement system?

The Norwegian experience is that thereare limits to complexity. We need to turnthe trend around, and make themanagement system simpler. But howdo we do it, given the fact that (a) theindustry, and the environment in whichit finds itself, is characterized byincreasing globalization; and (b) thatfisheries management must addressseveral concerns that are frequently inconflict and cannot be easily reconciled.

There are no simple answers to thesequestions. But I do think the allocationkey contract in the Norwegian fishery,negotiated among the fishermenthemselves and with the government asfacilitator, may provide some clues.Much would be gained if we couldsomehow arrive at a social contract for thefishery—a general agreement amongthose involved about what we, as acollective, want to accomplish and whatwe must avoid. Those for whom thefishery is a matter of life or death must beinvolved in deliberating and deciding onwhat such a social contract shouldcontain. Today, the allocation keypertains only to quota shares betweeninshore and offshore. The contract shouldalso be extended to include othercontentious issues, such as the allocationbetween regions, and between onshoreand offshore activities, and betweenexisting and future generations. Acontract should also specify who should

be considered as stakeholders with alegitimate claim to be represented indecision-making forums.

Importantly, a social contract for thefishery cannot be imposed from the topdown. Instead, we must build ondemocratic principles, where all affectedstakeholders must be allowed to voicetheir concerns. Only through such acontract can issues of social justice informthe decision-making process. Far toooften, concerns of social justice aresuppressed, while fisheries managementis reduced to a technical fix. No wonder,therefore, that fisheries managementcontinues to be among the mostcontentious areas of public policy, wherelack of legitimacy is turning managementinto an increasingly repressive affair.

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This article is by Svein Jentoft([email protected]), University ofTromsø, Norway


Fisheries management

Hijacked by neoliberal economics

A fashionable neoclassical political-economic ideology has taken over the management of many fisheries

In the beginning, fish were aplenty andthere were no rules upon the face ofthe deep, and the spirit of free access

moved upon the waters. And thefishermen saw that it was good and fishedas many fishes as they needed to feed theirfamilies and their neighbours. But peoplewere multiplying and replenishing theearth, and more and more fishermen hadto catch more and more fish to meet thedemand of the ever-growing humanity.And governments said: let there bemanagement, so that there would alwaysbe enough fish left in the seas to procreate.And they limited the gear, the vessels, theseasons, and the fishing areas, and theycalled it ‘input regulation’. But, thefishermen kept fishing and their fleetskept growing, and the governments sawthat it was bad. So they made licences, andtheir scientist thought up the maximumsustainable yield (MSY) and the totalallowable catches (TACs). But thefishermen kept competing, andover-capitalizing, and the fish becamescarce. And the economists said unto thegovernments: let there be property rights.And they spawned individualtransferable quotas (ITQs). And theybelieved that it is good and said unto thefishermen: Behold, rights’ privatization isyour salvation. And the governments sentthe ITQs upon waters to replenish the seasand subdue all fisheries. And it was good!

This is more or less the gospel, whichprevails throughout fisheriesadministrations in many countries. Itmakes some people richer and theybecome its devoted believers andsupporters, while the many madepoorer—or afraid to become so—itsadamant opponents. And theconsequences in almost every single caseare more or less gradual concentration offishing rights in fewer and fewer hands,often enough in the hands of major

corporate interests, at the expense ofsmall-scale, family- and skipper-ownedfishing enterprises that operate one or twosmall or even medium-sized fishingvessels, each.

Fisheries management is supposed to lookafter the health of the fish resourcesexploited by fishermen. This requiresknowledge of fishery biology andecology, population dynamics, andhistorical data of the fishery and ofenvironmental and associated stockfluctuations in its area. As fisheriesmanagement can only manage people, itentails negotiations, legislation,technology and enforcement. There is awhole catalogue of management systemsand technical and administrative methodsthat managers can use to try to achievetheir targets. The political attitude of thepowers in charge determines the choice ofthe system and the manner in which it isapplied through licensing, quotasallocation, or limits set on effort. Thesystem chosen influences, throughallocating benefits to the differentstakeholders, the distribution of thebenefits derived from the resource. Forexample, allocating fishing rights to alarge number of small-scale fishermenwould call for different managementmethods than allocating them to a largecompany.

Traditional knowledgeOld-type management by tribal andcommunity leaders and local fisherfolk’sorganizations based on traditionalknowledge of the resource and traditionaljustice, is now almost totally extinct. It hasbeen replaced throughout most of theworld by bureaucratic and technocraticmechanisms heavily influenced bypolitical and economic considerationsthat, while interested in fish as marketablemerchandise and a source of profits to the

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operators, have only little to do withsafeguarding the resource as a source ofincome to fishing people. Fisheriesmanagement has thus become a powerplay over benefits from the resource.Stakeholders are many, starting withfishing people and local interests infishing communities, throughrecreational fishermen, environmentallobbies and coastal developmentinterests, and ending with powerfulcorporations and market forces, whetherlocal, national or multinational.

Neoclassical economics invadedthe management of variouscommons and national resources

as an extension of a paradigmdominant—though very much atissue—in the industrialized world. Itsgospel is being spread over the world andits political, financial and academicinstitutions by troops of disciplinedeconomists, rewarded for devotion, andpunished for dissent. So, what is thisneoliberal or neoclassical teaching ineconomics that has also impinged onfisheries? And on what basis are itsdevoted adherents preaching that theirsis the only way society can take to utilizeits fish resources in a feasible and efficientmanner?

The old ‘classical’ economic teachingintroduced the belief in the ‘invisiblehand’ driven by self-interest guidingrational individual decisions eventuallyinto an optimum economy, in whichfree-market forces take care of all aspectsof peoples’ lives. An implied outcome ofsuch ‘free play’ is that any financial profitderived from a common, fully, partly orquasi-privatized resource wouldsomehow trickle down and redistributeitself all over the society. But this is a mythand a fallacious contention, if not anoutright lie. It is common knowledge that,in most of the world’s countries, a bigshare of such benefits indeed tricklesdown, but to various investments abroad,and to imported luxury products andservices. The ‘trickle-down’ theory canapproach the real situation only in a fewrich countries, where profits feel secureand investments promise furtheraccumulation of capital.

Recently, more and more economists andother social scientists have started casting

doubts on the neoclassical gospel,nicknamed by some as ’autisticeconomics’. Awarding the 2002 NobelPrice in economics to two professors, oneof them a psychologist, who refuted thetheory that, as a rule, individuals makerational economic decisions, reflected thisgrowing criticism. Economic determinisminherent in the neoliberal theory does notwork; the markets’ reaction to prices, theprices’ reaction to the dynamics of supplyand demand, and peoples’ reactions andeconomic activities do not fit that theory’sassumptions. Hence, its weakness ineconomic analysis and forecasting.

Some economists and other socialscientists argue that, contrary to itspretense to a scientific, objectiveapproach, neoclassical economics is, infact, a social-political narrative and amethodology used by global economicand political interests to concentratepower in the hands of corporate nationaland multinational institutions. Thus,individual businessmen and small andmedium-scale private enterprises, not tospeak of wage earners, are losing theirinfluence on socioeconomic decisionmaking to powerfulcommercial-industrial centres and theircollaborators in governments. Thistransfer of power is promoted, legislated,and executed through democraticprocesses occurring within the existinglegal framework with the help ofwell-financed journalistic and mediacampaigns and more or less biasedscientific publications, with theneoclassical economic narrative serving asa tool for achieving the explicit goals andhidden agendas of its promoters. Thus,the ‘invisible hand’ has been transformedfrom the sum of the multitude ofindividual decisions into the sum of thepolitical and economic decisions ofpowerful interests.

Profit maximizationNeoclassical economics is supposed toaim at and produce maximization of socialand national benefits, which, in fact, aredollar-equivalent measures of howeconomists value goods and services(including non-market goods andservices). It preaches maximization ofprofits or rents often attained at theexpense of heavy social costs. The bigquestion is how these costs and benefits

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are defined and calculated; since socialcosts are very difficult to estimate, anyportrayal of economics as an absolute,scientific methodology is simplyfallacious, and honest economists admitthat they cannot adequately calculate allsocial benefits and all social costs.

It is obvious that losses incurredthrough forfeiture of alternativeactions, and due to various social and

other external costs, many of whichcannot be evaluated in terms of dollarsand cents, are a part and parcel of anyeconomy. As long as we do not take intoaccount all the costs and benefits fromproduction and market fluctuations,various management steps, social,economic and cultural dislocations ofpeople and their ramifications affectingcoastal communities, as well as other’externalities’ difficult to express inmonetary terms, we are unable tocalculate the true net social costs andbenefits.

Also, many people associate the term’social benefits’ with how nationalresources are distributed across society.They ask, for example, how many peoplemake a living from a certain resource. A’less efficient’ small-scale fishery thatemploys many more people than an’efficient’ big-owner fleet, may feed lessmonies to the ’national purse’, but, as arule, is directly and effectively morebeneficial to people and their

communities. Only an in-depth analysiscan establish which option wouldproduce truer benefits and values. Thus, itis quite consequential who definesnational and social benefits, and how.

For example, calculation of net nationalbenefits for an industrial shrimp fishery ina non-industrial country must include adeduction of the costs of all imports, suchas expatriate manpower, fuel andlubricants, vessels, deck and propulsionmachinery, processing and refrigerationequipment, and fishing gear, as well asinsurance and maintenance costs incurredin foreign-currency. In some cases, theonly net benefits from an industrialshrimp fishery in such countries are therevenues from licence fees and theemployment of nationals, while the majorshare of the revenues as well as theproduct itself goes abroad.

Policy costsTherefore, responsible economic theorymust take into account also values that arenon-financial/commercial, and thediverse peripheral socioeconomic,political and cultural costs, as well as thetaxpayer’s money spent on dealing withhuman problems resulting frommanagement decisions. Only then wouldthe society and its governments beinformed of the true costs of any policyproposition, before their natural resourcesget transferred into the hands of a few.Nowadays, however, such transfer is

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facilitated by governments’ obsessionwith privatization as a panacea for allmaladies of the economy.

The neoliberal gospel preaches thatpractically nothing can workefficiently, if it is not somebody’s

private or corporate property. Themassive ideological privatizationpractised in some countries has embracedalso such natural resources as water,forests and various energy sources as wellas public transport. Even economicallyviable, and efficiently run nationalresources often fall victim to theprivatization Moloch. How wrong thisideology can be has been recently wellillustrated by a whole series of flops ofsome mammoth privatized and corporatecompanies, due to both, mismanagementand corruption, as well as by the ratherdisappointing results of the privatizationof the British railway system. Swissair,PanAm, Enron and other recent bankruptgiants were not run by governments.

One consequence of the domination ofneoclassical economics is the ratherobscure struggle between free enterpriseand corporate interests. In the past, theconception of capitalism and free marketsused to emphasize private initiative.Nowadays, however, it isn’t necessarilyso. Neoclassical economics is leading to aregime in which major businesses andcorporations are gradually displacingsmaller-scale enterprises andbusinessmen, while being indifferenttowards the social conditions of workingpeople, whose role it reduces to sellingtheir work power on the market. It is‘happy’ when supply of labour exceedsdemand, because unemploymentdepresses wages and improves profits.

Some time ago, after the demise of theSoviet system, one would think that freeenterprise had won. One is not so surenowadays. Like the Soviet monopolisticconcerns, some of the giant companies ofthe ‘capitalist’ world are run by financialbureaucracies supported by ideologicaleconomists, who seem to consider smalland family-owned enterprises a noiseand a nuisance in their concept of‘economically efficient’ world.

The invasion of fisheries by neoclassicaleconomics has been a logical

consequence to its domination of theglobal, and many national economies.Like many historical invasions, it waspartly invited from inside the fisheries bylarge-scale interests and their proxies inthe management mechanisms, who gaveit a friendly reception. Once in, it seems tobe here to stay, especially in all thosecountries where, for various reasons, it isnot met with strong opposition.

What brought this ideology into thefisheries is its claim that privatization isthe most efficient, if not the only, mode ofexploiting a resource. This, even if theresource belongs to the whole nation, as isthe case with water, forests and, for thatmatter, fish in the sea.

When, following the Second World War,the spiralling growth of fisheries broughtabout the need for management, it wasinitially based on so-called ‘input control’.This implies regulation of fishing effortthrough such means as limited access,fishing time and areas, as well as otherregulations that try to follow thebiological characteristics of the speciesinvolved. In some countries thismanagement system still works wellenough; in others it has been deemed,rightly or wrongly, inadequate. Fishpopulation dynamics models have beenused to estimate the biomass of fishpopulations and, consequently, the fixingof TACs. In some fisheries this led to highlycompetitive ‘gold rush’ fishing operationsand investment in excessively strong andfast vessels. The next step was dividingthe TAC into quotas that were allocated tovessels, usually, according to their fishinghistory. And this was the moment whenthe neoliberal economists stepped in witha new pattern: marketable fishing quotas(ITQs).

Property rightsThey introduced the rather axiomatictheory that property rights are a must infisheries for maximum benefit andefficiency, spelled out in financial termsand rational exploitation of the resource.Since property rights are characterized by(i) security, or quality of title; (ii)exclusivity; (iii) permanence; and (iv)transferability, their application infisheries boils down to ITQs. Thus, mere‘fishing rights’ have become ‘privateproperty rights’. Trade in fishing rights

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eventually must hit the weakerstakeholder by allocating individualquotas too small to pay a vessel owner’sway out of the red, on the one hand, andby pricing licences and quota entitlementsabove the value of his/her fishing boatand gear, on the other.

A licence gone from a fishingcommunity is gone forever,together with all the associated

jobs, services and income. If it were notfor social opposition, a worldwideadoption of ITQs would have proceededfaster.

Since marketable quota systems favourthe financially stronger, they invariablylead to a gradual displacement ofsmall-scale individual or family-ownedfishing enterprises, and, sooner or later, tothe concentration of fishing rights in thehands of a few, either specialized fishingcompanies, or large holding corporationsfor whom fishing may be only one branchof a multifarious business. Suchconcentration would eventually occureven where there are legislative attemptsat stipulating acquisition of quota by somemaximum values. Hence, there is agrowing concern of ‘privatization bystealth’. It is incredible that managersintroducing this system into small-scale ormixed fisheries would be unaware that itssocial, economic and politicalramifications favour large-scale businessat the expense of local fisheries and

processing industries, and small-scaleoperators, and threaten the survival of thesmall-scale fishing sector. ITQs tend todepress artisanal fishers and effectivelyexclude part-time participants in localfisheries, and favour the owners, whiledisregarding crew members. Hence, theselection of ITQ for such fisheries mustreflect the political and social attitudes ofthe respective governments.

Green non-governmental organizations(NGOs) have willy-nilly contributed to theprivatization trend. Although some ofthem, for example, Greenpeace, havejoined protests against ITQs, there havebeen NGOs with often exaggerated andsometimes even fallacious alarmistpublications on the state of fisheryresources, painting the fishermen as themain culprits, which fueled theneoclassical economists’ fires. ITQadvocates have claimed that privatizationbased on marketable fishing quotaswould maintain fish stocks at sustainablelevels.

Gold rushTheir main argument was: ‘If fishinginterests are allowed to invest in apermanent share of the TAC, so that they’dbe sure of their relative share in thelandings of the respective species from agiven area, they wouldn’t need to applythe ‘gold-rush’ mode of operation, andwould be interested in maintaining theresource in an everlastingly sustainable

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condition.’ On the other hand, ITQs are arather peculiar sort of property rights:one pays, sometimes quite heavily, for theright to catch a certain amount of fish; onenever knows whether one will be able toget it and at what operational cost, andone doesn’t really control the resourceand doesn’t know whether by observingthe rules and sticking to the quota one isnot made a sucker by others.

Hence, the potential well-intendedstewardship over the resourcesby quota-owners is, in fact, more

than often frustrated by high grading, fishdumping and quota busting. While ITQsindeed mitigated the ‘gold-rush’ fishing,and their contribution to stockconservation might have happened in afew fisheries, it has been proved so onlyin a couple of them. At the same time,failures have been reported anddocumented.

The ITQ system would be socially andnationally justifiable where the resourceis technically not accessible to small- andmedium-scale operators based in coastalfishing communities, and whereexploitation of the resource requireslarge-scale industrial fishing vessels andfleet logistics.

But where large numbers of small-scaleoperators traditionally exploit inshoreand coastal resources, most of themconsider marketable quotas socially and

also economically wrong. Harvestingmethods that are most efficient in financialterms are often the ones with the worstcollateral (including environmental)impact, while less capital-intensive andtechnologically and operationallysophisticated fishing methods normallyallow wider and much more equitableaccess to benefits from the fishery, withless negative environmental and socialimpacts.

In Third World countries, for example,coastal fisheries operate under manystresses, the main one being invasion oflarger-scale fisheries into waters andstocks accessible to, and fishable by,small-scale fishermen, often with officialgovernment support or high-circles’well-paid ‘closing of the eye’.

But, in such areas, large-scale operationsare less efficient than small-scale fishing.They consume several times more fuel pertonne of marketable fish than thesmall-boat fishery; capital investment ingear and vessels is higher; and theyproduce fewer true national benefits.

The same fish stock that can be fully andprofitably exploited by 10 trawlersmanned by 100 people, if allocatedexclusively to coastal fisherfolk usingnets, pots and hooks-and-lines, mayprovide a living to many hundreds, ormaybe thousands of them, never mindhow low their calculated profits are goingto be.

In many areas, both recreational andsmall-scale commercial fisheries form thebackbone of coastal communities whoseeconomies revolve around fishing. Itcauses money to flow to equipment andbait, food and fuel suppliers, boatyards,and a variety of commercial and technicalservices in docks, harbours and marinas,as well as those sectors of the touristindustry that are centred on fishingcommunities.

Hidden agendasNo doubt, management decisions dependfirst of all on the prevailing policyobjectives. Different governments and thepowers that influence them may havedifferent, above-board and hiddenagendas. Hence, worldwide, there is noconsensus on the objectives of fisheries

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management. Some governments maybelieve that safeguarding the well-beingof communities where fishery is animportant contributor to the local and,thus, national economy is an importantgoal. ‘Safeguarding the well-being’ meanscreating and maintaining conditions thatwould enable the fishing industry to getan adequate return on investment, andfishing people, sufficient take-homeincomes. It also may mean that in certainspecial circumstances, the State may haveto intervene to help a community over atemporary hardship, as it would do forfarmers hit by a drought year, or anindustrial community hit by anearthquake. Isn’t that what governmentsare for: collecting taxes, providingservices, and helping in trouble?

But some governments, as well asmost global, transnational andintergovernmental financial

institutions are driven by the neoclassicalideology, especially when it comes toeconomic relations with developingnations. Undeniably, some of theconditions of economic co-operation andassistance imposed by those institutionsstem from their wish to protect theirinvestments from misconduct, corruptionand mismanagement. But, only too often,under the hypocritical pretext of securingfree markets and economic liberalization,their conditions are simply a tool ofprotectionism. And here we come tofisheries subsidies. The United States, theEuropean Union (EU) and some otherdeveloped countries, in view of the heavyovercapitalization of their fishing fleets,came to the quite appropriate decision tostop subsidizing the construction offishing vessels. They want, however, tohave their new policies ‘globalized’ tocover also the developing world.

A number of developing countries toohave had, for many years, large nationalfleets, and they should not subsidizeovercapacity as well. Any internationalagreement involving fishery subsidiesshould take into account small-scalefishermen, who have to compete for thelocal fish resources with large-scalefishing fleets allowed to fish or poach ontheir native, traditional fishing grounds.Such fleets are subsidized, almost as arule, whether directly or in a roundaboutmanner, as are the EU payments for access

to fishing grounds of Third World nations.Small-scale fisherfolk operating undersuch conditions deserve support both onthe part of their own respectivegovernments, as well as the internationalcommunity. Would it be too much to askthe EU, and individual governments ofcountries whose fleets are out to exploitcoastal fish stocks of their own or othercountries, as well as the governments whoallow such fleets into their coastal waters,to give them a fighting chance?

Fisherfolk in the small-and medium-scalesectors both, owners and hired hands,who do not want to be dislocated fromtheir traditional fisheries by managementsystems based on marketable fishingrights, should recognize that their mainadversaries are the standard bearers ofneoclassical economics in national andtransnational financial institutions andcorporations, and their proxies in fisheriesmanagement. It is very difficult to resistsuch powerful interests in democraticsocieties without joining forces. For thispurpose, provincial, national, andregional fishermen’s associations shouldorganize under common umbrellas. Also,international associations of fishingpeople should create a joint worldwideumbrella that wouldn’t affect theirindividual structure and character, butwould enable them to board theglobalization train in weight and force.

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This article is by MenakhemBen-Yami ([email protected]), FisheriesManagement and DevelopmentAdvisor, Israel


Philippines

Empowering participation

The Community-based Coastal Resource Management Festival was a time to celebrate, reflect and ponder over strategies

The Community-based CoastalResources Management (CBCRM)Festival was held between 2 and 4

June 2003 in Subic Bay, Zambales,Philippines. About 150 CBCRMpractitioners, implementers, researchersand advocates from coastal communities,non-governmental organizations (NGOs),academic and research institutions,development organizations andgovernment agencies in the Philippinesand selected countries in East Asia,Europe and North America participated.The Festival critically analyzed themultifaceted achievements of CBCRM,while celebrating its gains, so as to learnlessons that will guide CBCRM practiceinto the future.

There was much to celebrate at theFestival, despite the fact that severalfishers have been killed, while othersremain in prison for conscientiouslysafeguarding their marine resources andapprehending illegal fishers.

The CBCRM movement could not haveachieved this level of commitment but fora long and persistent process ofinteraction and collaboration among thecoastal communities, NGOs, academics,scientists and funding agencies.

“Our involvement in CBCRM has not onlychanged our perspective about ourfishery but it has continued to developour views on the whole,” said PedroValparaiso at a creative panel discussionat the start of the festival.

“It was we women who moved first,”added Patricia Panaligan, chairperson ofa local people’s organization (PO). “Wedecided to establish the fish sanctuariesand our men backed us up, assisting indemarcating it with buoys andbamboos.”

From the manner in which these fisherfolkspoke out at the festival, it was quiteobvious that they were not only capablebut also committed to the concept ofCBCRM. This seemed to be the result of adual process that has emerged as the cruxof CBCRM, namely, a painstaking processof capacity-building of POs through verycreative and genuine participatory ruralappraisal (PRA), the motto being“participation that empowers, with equityas the guiding principal”.

This process that commenced in thePhilippines more than a decade ago as anNGO initiative of partnership with coastalcommunities to build local, democraticorganizations to conserve resources forsustainable livelihoods, gained legitimacywith the enactment of the new FisheriesCode in 1998. The Code delineated 15 kmof the inshore waters as municipal waters,beyond which the ‘commercial’ fisherscould operate. This Code also mademandatory the creation of Fisheries andAquatic Resource Management Councils(FARMCs) at the local municipal level,based on the principles ofco-management. The local governmentscould thereby enact suitable ordinances toapply the Code. But, as we all know, mereenactment of ordinances, even when theyare very progressive, do not make themautomatically applicable, unless there areactive POs at the base. Sensing a top-downand manipulative approach, several of theearlier operative CBCRM groups werereluctant to get integrated into this initialprocess.

Budget allocationWhile the dominant trend of thediscussion during the Festival was that thePOs should engage the government andthe mainstream CBCRM process so thatbudget allotments could be made to carrythe process ahead, one could not but be

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impressed by the reports of the POs onhow they collectively made theirmanagement plans, demarcated theirsanctuaries, engaged in the regenerationof the mangroves, apprehended illegalfishers, developed paralegal skills, andcreated systems to sustain their effortsthrough contributing a percentage of theirincomes for the labour of the fish wardens.

The CBCRM groups that create theirown constitutions take on theresponsibility of not only

conserving the resources but alsodeveloping ways of transforming theseefforts into means of livelihood. Several ofthem launch better fish marketingnetworks, make value-added products,diversify income generation and evencreate co-operatives and creditmechanisms for their members. In fact, anexternal evaluation conducted of theOxfam-supported efforts notes howoverburdened these POs are, taking on theresponsibility of conserving, nurturingand policing the fish habitats as also thelivelihood alternatives in thecommunities, even as most of themembers of the POs struggle to make endsmeet in their households.

Coming from India, which has a longcontiguous coastline, I could not butappreciate how the geophysical formationof this island nation of the Philippineslends itself to such a programme ofmicro-ecosystem management. In a way,

the cultural context of the Philippines,which is far less hierarchical than in India,is more cohesive and defining, and thecommunity does not seem to be ascomplex as it is in India. Certainly, therecould be no absence of conflictinginterests, but, I guess, the groups that werepresent at the Festival came from areaswhere the chief conflicts arose mainlybetween the legal and illegal fishers, andnot with other contenders for the coastalresource.

The CBCRM movement also struck me asbeing a very feminist concept in fisheries,where life and livelihood are put centrestage, and caring and nurture become theresponsibility of men as well in the publicdomain.

Similar strides have to be made in theprivate domain, although I did meet acouple of women who said they felt verysupported by their husbands who nowalso take responsibility in householdchores as they are required to be out in thecommunity handling theirresponsibilities.

Reviewing challengesTrue to the spirit of learning fostered at theFestival, there was also time for criticalassessment and reviewing the challengesfor the future. One of these was the needto widen the concept of managementbeyond the micro-ecosystem, which nowfocuses mainly on habitat conservation, to

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creating alliances with other resourceusers in the watershed.

Several warnings were flaggedregarding:

• the implications of communitiesdemanding tenurial rights thatwill deny use by others;

• the ability of the POs to remaindemocratic so that‘empowerment’ does not result indomination;

• the need to continue to strengthensupport mechanisms as the NGOswithdraw and the POs come of age;

• establishing sustainablemechanisms within the POs thatare transparent and accountable;

• creating an enabling policyenvironment so that the processesof co-management remaindemocratic;

• transforming the gains intotangible livelihood inputs; and

• further addressing the threats ofglobalization vis-à-vis marketsand other terrestrial rights.

The challenge is to remain eternallyvigilant.

It was indeed striking to hear people echothat CBCRM is not merely a managementstrategy but a way of life. Committed asthey are to a process, it is also a challengeto the NGOs to practise what they preachto the POs, thereby making resourcemanagement a way of life and fosteringcommunities of practice wherever theyare. For the seven or so POs thatcollaborated in organizing the Festival,this is not a distant dream as theysuccessfully managed to transcenddifferences among themselves andgenerate a creative atmosphere withtremendous energy.

This Festival was the third in a series ofsuch celebrations, a way of collaborativelearning, storytelling and documenting.In the words of Elmer Ferrer et al, “Thisprocess of learning and the relationships

between people that are established as aresult of this process, generates socialenergy that advances and sustains theCBCRM process. Social energy becomesmanifest when individuals and groupswork together to achieve commonaspirations.”

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This report has been filed by NaliniNayak ([email protected]),a Member of ICSF


Fish trade

Trading in fish as food

A new, ongoing study hopes to shed light on the impact and consequences of international trade in fish and fish products

The Food and AgricultureOrganization of the UnitedNations (FAO) and the Ministry of

Foreign Affairs (MFA) of Norway have gottogether to conduct a joint study on theimpact of international trade in fisheryproducts on food security.

International trade in fishery products hasincreased substantially since themid-1980s. The total value of exports wasvalued at US $20 bn in 1984. It rose sharplyto US$55 bn in 2000. Enhanced demand inthe developed countries, cheapermethods of preservation andtransportation were probably the mainreasons for this increase. However,increases in production, the introductionof the 200-mile exclusive economic zonesand lower tariffs also contributed to thisdevelopment. The trade was largelybetween developed countries or fromdeveloping countries to the developedcountries. About half the exports in valueterms are from the developing countries.It is noteworthy that as much as 20 percent of the value of exports come from thelow-income food-deficit countries.

The varied impact of trade—at themacro-level, on the countries involved,and, at the micro-level, on thepeople—has become a matter of globalconcern and analysis. The formation of theWorld Trade Organization has brought amore formalized structure to internationaltrade. The once-held conviction that tradeshould automatically increase the welfareof all the parties involved is now beingquestioned.

This study will analyze the growinginternational trade in fishery products,which is marked by diversity. By studyinga variety of identifiable ‘representative’cases from the overall global context, thestudy seeks to assess the impact that trade

has on people’s food security—thephysical and economic access to sufficient,safe and nutritious food at all times. Thecase studies will examine the positive andnegative impacts that international tradehas on fish availability and accessibility;employment and income generation; thefish stocks and the potential for hardforeign currency earnings. All theseaspects have a direct or indirect bearing onfood security.

The study will focus on fish producers,fishworkers and fish consumers in fishexporting and importing countries. Byunderstanding the modus operandi ofinternational fish trade, the study will tryand identify the right circumstances,institutions and mechanisms, to facilitate“food security and development-enhancing” trade. The aim will be tounderstand the consequences oftrade—who and what makes the gainsand losses, and where and when theyaccrue.

The study, to be conducted and completedin 2003, will draw on the expertise ofseveral internationally reputed experts inthe realm of trade, fisheries and foodsecurity issues. The executing agency isthe FAO with its vast technical expertise onall the above aspects. Within the FAO it isthe Fish Utilization and MarketingServices of the Fisheries Department,which takes the responsibility for theoverall conduct of the study. It will be ablyassisted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairsof the Royal Norwegian Government thatwill follow the study closely and commenton its progress.

International expertsAn International Reference Group (IRG)composed of a distinguished set ofinternational experts and academicianswill, in their personal capacities, give

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overall guidance to the study from theperspective of achieving its goal ofinfluencing trade policy formulation andsuggesting strategies for foodsecurity-enhancing trade. The details ofthe study process will be overseen by anExpert Group (EG) composed of personswith first-hand knowledge of fish tradeand food security issues, who, again intheir personal capacities, will assist in thechoice of case study centres and meetoccasionally to review work progress.The day-to-day monitoring of the studywill be undertaken by a Chief Consultant(CC) responsible to the FAO and the MFA,and who will play the key role in liaisingwith the IRG and EG.

The case studies will be undertaken byNational Consultants (NC) who will beidentified by the EG based on suggestionsfrom the IRG and the numerous contactsthat FAO has all over the world. Thecountries where case studies will beundertaken include: Brazil, Chile, Ghana,Kenya, Namibia, Nicaragua, Papua NewGuinea, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailandand Vietnam.

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For more details on the study andits current status, visit http://www.tradefoodfish.org


Trawl fishers

Ganging up

The experience of trawler fishermen of Chennai, India shows how user groups find it difficult to manage their fisheries

Traditionally, the fishermen fromChennai and Chengulput areas ofTamil Nadu, India used madavalai

(traditional dip-net made of cotton),thurivalai (cotton drag-net), edavalai (nylondip-net) and periyavalai (cotton shoreseine) to fish both pelagic and demersalspecies. These fishing nets required moreinvestment and their operations neededmore than one kattumaram (catamaran)and more labour. Thus, each fishinghamlet had three or four nets of each type,which gave employment for all thefishermen of the village. All the villagerswere involved in groups in fishing, livingin harmony with neighbouring villagers.In earlier days, there was no individualfishing, except hook-and-line fishing,which was performed by one or twopersons jointly in a single catamaran. Fishaggregating devices (FADs) were also verycommon in those days.

Since all the fishing operations requiredgroups, each fisherman felt responsiblefor managing the fishery resources andthere was no competition amongfishermen. The benefit was sharedequally among the fishermen who felt thatthe resource in the sea is for the commongood. Also, each village observed aterritorial limit for fishing operations.There was no overexploitation and no onepoached the other’s resources, therebygiving every hamlet an equal opportunityto benefit from the resources.

In the early 1950s, nylon gill-nets ofdifferent mesh sizes were introduced.These weighed little, cost less and couldbe easily handled by two or three persons.Individual fishermen started to buy thesenets and employed two or three personson a share basis. This paved the way forthe erosion of group or communityfishing, and encouraged individualfishing, leading to competition and

fishing during the night, resulting in thecontinuous disturbance of the sea.

In the 1960s, the government of TamilNadu introduced mechanized gill-netswith the help of Norway. The first boatintroduced was a 26-ft bottom gill-netter.Such boats were given to fishermen’ssocieties and community leaders. In1965-66, 30-ft gill-netters and trawlingboats were introduced. Simultaneously,the export markets were opened with thecollaboration of Japan and the US. Duringthis period, fishing operations withmechanized boats were carried out in the40-km stretch between Ennore andThiruvanmiyur. The maximum fuel theycarried per day was 50 litres. The fishingwas carried out during daytime, from 6am to 2 pm. During this time, they did twohauls and got good catches. In 1969-70,32-ft boats were introduced. In 1972-73,the area of operation was extended toSriharikotta in the north andMahabalipuram in the south, a stretch ofabout 120 km.

During this period, the shrimp catch wasvery good. The fishing was done both bygill-netters and trawl boats. Since theshrimp were caught in the shallow waters,all the boats were concentrated in theinshore areas where the traditionalfishermen fished, resulting in acontinuous ploughing of the fishingground, which caused the resources tostart depleting very fast.

Heavy lossesAlso, the movement of boats in the inshoreareas made the traditional fishing morevulnerable. Fishing operations bymechanized boats damaged thetraditional craft and gear, and causedheavy losses to the traditional sectors interms of resource and properties. This ledto conflicts between mechanized and

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traditional fishermen in 1977, when thecatamaram fishermen started seizingboats operating in the shallow waters.

The government interfered andintroduced some regulations onthe mechanized sector, and also a

territorial boundary between traditionaland mechanized fishermen, which waspatrolled by the Fisheries Departmentofficials. This conflict led to the creationof the Federation of Panchayat Councils(in Tamil, Aikkiya Panchayat Sabai) inRoyapuram.

Around 90 per cent of the boatownerslived in Royapuram and neighbouringvillages, where they were attacked by thecatamaran fishermen. To get supportfrom the traditional fishermen, theboatowners conducted a meeting ofabout 10 villages in the Royapuram areaand formed an Aikkiya Panchayat.

At the panchayat meeting, the boatownerspromised to develop their villageeconomically. They collected 25 paise perbasket of fish sold and handed over themoney to the Aikkiya Panchayat.

The money was spent for village needs.In this way, with the help of the AikkiyaPanchayat, the boatowners got immunityfrom attack by the catamaran fishermen.Fishing disputes between boatownersand catamaran fishermen were nowcleared through the panchayat.

Until 1977, the maximum fuel carried onboard a boat was 150 litres per trip. In the1980s, the shrimp catch began decliningand some of the trawlers started to fishfinfish and squid in the deep sea, at about40-42 fathoms, where some ridges(patches of rocks) are present. Theycaught about 100 baskets of fish per trip(around 2,500 kg). The fishing operationwas between 3 am and 2 pm daily. By1985-87, the fertile ground had becomedeserted by continuous trawling. Dailyfishing became unprofitable andfishermen began to fish continuouslythroughout the night and the next day,and slowly long trips (stay fishing)became common. The boats now began tocarry 200 litres of fuel per trip, along withsome ice.

In 1987, the mechanized fishermen startedto feel the depletion of fish resources inand around Chennai due to thecontinuous ploughing of the fishinggrounds and changes in the bottomecosystem. Most of the fertile groundsbecame unfertile. In order to stay out atsea longer, the fishermen built onboardfish-holds to store the fish with ice.

Two-day tripsThey also carried one 140-kg block of icewith them, as well as extra fuel, stored inplastic containers. With these facilities,they started to go for two-three day tripsbetween Kalpakkam and the northernpart of Shriharikotta.

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With this system, the fishermencaught more fish, saved fueland spent more time fishing. At

the same time, boat maintenance costsincreased due to the continuous runningof the engine. The fishermen also foundthat the Andhra Pradesh coast has greaterpotential, which can be easily exploitedwith better facilities like larger boats,bigger fish-holds and more fuel. Theythus began to desire the big boatsavailable in Mangalore in Karnataka.Some of the fishermen brought these 40-ftboats from there in 1987. These couldcarry 1000 litres of fuel and 10 to 15 blocksof ice to stay at sea for three or four days,fishing along the Nellore coast of Andhra.The catch increased per unit effort. Soon,every fisherman in Chennai wanted tofollow this method. The fishermenstarted modifying their 32-ft boats into40-ft boats with engine capacity of 120 hp.

In 1990, the Central government pumpedmoney into the sector by giving 20 per centsubsidy for new boats through theNational Bank for Agriculture and RuralDevelopment (NABARD). This led to thesudden increase of 40-42-ft trawlers in ashort time. The boats had fuel tanks withcapacities of about 1,000-1,500 litres, andhuge insulated fish-holds under the deckto hold about 2.5-3 tonnes of fish. Extrafuel was carried in plastic containers andabout 3 tonnes of ice in the fish-holds. Oneimportant innovation was the fibrecoating to the outer sides of the boats,which provided more buoyancy andadded confidence to the fishermen. Withthese facilities, they started to go farther tonorthern Nellore and crossed PrakasamDistrict in Andhra Pradesh.

The 1980s was the period when the trawlfishery progressed remarkably andattained peak production of 23,953 tonnesin 1989. The threefold rise in the annualfish production observed in 1985-89,compared to the previous five-yearperiod, was due to the start of long-tripshrimp trawling operations off theSriharikotta-Nellore coast, which resultedin greater catches and catch rates than theshort-trip shrimp trawlers operating offthe Chennai and adjacent coasts.

In the beginning, the Andhra fishermendid not give any problem to the Chennai

boats. But the Chennai boats violated thelocal fishery regulation by operating theirtrawlers in the shallow waters anddamaging the craft and gear of thetraditional fishermen, who were evenassaulted at sea. This led the localcatamaran fishermen to retaliate. Theystarted to catch and detain the Chennaiboats, offloaded their catches andcollected fines. This resulted in regularlaw-and-order problems in the sea.

The Andhra fishermen claimed that theTamil Nadu fishermen had no right to fishin their waters, particularly in the notifiedtraditional fishermen’s areas. But theChennai fishermen claimed they werefishing in the deep sea beyond thetraditional fishing areas and were notdamaging the craft and gear.

The Chennai fishermen also argued that,as citizens of India, they are free to goanywhere to do business, and preventingthem from fishing in Andhra waters wasagainst fundamental rights guaranteed inthe Indian Constitution.

From 1993, the Tamil Nadu governmentstarted a solatium fund by collectingmoney from the Chennai boatowners.Each boatowner would pay Rs500 peryear to the government, who would givea compensation amount to any victims ofclashes between the Chennai and Andhrafishermen. After a few years, theboatowners found it difficult to pay theamount, and so they requested thegovernment to reduce it, which was done.They now pay Rs300 per year. Thisamount is meant only for those who areeither injured or have lost their lives inclashes, and not for the penalties soughtby Andhra fishermen who detain theChennai boats.

As the conflicts usually occur in Nelloreand Prakasam districts, the Chennaifishermen started to avoid these areas,even though the grounds are very fertile.They began to go further north and nowreach up to the Kakinada coast, with basicequipment like echo sounders, compassesand global positioning systems (GPS).

Not seaworthyMost of the boats are not certified forseaworthiness. Carrying about2,000-3,000 litres of fuel and 40-45 blocks

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of ice (weighing around 6,300 kg), theyspend about 10-15 days at sea.

In the 1960s, only Pablo-typemechanized boats of 26 ft in lengthwere introduced for bottom gill-nets,

and in 1965, the preferred size became 30ft. After that, fishermen started givingimportance to trawlers rather thangill-netters because of good shrimpcatches and good returns from the exportmarkets. Trawlers became dominantbetween 1965 and 1990. In 1980, thenumber of gill-net boats had declined toabout 10 to 15, compared with 500trawlers. Before 1990, the gill-nets wereoperated between Mahabalipuram andSriharikotta in the 20-50 m depth rangethroughout the year except during thenortheast monsoon season. The mainspecies caught were shark, ray, seer,carangid and tuna.

In 1990, seeing the improvement intrawlers with respect to size, catch andstorage, the gill-net fishermen also startedto convert their small boats into big size(42-ft or 12-m) boats and went forlong-trip fishing in distant places off theAndhra coast and earned good profits.At the same time, the catch of the 42-fttrawlers started declining. Since gill-netfishing is not as risky as trawling and alsogiving good profit, the attention of thetrawler fishermen was diverted to gill-netfishing. So in 1997-98, some of the trawlerowners converted their big trawling boatsinto gill-net boats for better profits. Allthe big gill-net boats have insulatedfish-holds as in trawlers and large fueltanks to store 750–1,000 litres of fuel.They carry 30 blocks (4,200 kg) of ice, anduse long gill-nets of about 150–300fathoms length (450–900 m), weighingabout 1–1.5 tonnes.

After the conversion to a larger size, thegill-net boats go up to Nizampatinam tocatch shark, ray, seer, carangid, tuna andflying fish. They go into deeper waters ofmore than 100 fathoms (300 m), about60-75 km from the shore. At present, morethan 70 gill-netters are operating from theChennai fishing harbour and nearly 20trawlers are being converted to gill-netboats. Alongside the gill-nets arelonglines with 200 hooks for shark,fished in the deeper rocky areas locallycalled maadai, where the trawlers also

operate for fin fish and squid. Since thetrawler fishermen are in the majority, theybanned longline fishing from gill-netboats.

At present, the trawlers operating fromChennai comprise four different overalllength groups, 9.5-10 m, 11 m, 12 m and13-14 m (the conventional 32-ft, 36-ft, 40-ftand 45-ft), with the horsepower varyingbetween 90 and 120. The vessels of overalllength 9.5-10 m and 11 m exclusivelyoperate fish trawls northeast of Chennai inslightly deep waters of 30-40m adjacent tothe rocky patches, whereas the 12-m anda few 11-m vessels conduct daily shrimptrawling trips in the coastal waters offChennai at depths of 15-30 m. Thetrawlers with length range of 13-14 m and120 hp engines are engaged in long-tripfish and shrimp trawling off Shriharikottaand Kakinada at depths of 15-30 m fordurations of 15 days.

When mechanized boats were firstintroduced in Chennai, there was nounion for mechanized boatowners. Later,they formed two associations and oneco-operative society. Both long-tripgill-netters and trawler boatowners aremembers of the Chennai-ChengaiBoatowners Association. The madaiboatowners have formed an associationcalled the Singaravellar BoatownersAssociation.

The Chennai Boatowners Associationsoon became the trumpet of the rulingpolitical party. That is one reason whyfishing regulations are not implementedproperly along the Chennai coast. Theother reason is that the Chennai fishingharbour is situated in the Royapuramlegislative constituency, where themajority are fishermen working in themechanized sector. Most of theAssociation rules favour its leaders andthe other large boatowners.

That is why most boatowners are notinterested in renewing their registration,paying berth charges or solatium fundsand taking out insurance on their boats.

Fishing holidaysTo replenish fishery resources, all coastalStates in India have been implementingfishing holidays of 45 days every year fortwo years now. But artisanal fishermen

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fish during this period with theknowledge of fisheries officials, whoknow that they are not doing anydestructive fishing like trawling. In TamilNadu, the fishing holiday is declaredevery year from 1 May to 15 June. Thoughthe boatowners realize it is good for thereplenishment of resources, they are readyto go fishing if there is no legal actionagainst violators. Evidently, theboatowners are not too bothered aboutmanaging the resources. They are nowclaiming compensation from thegovernment for the holiday period.

In an effort at self-management, theBoatowners Association has bannedmidwater trawling and molluscan conchshell (chank) fishing. It banned longlinefishing by gill-net boats, since they wereoperating in the same rocky grounds asbottom trawling. It banned outsidersother than Chennai, Chengai andKanchipuram fishermen. It banned theaddition of new boats. However, theAssociation has not banned shrimptrawling which is exclusively operatedvery near the coast, just opposite the rivermouth, using very small-mesh nets(semakkera net) and damaging the fishingground more than any other nets.

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This article is by B. Subramanian([email protected]), aFisheries and EnvironmentalConsultant based in Chennai, India


Documentary

Under the sun

A film recently produced by ICSF documents the plight of the transient fisherfolk of Jambudwip island in West Bengal, India

Jambudwip is a 20-sq kmisland in the district ofSouth 24-Parganas, inthe Indian State of WestBengal, in theSunderbans delta. Sinceat least 1955, Jambudwiphas been used as a base

for fishery operations and as a fish-dryingsite, mostly by small-scale, artisanalfishworkers. Behundi jal or stake-netfishery is the traditional activity practisedin different parts of the Sunderbans delta.The largest stake-net fishing operation inthe Sunderbans is based in Jambudwip.

However, this traditional source oflivelihood and sustenance is now underserious threat. It is being alleged that theseasonal ’occupation’ of the Jambudwipisland by fishermen and the fish-dryingactivity is a non-forest activity that cannotbe permitted under the Forest(Conservation) Act, 1980, without priorapproval of the central government. TheWest Bengal government has been askedto remove all traces of ‘encroachment’ onJambudwip island.

While the Fisheries Department of WestBengal has strongly defended thefishermen’s claim to the seasonal use ofthe island for their fishery, the State’sForest Department is bitterly opposed.The fishermen are now living in theshadow of uncertainty. Will theirtwo-generations old fishery be treated asan activity eligible for regularization orwill they be summarily evicted whentheir fisheries are dismissed as ineligiblefor regularization?

These issues are dealt with in thedocumentary film, Under the Sun,produced by the International Collectivein Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) anddirected by Rita Banerji for Dusty Foot

Productions. The film tackles the issuesinvolved in the stake-net fishery ofJambudwip. It traces the genesis of thestandoff between the fishworkers and thegovernment, and analyzes the processesthat led to the government action againstthe traditional fishworkers. It alsodocuments the response of thefishworkers, as well as the actions takenby the National Fishworkers’ Forum tohelp them regain their rights to the fishery.

Copies of the film (format: CD-ROM;duration: 36 minutes; language: English)can be had from ICSF for a suggestedcontribution of US$15 each. Please [email protected].

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This notice comes from the ICSFSecretariat ([email protected])


Minamata disease

Return us our healthy bodies

This excerpt recounts the harrowing tale of the methylmercury poisoning disease that struck Minamata in Japan nearly half a century ago

The next day in the library, I look forW. Eugene Smith’s 1975 photoessay, Minamata: Words and Photos,

which he coauthored with his Japanesewife. The picture that Jeff can recall soclearly is spread across two pages. Thelines are stark and classical. In the mannerof Mary cradling the crucified body ofChrist, a naked mother holds the body ofher half-grown daughter in a Japanesebath. The mother’s upturned hand, whichlifts the girl’s legs, is balanced by thedaughter’s downturned hand, which justbrushes the water’s surface. The motherlooks at her daughter with adoration. Thedaughter’s eyes are rolled skyward—as ifto God—but there is no light of awarenessin them.

Suddenly, the viewer sees how the fingerstouching the water are unnaturally bent,as are the rail-thin legs, and how in thecentre of the girl’s naked chest, whichfloats in the centre of the photographitself, there is a deep hole that is not awound but some kind of terriblemalformation.

The daughter’s name is Tomoko. She wasborn in 1956 and died two years after herportrait stunned the world, in 1977.

Minamata is an ancient city along theShiranui Sea in southern Japan. Sincefeudal times it has been a fishingcommunity, but now Minamata is mostlyknown as the birthplace of Minamatadisease, which is not a disease at all butsimply another name for methylmercurypoisoning.

Mercury is an ancient element. Calledquicksilver by Aristotle, it was namedafter the speedy planet by 6th Centuryalchemists who thought it possessed thepower to turn base metals into gold. Theywere wrong. But mercury does have the

power to speed up certain chemicalreactions. Which is how the cityMinamata and the element mercury cameto have a common destiny.

In the 1930s and 1940s, a factory inMinamata called Chisso beganmanufacturing acetaldehyde and vinylchloride—both ingredients in plastics. Todo so, it used metallic mercury as acatalyst, which was then dumped into thewastewater that entered Minamata Bay.In the spring of 1956, a five-year-old girlwas brought to the factory hospitalbecause her speech was slurred and hergait unsteady.

Not long after, her younger sister beganexhibiting the same symptoms. Then fourof her neighbors became delirious andstarted to stagger drunkenly. The directorof the hospital, Dr Hajime Hosokawa, wasalarmed. He reported to the authoritiesthat “an unclarified disease of the centralnervous systems has broken out.”Because of the clustering of affectedfamilies, Dr Hosokawa assumed he wasdealing with a contagious illness—thusthe label ‘Minamata disease’. Aninvestigation soon uncovered 50 morecases.

But three clues emerged that arguedagainst an infectious cause. Cats living inthe homes of stricken families hadmysteriously died. The affected familiesalmost always had ties to the fishingindustry. And the homes of the additional50 cases were scattered over a wide areaand not confined to any oneneighborhood. What united the victimswas a strikingly similar progression ofmaladies.

Black curtainFirst the hands and feet began to tingle.Then there was difficulty holding

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chopsticks. Words became “entangledand knotted” in the mouth. Eventually,hearing was muffled, and a black curtainfell over part of the visual field. In some,there was restlessness and a tendencytowards shouting. Finally, generalparalysis set in, the hands becamegnarled, swallowing became difficult,and death soon followed.

Once the investigation was underway, observations previouslyreported but subsequently

dismissed suddenly took on newmeaning. For six years or more,fishermen had complained about deadseaweed and empty clam and oystershells. There had been other ominoussightings, too. Floating fish. Seabirdsthat dropped from the sky while in flight.Paralyzed octopus. Dogs, pigs, and catsthat were seen to whirl about violentlyand then die.

Looking at all the evidencetogether—both medical andenvironmental—the study group issueda report in the fall of 1956 concluding,correctly, that Minamata disease was notan infectious illness after all but was aform of heavy-metal poisoning causedfrom eating fish and shellfish from thebay. Some kind of heavy metal wasgetting into the waters of the bay, and theevidence pointed to Chisso.

The release of this report revealing thecause of the mysterious disease shouldhave marked the end of a terrible story.Instead, it was only the beginning. Thelocal government opposed the studygroup’s principal recommendation—aban on fishing in the bay. At the sametime, Chisso, the only possible culprit,refused to change its practices. Instead, ithired experts to refute the evidence andinsist there was no proof to implicate thecompany’s actions as the reason for theproblem. Meanwhile, a universityresearch team announced it would studythe problem further.

At the end of almost four more years ofstudy, this is what the research teamfound: That cats fed fish from MinamataBay developed symptoms of Minamatadisease. That the Bay was highlycontaminated with methylmercury. Thatthe livers and kidneys of human victims

who died of Minamata disease containedhigh level of methylmercury. That the hairof living Minamata victims containedhigh levels of methylmercury. Thatworkers exposed to methylmercury in aBritish factory had very similar symptomsto the people of Minamata.

Chisso responded that it used onlymetallic mercury, not methylmercury,and, therefore, its wastewater could not besource of the problem. What Chisso didnot say was that its own hospital director,the same Dr Hosokawa who had firstnoticed the problem, had in 1959 inducedMinamata disease in cats fed Chissofactory sludge. This information Chissoexecutives kept to themselves. DrHosakawa—unlike Dr Kelsey beforehim—kept quiet, too.

During those same four year that theresearch team toiled on and the companydoctor held his tongue, the followingevents happened in Minamata: Chissodiverted some of its wastewater into anearby river and spread thecontamination further. Increasingnumber of babies began to be born inMinamata with what appeared to becerebral palsy. And the local governmentbegan advising abortions for all pregnantwomen whose hair levels ofmethylmercury exceeded 50 parts permillion.

The babies with cerebral palsy turned outto have congenital Minamata disease.Although they had never eaten fish fromthe bay, their mothers all had. Some ofthese babies were also blind or deaf. Somehad unusually small heads and deformedteeth. Some had tremors and were proneto convulsions.

Autopsy reports showed that those bornwith Minamata disease had moreextensive brain damage than those whocontracted the disease after birth. Notcounting these congenital cases, 29 percent of the children born in the mostcontaminated areas between 1955 and1959 showed signs of mental deficiencies.

Wastewater sludgeThen, in 1962, someone found a forgottenbottle of Chisso wastewater sludge sittingon a laboratory shelf, and researchersuncovered the critical missing link in their

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painstakingly constructed chain ofevidence.

The contents of the bottle testedpositive for methylmercury. Thisfinding proved beyond a doubt

what many suspected all along: that thefactory’s waste disposal practices weresomehow converting elemental mercury,a weaker poison, into organic mercury, aformidable one.

But if the research team supposed thatdemonstration of absolute proof wouldtrigger action, the joke was on them.Chisso blithely went on dumpingmethylmercury for six more years,stopping only in 1968 when its method ofmaking plastic materials becameoutmoded and new technology wasintroduced.

In the end, it was citizen activism andphotography, and not the slowaccumulation of scientific knowledge thatawakened awareness about the ecology ofmethylemercury. In 1969, 29 families fileda lawsuit against Chisso on behalf of thedead, dying and critically ill. Otherfamilies appealed to the government foraction.

Still others began direct negotiations withthe company, staging sit-ins outside itsTokyo offices. Protesters there werearrested and beaten, including Smithhimself, who was on hand to document

their activities. His photographs went outanyway, including one that showsTomoko being presented before a table ofdark-suited officials from Chisso, whilepetitioners demanded that the men look ather and touch her body. Her face wearsthe same fixed expression it did in thebath.

In March 1973, the Kumamoto DistrictCourt ruled in favour of the families. Itnoted in its verdict that Chisso had failedboth in it obligation to confirm safety“through researches and study” and in itsobligation to provide preventivemeasures “if a case should arise wherethere be some doubt as to safety.” In thefinal analysis, the court ruled, “no plantcan be permitted to infringe on and run atthe sacrifice of the lives and the health ofthe regional residents.”

In 1998, I found a translated thesis in thelibrary containing interviews with someof the original Minimata activists.Conducted many years after the trial’sconclusion and the payment of indemnity,they express continuing desire for a moreprofound kind of resolution.

Money nuisanceOne said, “[W]e most ardently long tohave the sea and the mountains returnedto us as they were beforepollution. Money is a nuisance, atroublemaker in the family and in thevillage...The other world in which we

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used to live should be brought back to ushere and now. Our hope, a very slighthope, is to bring the sea back...and aneven slighter hope is to return to us ourhealthy bodies of bygone days.”

The most recent forecast is that mercuryconcentrations in the bay are expected todecline to background levels by the year2011—more that a half century after Dr.Hosokawa first gave a name to Minamatadisease and then fell silent. Fish andshellfish in Minamata Bay were declaredsafe for consumption in 1997.

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This passage is excerpted fromHaving Faith: An Ecologist Journeyto Motherhood by SandraSteingraber, Perseus Publishing,Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2001


Fishing gear

Hook, line and sinker

The small-scale fisheries sector in Nigeria is characterized by wide variety of fishing gear

Nigeria is situated on the west coastof Africa between longitudes 2˚29’ and 14˚ 37’ east and latitudes

4˚ 16’ and 13˚52’ north of the equator. It isendowed with large bodies of marine,brackish and freshwater systems.

Nigeria has a coastline of about 583 km,which borders the Atlantic Ocean in theGulf of Guinea, a maritime area of 46,000sq km up to 200-m depth and an exclusiveeconomic zone (EEZ) of 210,910 sq km Thenarrow continental shelf, which is about15 km wide in the west and 27.8 km widein the east, covers an area of about 41,000sq km.

The brackish water systems, includingcreeks, estuaries and lagoons, representabout 0.48 mn hectares (ha). The shallowmaritime area covers 2.67 mn ha up to 50m depth, within which many of the coastalsmall-scale artisanal fishermen operate.

The freshwater bodies include the riversNiger and Benue, natural lakes like Chad,and manmade lakes like Kanji, Jiga andBakokori, as well as reservoirs and floodplains. The total area of inland waterbodies has been estimated at about 12 mnha. The small-scale artisanal fishery sectorremains the backbone of fish productionin Nigeria, contributing a minimum of 70per cent of the total fish production in thelast decade. In 2000, a total of 101,101fishing units operated by 283,292fishermen produced 325,100 tonnes offish.

The artisanal fisheries can be categorizedinto: (a) the brackish water or estuarinecanoe fishery operating in lagoons, creeksand estuaries; (b) the coastal canoe fisheryoperating usually within 5 nautical milesof the coastline, which is a non-trawlingzone statutorily reserved for small-scalefisheries. (Motorization allows some of

the operators to venture farther into thesea, up to 50-m depth.); (c) the freshwatercanoe fisheries in lakes, major rivers andtheir tributaries, and streams.

The mono-hull wooden canoes includedugout canoes (3–7 m in length), plankedcanoes (4–12.5 m), and planked dugout orhalf-dugout canoes. The latter are dugoutcanoes built up with planks on the sides inorder to increase the hull size and includethe large Ghana canoes (16–18.5 m long),which are motorized with 40 hp outboardengines. The other wooden canoes arelargely nonmotorized.

Apart from full-time fishermen, there arepart-time fishers who engage in otheractivities such as farming. Thousands ofNigerian fisherfolk migrate seasonallyfrom their villages to other fishingcommunities or settlements, both withinand outside the country, includingCameroon and Gabon. Fisherfolk fromother countries, like Ghana and Republicof Benin, have migrated and settled in afew coastal village since the early 19thCentury. Fishermen migrations also occurin inland waters.

The artisanal fisherman’s main wealth isin the fishing gear, which show a lot ofvariations from one location to the other.The many and various fishing gear typeswhich are used or employed by thesmall-scale artisanal fishermen in Nigeriaare highlighted below.

Wall of nettingThe large or massive watsa net with, smallmesh (10–50 mm), has enough length(500–1,000 m) and depth (up to 50 m) tosurround the shoal/school of fish from allsides and from below. It is usually fittedwith purse-rings and purse-lines tofacilitate pursing/closing the bottom ofthe net. An impenetrable wall of netting is

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allowed to sink rapidly around a shoal offish, after which the bottom edge isclosed.

The net is operated by a crew of 12-16 fishermen on board the largeGhana canoe to catch

pelagic/surface or midwater fish speciessuch as the bonga (Ethmalosa fimbriata) andsardines (Sardinlla aurita and S.maderensis) in fairly deep coastal watersup to 75 m. The bottom of the net is closed,making sure it does not get entangled onthe seabed, and the fish scooped bit by bitonto the deck of the boat.

This is perhaps the most efficient geartype. The net surrounds large quantitiesof pelagic fish, and the landingsconstitute high-grade quality fishsuitable for canning. The gear’s efficiencydepends on the size of the net, the size ofthe fish shoal, the swimming speed of thefish, and the speed of the motorized canoeused during the fishing operation.Selectivity is very low (almost nil) as nofish is allowed to escape. Though thefishermen have the option to select thedesired fish size and release juvenile,young and immature fish, that is rarelydone.

A huge capital investment is required fornets and procurement of the large Ghanacanoe. Great professional skills are alsorequired for making nets and fishingoperations. The purse-seine net is one ofthe most complicated nets to operate atsea because of its huge size. ManyGhanaian fishermen and a few Nigeriansoperate the watsa small-scale purse-seinenets in the coastal waters of Nigeria tocatch bonga and sardines (called sawa).

The beach seine net is designed with twolong wings and a cod end fitted at thecentre or on one side of the wings. Thehead line ranges between a few metres(say, 200 m) to about 1 km or more inlength. The net is operated in shallowwaters (5–25 m depth) and very close tothe shore or beach. It is designed withenough depth such that the bottom/leadline touches the sea bed, in order toprevent fish from escaping underneath. Itis set in a semicircle in the water andmanually pulled or dragged with the aidof the towing rope attached to each of thewings. In the process, the cod end is

gradually drawn close to the shore and isfinally hauled out of water on to the beach.

Coastal beach seine nets are set during theday only. They are also operated fromwooden canoes 9-12 m in length. In over70 per cent of the operations, no outboardengine is used. The net targets mainly thedemersal fish species, including croakers(Pseudotolithus spp.), sole (Cynoglossusspp.), jackfish (Caranx spp.), shiny nose(Galeoides decadactylus), barracuda(Sphyraena spp.), moonfish (Selene dorsalis)and grunters (Pomadays jubelini). Beachseine nets without bags (50-120 m longand 3-8 m deep) are operated from thebeach or on board the canoe midwater orwithin a relatively calm body of watersuch as a lagoon, creek, estuary, lake orany other water reservoir.

While many live fish specimens arecaught, a few are in a semicomatose orunconscious state, and some are deadeither due to entanglement in the mesh ofthe wings or crushed by the weight of fishherded into the cod end. The efficiency ofoperations depends on the mesh size ofthe net and the size of the water body.

Lift-nets are rectangular or circularimplements which are lifted vertically outof the water from a submerged position tocatch fish or crab that get attracted abovethe net. The water is strained in theprocess.

The rectangular atalla lift-net is usuallyconstructed with a 10-25 mm mesh size. Itis highly selective for the pelagic fishPellonula ionensiis in rivers and lakes.

The circular crab gear (called garawa),which is baited with fish or chicken parts,is used extensively in the lagoons, creeksand estuaries. In some areas the crab gearis made of small conical bags to improvecatching efficiency.

Varying mesh sizeCast-nets are conical falling nets with leadweights attached at regular intervalsalong the perimeter of the cone. Thenetting material is monofilament ormultifilament nylon with twine thicknessand mesh sizes varying between 12 mmand 100 mm. For each net used in streams,rivers with shallow depths and in theLagos lagoon, the total stretched height of

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the cone varies between 3 m and 6 m.However, in estuaries and rivers withdeeper waters (over 9 m), the cone heightvaries between 5 m and 8 m. A typicalcast-net has a retrieving line of 4-10 m inlength and is attached to the apicalportion. In some cast-nets, the lead line istucked underneath and attached atintervals to the inner side of the net to formpockets for trapping fish.

For a good fishing operation, thephysique of the fisherman has tomatch the size of the cast-net. The

net is thrown on sighting a shoal of fish insuch a way that it opens and unfolds tocover the greatest possible area of thewater surface. Simultaneously, the net isallowed to sink to the bottom of the water,trapping some of the fish species andcatching others in the pockets. The net isleft in that position for three to fiveminutes before it is gently, but skillfully,drawn into the canoe with the retrievingline.

Cast-nets are also used by fishermen whowade in shallow waters of 0.5-1.2 m depth.Group cast-netting is also practised in theLagos lagoon mainly by the migrantBeninois fishermen. Eight to 15 canoes,each manned by at least two men, form acircle. The nets are cast simultaneously ineither a clockwise or anticlockwisedirection. In a few instances, two lines offishermen face each other and cast theirnets into the area between them, starting

from one end to the other. In such anoperation, the catches are shared equallyamong the fishermen.

Another type of gear is the conical netthrown/operated from the shore/canoeto cover an area of the water surface andallowed to sink and close in on the fish.The symmetrical net is constructed witheither rectangular panels or a bigrectangular panel is joined diagonally toform a cone.

The efficiency of this gear depends on (i)the size/area and volume of the net,which should match the physique of thefisherman; (ii) whether the designincorporates pockets or not; and (iii) thesinking speed of the net. The falling gearare often used both intensively andextensively in calm waters for a rapidsampling of the fish population.

Gill-nets constitute the most abundantsmall-scale fishing gear in Nigeria. Theyinclude the monofilament andmultifilament set gill-nets for demersalfish species in the coastal waters or inlandwater bodies; drift gill-nets for sardinesand bonga and shark, as well as theencircling gill-nets for sardines and bonga.(Trammel nets, which belong to the group,are rare; not only are they not sustainablebut they are also costly.)

Traps occur in various shapes andforms—pot-like, rectangular or

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cylindrical basket cages made of bamboo,netting material, cane or wire gauze.

The gura trap made of syntheticnetting material is cylindrical inshape. However, its lower surface

is wider than the upper surface. Each trapis provided with a mouth opening orentrance (with or without a non-returnvalve) and chamber(s) for fish collection,irrespective of the shape or the design orthe material used in the construction.

Catch efficiency depends on the size,mouth opening, bait type and leachingtime, tidal current and other factors. Suchgear retains the high quality of fishcaught. The pots or the closely knit baskettraps do not allow small fish to escape.

The stow-net is a conical bag made ofmultifilament nylon netting used in thesea, estuaries and lagoons to catch shrimpand small fish as well as brackish watereel (Ophichthus ophis). It is known as nkoto(in Kalabari), esik (in Ibibio), asuwe (inYoruba) and asu (in Itsekiri).

The trap has a rectangular mouth thattapers to the bag. The netting materialsurrounding the mouth has a biggerstretched mesh size (100 mm), withthicker twine. The netting material andstretched meshes are progressivelyreduced in size towards the bag, whichhas 3–10 mm mesh sizes and are made ofR300 tex twine thickness.

A very big stow-net, 30.5 m long with amouth opening 15 m wide and 4 m high,has been observed. The gear is fixedagainst the tide by means of anchors orstakes. When anchors are used, the gear isinspected once a day for shrimp caught,since the mouth and body of the gear areautomatically reversed with the changesof tide. However, when stakes are used,the trap has to be harvested just at thechange of tide, and the mouth of gearmanually reversed. Occasionally, thesmaller size of this gear can be towed bytwo fishers either wading in the shallow(1.5-m deep) water or operating from twocanoes. The stow-net is operatedthroughout the year but the best fishingseason is between November-Decemberand April-May.

At sea, the nkoto filter net is attached to amotorized plank canoe (7–11 m long and1.7 m wide) and towed by a 8–15 hpoutboard engine. The operation of thefilter net in the nearshore coastal waterconflicts with other small-scale fishinggear, which are damaged. Commercialfish species, including shiny nose, are alsogreatly impaired.

Barrier netsThe barrier-net, in its simplest form, is afence of bamboo and palm fronds erectedacross the channel connecting the swampwith the river at high tide, in order tocordon off the fish. At low tide, the fish arestranded and picked up by hand or

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collected in a basket from the mud.V-shape fences also form barriers acrossrivers, streams or creeks and are fittedwith one large iganna trap at the centre ofthe narrow opening for collecting the fish.

In hook-and-line fishing, a hook isfixed to a line only or to a line attachedto a pole. Many hooks fixed to many

secondary lines (snoods) are attached tothe main line. The longlines include the setlonglines and the drifting longlines, whichare used in the coastal waters, rivers, lakesand creeks.

Efficiency depends on size (hooks vary insize and are numbered from 1 to 20, withNo. 20 being the smallest), quantity andshape of bait (artificial lure or naturalbait), soak time and other factors. Apositive correlation obtains between hookand fish size.

Efficiency is also highly associated withthe feeding pattern of the fish and the typeof food as well as seasonal and diurnalvariations in feeding behaviour. Hookingwithout bait also occurs when the fish gethooked by their scales, gills, fins or otherappendages. Hausa fishermen useunbaited bottom-set marimari or mamarilonglines to catch soft and scaleless fishsuch as Clarias spp.

Spears are used mostly in rivers andcreeks for killing, wounding or grapplingwith fish. They have metallic heads andare used extensively at night with torches,flares and hunters’ carbide lamps to catchlarge fishes, such as Lates niloticus,Gymnarchus sp. and Chrysichthysnigrodigitatus. In some cases, spears,matchets and axes are used along withother types of fishing gear, such as lines,gill-nets and traps. They are usedthroughout the year but mostly in the dryseason between November and April.

The other miscellaneous fishing gear andmethods used in Nigeria includescoop-nets used to scoop up mechanicallystunned fish; gathering by hand; usingchemicals and ichthyotoxic plant poisons;and using hand grenades/bombs andlocally made dynamites, which aregenerally prohibited in Nigeria. The lattermay result in accidental loss of lives, whilethe former taint the fish and contaminatethe water bodies. In both cases, the fish,

including juvenile, immature specimens,are killed.

The artisanal fishing gear types with smallmeshes (25–45 mm) catch juvenileimmature fish and thereby inflict a greattoll on the populations of commercial fishlike the catfish (Chrysichthysnigrodigitatus). A minimum of 50-mmmesh size is thereby recommended inorder to mitigate against overexploitationof the resources.

Some of the gear types are usedthroughout the year, while others areseasonal. The gear performance andefficiency are influenced byenvironmental factors, including tidalcurrent and the lunar cycle, as well as thebehaviour of the target species.

The fishing practices or operationalmethods in the sector tend to belabour-intensive, with low technologicalapplications or minimal mechanicalassistance. The canoes are mainlynon-motorized. The total investment infishing gear, canoe and other accessoriesis generally low, compared to theindustrial sector. In other words, thesmall-scale fishery sector is characterizedby low capital outlay and low operationalcosts, with variable and low fishingproductivity, which generates lowrevenues.

The high costs of some fishing inputs, lackof subsidy or credit facilities plus highinterest rates have had a negative impacton the sector.

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This article has been written by B BSolarin ([email protected]),Nigerian Institute forOceanography and MarineResearch (NIOMR), Lagos, R E KUdolisa, Federal University ofAgriculture, Abeokuta, N OOmotoyo, Federal College ofFisheries and Marine Technology,Lagos, P E Lebo, University of Uyo,Uyo and E E Ambros, NIOMR, Lagos


Labour

Fishing for labour standards

The International Labour Organization is seeking views of revising standards on work in the fishing sector

At its 283rd Session, held in March2002, the Governing Body of theInternational Labour

Organization (ILO) placed on the agendaof the 92nd Session of the InternationalLabour Conference in June 2004 atGeneva, an item concerning acomprehensive standard on work in thefishing sector.

This is within the context of revising ILOConventions (binding for countries thatratify them) and Recommendations (notbinding, but providing guidance)adopted before 1985, in order to updateand strengthen the standards-settingsystem of ILO. The ILO Conventions ofrelevance to fishing were adopted in 1959and 1966, while the Recommendationspertinent to fishing were adopted in 1920and 1966.

The 93rd Session of the InternationalLabour Conference in 2005 is expected toadopt the revised standards in the fishingsector. It is proposed that the newstandard(s) would revise the existingseven ILO instrumentsfive Conventionsand two Recommendations that apply topersons working on fishing vessels. Theexisting Conventions concern minimumage, medical examination, articles ofagreement, accommodation andcompetency certificates, while theexisting Recommendations relate tovocational training and hours of work.

As a comprehensive standard, issueshitherto not addressed in relation topersons working on board fishing vesselswould be taken up, namely, occupationalsafety and health, and social security. TheILO also intends to provide protection forpersons working on both large and smallfishing vessels. The ILO believes that theobjectives of the new instruments shouldbe to extend coverage to reach as many

persons working on board fishing vesselsas possible; minimize obstacles toratification; provide a better chance forwide ratification; enable the provisions tobe implemented into practice; andminimize the risk of the Conventionbecoming outdated in a short period oftime.

The new standard would take intoaccount the provisions of the 1995 FAOCode of Conduct for ResponsibleFisheries and it would try to integrate thework of the ILO with that of otherinternational organizations concernedwith fisheries and the operation of fishingvessels. This, the ILO believes, wouldresult in the standard being clearlyunderstood and to be found moreacceptable not only by ministriesresponsible for labour issues but also bythose responsible for fisheriesmanagement and vessel safety, as well asfishing vessel owners and those workingon fishing vessels.

The ILO is circulating a questionnaireamong member countries to elicit viewson the content of a comprehensivestandard. Governments have beenrequested to consult with the mostrepresentative organizations ofemployers and workers before finalizingtheir replies to the questionnaire. Theyhave been especially asked to contributeto an internationally shared sense of whatshould or should not be addressed in theproposed new Convention andRecommendation.

Maritime fishingAccording to ILO, the seven existing ILOinstruments concerning work on boardfishing vessels set out their scope indifferent ways. Generally, they providethat they apply to vessels engaged inmaritime fishing in salt waters. Several

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provide exceptions or exemptions forcertain categories of fishing vessels (thoseengaged in whaling or recreationalfishing, or those primarily propelled bysail) or for fishing vessels operating incertain areas (like ports, harbours andestuaries of rivers). Some provide that theinstrument applies, in whole or in part, tofishing vessels of a certain size (measuredas vessel length in feet and metres, ortonnage) or engine power.

For the purpose of the proposedConvention, the term ‘fishingvessel’ is defined as any vessel used

or intended for use in the commercialexploitation of living marine resources,including mother ships and any othervessels directly engaged in fishingoperations.

Many States regulate some aspects ofconditions of work on board fishingvessels according to the area of operationof the vessel. Rather than depend onnebulous categories like ‘coastal’,‘inshore’, ‘offshore’, ‘small-scale’ and‘artisanal’ to delimit the area ofoperations, the ILO is trying to improveclarity in the use of terms concerning thearea of operation. In its questionnaire itproposes five areas of operation: (a)vessels engaged in fishing operations inthe high seas and in waters other thanthose of the flag State; (b) vessels engagedin fishing operations up to the limits of theexclusive economic zone (EEZ) of the flag

State; (c) vessels engaged in fishingoperations up to the limits of the territorialwaters of the flag State; (d) vesselsengaged in fishing operations up to threemiles from the baseline; and (e) vesselsengaged in fishing operations in riversand inland waters. It then seeks to know ifthe Convention should apply to fishingvessels in all these areas of operation orwhether it should consider the possibilityof excluding fishing vessels within, andbelow, the territorial limits.

If ‘areas of operation’ would not be anappropriate method of delimiting thescope of the Convention, thequestionnaire seeks the views on usingdifferent categories such as ‘fishing vessellength’, ‘tonnage’, and ‘time fishingvessel spends at sea’. It also includesquestions on whether the Conventionshould apply to all persons working onboard fishing vessels, irrespective ofnationality.

Views soughtThe questionnaire seeks views onprovisions concerning the minimum agefor work on board fishing vessels andwhether or not there should beexemptions. It also seeks to know if certainfishing vessels and certain types andconditions of work on fishing vesselsshould be prohibited for persons underthe age of 18 years. Under the category of‘medical examination’, the questionnaireseeks to know if the Convention should

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provide that persons working on boardfishing vessels should undergo initial andsubsequent periodic medicalexaminations, and whether theConvention should provide forexemptions from this requirement.

If medical examination is required, itseeks to know if a person should holda medical certificate attesting to

fitness for the work for which he or she isto be employed at sea.

The questionnaire section on medical careat sea seeks to know if fishing vesselsshould be required to carry appropriatemedical supplies and whether the fishingvessel should have on board a personqualified or trained in first aid or otherforms of medical care. It also asks ifcertain fishing vessels should be excludedfrom this requirement.

Under ‘contracts for work’, thequestionnaire seeks to know if everyperson working on board a fishing vesselshould have a written contract or articlesof agreement. It seeks to clarify thecategories of persons working on boardfishing vessels who could be exemptedfrom the provisions concerning writtencontracts. It also seeks to know whetheror not persons working on board a fishingvessel should have access to appropriatemechanisms for the settlement ofdisputes concerning their contract orarticle of agreement.

Under ‘accommodation and provisionson board fishing vessels’, thequestionnaire seeks to know if all fishingvessels should have appropriateaccommodation and sufficient food anddrinking water for the service of thefishing vessel and if there is any need forexemptions. Under ‘crewing of fishingvessels’, it seeks to know if States shouldtake measures to ensure that fishingvessels have sufficient and competentcrew for safe navigation and fishingoperations in accordance withinternational standards.

The views on the need for a provision forminimum periods of rest on board fishingvessels, in accordance with national lawsand regulations, is also sought. Thequestionnaire asks whether occupationalsafety and health provisions should coverpersons working on board fishing vessels.More specifically, it seeks to know if itshould be an extension of generaloccupational safety and health provisions,or an extension of maritime occupationalsafety and health provisions, or specificprovisions for work on board fishingvessels, or a combination of any of these.

Social securityUnder ‘social security’, the questionnaireseeks to know if all persons working onboard fishing vessels should be entitled tothe social security benefits applicable toother workers, and if the Conventionshould provide for the possible exemption


of certain categories of persons workingon board fishing vessels.

The questionnaire seeks to know ifthe Convention should providethat persons working on board the

high seas and distant-water fishingvessels should have labour conditionswhich are no less favourable than thoseprovided to seafarers engaged incommercial maritime transport, and ifsuch provision should cover personsworking on board other fishing vessels. Italso seeks to obtain views on havingprovisions for recruitment and placement,identity documents and repatriation.

Regarding ‘enforcement’, thequestionnaire seeks to know if theConvention should provide that Statesshould adopt measures to verifycompliance with the provisions of theConvention and whether or not anycategory of fishing vessels should beexempted from this requirement. Views ofrepresentative organizations are alsosought on including a provision on portState control. The questionnaire alsoseeks the views of respondents on theneed for including a provision in theConvention for consultation withrepresentative employers and workersorganizations, as well as representativeorganizations of persons working onboard fishing vessels in the developmentand implementation of national laws andregulations concerning conditions ofwork on board fishing vessels.

The questionnaire seeks to know if theproposed Recommendation shouldprovide guidance on (a) the types of workor fishing vessels that should not beemploying persons under the age of 18; (b)the content of the medical certificate andthe medical procedures to be followed forissuing it; (c) the content of the medicinechest and the type of medical equipmentor first-aid kit required to be carried onboard fishing vessels; (d) the content ofcontracts or articles of agreement for workon board fishing vessels; (e) specificationof insurance coverage for personsworking on board fishing vessels in theevent of injury, illness or death; (f)contracts or articles of agreements forwork on board fishing vessels; and (g)systems of remuneration, including thosebased on a share of the catch.

The questionnaire also seeks to know ifthe Recommendation should provide thatStates should have national laws andregulations concerning planning andcontrol of crew accommodation on boardfishing vessels; on providing guidanceconcerning standards of accommodation,food and drinking water. It also seeks toknow if the guidance on accommodationand provisions on board fishing vesselsshould make distinctions based on fishingvessel length, operating area, tonnage andtime spent at sea. Views on guidanceconcerning hours of work or rest periodsare sought, including the limits ofworking hours or provisions forminimum rest periods.

Regarding ‘occupational safety andhealth’, the questionnaire asks if theRecommendation should address theinclusion of fishing occupational safetyand health issues in an integrated nationalpolicy on occupational safety and health.The questionnaire also seeks to know ifthe Recommendation should includeguidance on social security provisions forpersons working on board fishing vessels.

Views are sought on the Recommendationincluding provisions concerningmaintenance by the competent authorityof a register of persons working on boardfishing vessels. Lastly, the questionnaireseeks to know if the Recommendationshould provide that coastal States shouldrequire, when they grant licences forfishing in their EEZs, that fishing vesselsconform with the standards of thisConvention.

This article is by Sebastian Mathew,Programme Adviser of ICSF([email protected])


ews Round-upStock meet

The Second WormalMeeting of the StatesParties to theAgreement for theImplementation ofthe Provisions of theUnited NationsConvention on theLaw of the Sea of 10December 1982relating to theConservation andManagement ofStraddling FishStocks and HighlyMigratory Fish Stockswill be held from 23to 25 July 2003 atUnited Nan nsHeadquqrters in NewYork.

The meeting isexpected to reviewthe implementationof the Fi h StocksAgreement, includingthe establislunent ofthe Assistance Fundto assist developingStates Parties.

Licensed to fish

Three East Africancoun tries-Kenya,Uganda andTanzania-havestarted issuinglicences in LakeVictoria to end the

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current crossborderfishing conflicts.

According toCaroline Mukasa, asenior economistwith the LakeVictoria FisheriesOrg~ation(LVFO~

districts along theborders have beenmandated to issue thefishing licences.

A report presented tothe East AfricanLegislative Assemblyby Osienalla, aKenyan-based GO,shows that about 115Kenyans have to datebeen arrested forillegal fishing inneighbouringcountries.

The WorldConservation (lUCN)says the conflictshave been sparked bycompetition for theNile Perch, which isin high demand.

Meanwhile, the LVFOhas helped Kenyanfishermen livingaround Lake Victoriato patent theircommercial lifeline,the Nile Perch.

Subsidy proposed

A local delegation inChile belonging tothe "Friends of Fish"group has presenteda new proposal onpossible approachesto improveddisciplines onfisheries subsidies tothe Negotiating

Group on Rules ofthe World TradeOrganization (wro).

Members of the"Friend ofFish"group include the us,Argentina, Iceland,New Zealand,Norway and Peru, aswell as d1ile.

After consideringprevious submissionsof the us and the EU,

All subsidies thatpromote overcapacityand overfishingwould be included inthe "red box".

The "amber box"would include allother subsidies thatdo not cause injury toother Members, andwould only occurafter other Membersreceive notification.

EU in Mauritania

The pre ident ofMauritania haratified a fisheriesaccess agreementwith Spain. Theagreement signed

with the EuropeanUnion gives SpanishFrench, Portuguese,Itaban, and Britishve sels access to fishtuna in Mauritanianwaters.

The agreement,promoted by theSpanish government,allows 39 vesselsbelonging to thenational fleet tooperate inMauritanian fishingground and willremain in force until2 December 2003.

Under the terms ofthe agreement, the EUwill help to set upcientific and

technical aspec fthe fisheries,includingsurveillance, to befunded out of the Ell420,000 annualbudg t uppli d bythe EU.

Trawl ban

Th environmentalagency of Brazil,Ibarna, has bannedcoastal trawling inthe north ast mStates of Piaw, CearciRio Grande do Norteand Pernambuco.

The regulations aimto reduce catches ofundersized fishthr ughindiscriminate use oftrawl nets.

They should alsohelp to protectmanat e that inhabitthe north a t coastand to reduce theincidenc of disputebetween fishermenusing manual trawlsand those usingmotorized trawl gear.

AMUDRA JULY 2003

Fines ofBRL70,000-100,000(uS$24,750-35,350)will be imposed forany breach inregulations,depending on theseverity of the offence.

Fishy warning

Local fish stockscontaminated withtoxins and a perilousdrop in shellfishcatches are signallingto millions ofJapanese that theirfavourite food is indanger. The percapita consumptionof seafood in Japan isaround 70 kg, amongthe highest in theworld.

Fears of mercurypoisoning have led towarnings aboutconsuming popularspecies, including thebright-red sea breamcalled kinmedai(alfonsin) andswordfish, both ofwhich are expensivedelicacies.

The other species thatare the subjects of thewarning includecheaper tuna andshark, and spermwhale.

The official warningis that the mercurycontent in the fish, at0.44 parts per million(ppm), can harmfoetuses.

Mercury poisoning,in the form ofmethylmercury,affects the nervoussystem and thesymptoms andcondition are similarto those found inMinamata, Japan's

SAMUDRA JUtY 2003

worst case ofindustrial pollution.

Can that duty

!hec~g industrym Spam 15 up inarms over the EU cutsin import duty oncanned tuna fromThailand, Philippinesand Indonesia.

Backed by their

French, Portugueseand Italiancounterparts,representatives arecalling on theEuropean Parliamentfor support to protectthe industry frommeasures that offeradvantages tothird-country imports.

The EuropeanCouncil's decisionallows 25,000 tonnesof cans fromThailand, Philippinesand Indonesia toenter the EU with a 12per cent tariff, from 1July onwards. Theprevious tariff ratewas 24 per cent. TheCouncil's ruling alsoallows a 12 per centincrease in theamount of imports in2004.

Some canners believethe Council's decisionwill open thefloodgates for morecountries to seek thesame privileges fortheir cannedproduction.

Pacific teuna

The European Unionhas just announcedthat three Europeancountries have wonthe right to fish fortuna off the PacificState of Kiribati.

Up to 23 Spanish,Porhlguese andFrench vessels willreceive a licence tofish for tuna in theKiribati fisherieszone, an areacovering 3.5 mn sqkm, following anagreement betweenthe EU and the islandrepublic.

The European vesselswill join the 1,200other vessels alreadyfislUng in the area for30 years, from Japan,Korea, China,TaiwaI\ thePhilippines and theus, reportsAssociated Press.

With half the world'scanned tuna supplycoming from thecentral and westernPacific, this oceanoffers an annual catchof around 1 rontonnes of tuna,valued at uS$2 bn.

Kiribati earns severalmillion dollars each~ear from fishinglicenses from Asiancountries, and wiilreceive uS$600,OOOfrom the EU for the

new licences for thefirst year of fi hing.

The EU is alsoinvestigating furtherpotential deals withother Pacific IslandStates, such as theMarshalllslands,Solomon IslandsMicronesia and 'Papua New Guinea.

Precious lives

Owners of fishingboats in South Africawill have to insure .the lives of theirere·w, under a newlaw that is currentlybeing drafted by theSouth AfricanMaritime SafetyAuthority (Sam a).

The move follows aspate of drowningsoff the South Africancoast this year.

So far thi year 16fishermen have losttheir lives, while, lastyear, 51 commercialfishermen who putout in small craftdrowned.

Owners wh do notcomply with the lawwill face heavypenalties. Theproposed lawrequiresdocumentation thatshows a level of basictraining, and will alsostipulate thatinsurance policiesshould cover casualworkers.

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%e river is witliin us, tIie sen is a[[a60ut us;'1Tie sea is the fad's eage a£So, thegraniteInto w/iidi it readies, the 6eadies where it tossesIts liints ofearfier adother creatiJJn:'1Tie starfisli, the fwrsesfwe cra6, the wfwfe's 6ackftone;%e poofs wliere it offers to our curiosity'1Tie more aeBeate a(gae ana the sea anemone.It tosses up our fosses, the torn seine!'1Tie sfwttered fo6sterpot, the 6ro~n oarJilna thegear offoreign aeaamen'1Tie sea fws maTUf voices,!Manygorfs anamany voices.

•

- fromDry Salvages, Four Quartets by T 5 Eliot

ICSF is an international NGOworking on issues that concernfishworkers the world over. It isin status with the Economic andSocial Council of the UN and ison itO'S Special List of NonGovemmentallntemaUonai Organizations. It also has LiaisonStatus with FAa. Registered inGeneva, ICSF has offices inChennai, India and Brussels,Belgium. As aglobal network ofcommunity organizers,teachers, technicians, researchers and scientists, ICSPSactivities encompass monitoring and research, exchangeand training, campaigns andacUon, as weii as communica'tions.SAMUDRA REPORT invitescontributions and responses.Correspondence should be addressed to the Chennai office.

The opinions and posilionsexpressed in the articles arethose of the authors concernedand do not necessarily represent the official views of ICSF.

SAMUDRA REPORT can now be accessed on ICSPS home page onthe World Wide Web athttp://www.icsf.net orhttp://www.icsf.org

Published byChandrika Sharma for

International Collective in Support of Fishworkers27 College Road. Chennal 600 006, India

Telephone (91) 44-28275303 Facsimile (91) 44-28254457E-mail: [email protected]

ICSF Brussels Office:Rue du Midi 165, 8-1000 Brussels, Belgium

Telephone (32) 2 - 5131565 Facsimile (32) 2-5137343E-mail: [email protected]

Edited byKG Kumar

Designed bySatish Babu

CoverFrom apostcard of Kumarakom Lake Resort

Photographs courtesy ofRolf Willmann, John Kurien, Nalini NayakMenakhem Ben-Yami, FFA, Nandakumar

News courtesy ofEast African Standard, FIS, EFE, IPS

AP, Business Standard

Printed atNagaraj and Company Pvt. Ltd., Chennai

SAMUDRA REPORT No. 35 JULY 2003

FOR UMITEO CIRCULATION ONLY

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