R4D Fisheries

What's the catch? Considering an EITI for fisheries

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 05:51 GMT

Document Type: Briefing
Creator: Standing, A.

Production Year: 2011

Citation: Standing, A. What's the catch? Considering an EITI for fisheries. U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre, CMI, Bergen, Norway (2011) 4 pp. [U4 Brief, December 2011:18]

Summary: Lack of transparency in commercial fisheries has been a longstanding issue for those working to promote small-scale fishers’ rights in developing countries. It is a feature of the management of fisheries that many believe has favoured short-term interests of industrial fishing firms from industrialized countries, while contributing to mismanagement, corruption and illegal fishing. It is also emerging as a consideration for several governmental organizations. In 2010, the African Union organized a ministerial meeting on fisheries in Africa where transparency was highlighted as an important component of improving economic rents from fisheries, which experts suggest could potentially be USD 2 billion per year for the continent. The World Bank has also recently identified the issue of transparency in its lending and support for fisheries related projects in developing countries, while the FAO has identified transparency as critical for combating illegal fishing.

Diagnosis and the Management Constituency of Small-scale Fisheries.

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 09:07 GMT

Document Type: Working Paper
Creator: Evans, L.; Andrew, N.

Production Year: 2009

Citation: Evans, L.; Andrew, N. Diagnosis and the Management Constituency of Small-scale Fisheries. WorldFish Center, Penang, Malaysia (2009) 33 pp. ISBN 978-983-2346-74-6 (The WorldFish Center Working Paper 1941)

Summary: Diagnosis and adaptive management can help improve the ability of small-scale fisheries (SSF) in the developing world to better cope with and adapt to both external drivers and internal sources of uncertainty. This paper presents a framework for diagnosis and adaptive management and discusses ways of implementing the first two phases of learning: diagnosis and mobilising an appropriate management constituency. The discussion addresses key issues and suggests suitable approaches and tools as well as numerous sources of further information. Diagnosis of a SSF defines the system to be managed, outlines the scope of the management problem in terms of threats and opportunities, and aims to construct realistic and desired future projections for the fishery. These steps can clarify objectives and lead to development of indicators necessary for adaptive management. Before management, however, it is important to mobilize a management constituency to enact change. Ways of identifying stakeholders and understanding both enabling and obstructive interactions and management structures are outlined. These preliminary learning phases for adaptive SSF management are expected to work best if legitimised by collaborative discussion among fishery stakeholders drawing on multiple knowledge systems and participatory approaches to assessment.

Approaches and Frameworks for Management and Research in Small-scale Fisheries in the Developing World

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 09:02 GMT

Document Type: Working Paper
Creator: Andrew, N.; Evans, L.

Production Year: 2009

Citation: Andrew, N.; Evans, L. Approaches and Frameworks for Management and Research in Small-scale Fisheries in the Developing World. WorldFish Center, Penang, Malaysia (2009) 29 pp. ISBN: 978-983-2346-73-9 (The WorldFish Center Working Paper 1914)

Summary: Commonly adopted approaches to managing small-scale fisheries (SSFs) in developing countries do not ensure sustainability. Progress is impeded by a gap between innovative SSF research and slower-moving SSF management. The paper aims to bridge the gap by showing that the three primary bases of SSF management—ecosystem, stakeholders’ rights and resilience—are mutually consistent and complementary. It nominates the ecosystem approach as an appropriate starting point because it is established in national and international law and policy. Within this approach, the emerging resilience perspective and associated concepts of adaptive management and institutional learning can move management beyond traditional control and resource-use optimization, which largely ignore the different expectations of stakeholders; the complexity of ecosystem dynamics; and how ecological, social, political and economic subsystems are linked. Integrating a rightsbased perspective helps balance the ecological bias of ecosystem-based and resilience approaches. The paper introduces three management implementation frameworks that can lend structure and order to research and management regardless of the management approach chosen. Finally, it outlines possible research approaches to overcome the heretofore limited capacity of fishery research to integrate across ecological, social and economic dimensions and so better serve the management objective of avoiding fishery failure by nurturing and preserving the ecological, social and institutional attributes that enable it to renew and reorganize itself.

PN72 Final Report. Participatory diagnosis and adaptive management of small-scale fisheries in the Niger River Basin.

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 07:27 GMT

Document Type: Key Document
Creator: Béné, C.; Kodio, A.; Lemoalle, J.; Mills, D.; Morand, P.; Ovie, S.; Sinaba, F.; Tafida, A.

Production Year: 2009

Citation: The CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food, Colombo, Sri Lanka. 85 pp.

Summary: In a broad sense, analysis of "resilience" is about the capacity of systems to adapt to shocks, recognizing that disturbance and change are integral component of complex systems. More formally, resilience analysis proposes to focus on mechanisms and processes that help systems absorbing perturbations and shocks, and coping with uncertainty and risks. Defined in such a way, the concept of resilience thus appears particularly useful for the management of small-scale fisheries. However, while the resilience concept is appealing, particularly in the face of the failure of current management approaches, the danger is that it remains largely academic and theoretical, and not of a great help in effectively improving the way natural resources are managed on the ground. The challenge, therefore, lies in a pragmatic approach to operationalizing the concept of resilience and making its implementation on the ground practical and meaningful. In this project we propose a framework aimed at this objective and we test it in the specific context of small-scale fisheries in the Niger River Basin.

PN71 Final Report. Commune Agroecosystem Analysis to Support Decision Making for Water Allocation for Fisheries and Agriculture in the Tonle Sap Wetland System.

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 07:08 GMT

Document Type: Technical Report
Creator: Sellamuttu, S.S.; Samonn Mith; Hoanh Chu Thai; Johnston, R.; Baran, E.; Dubois, M.; Mak Soeun; Craig, I.; So Nam; Smith, L.

Production Year: 2010

Citation: The CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food, Colombo, Sri Lanka. 64 pp.

Summary: The Project on Commune Agroecosystem Analysis to Support Decision Making for Water Allocation for Fisheries and Agriculture in the Tonle Sap Wetland System was undertaken with the aim of improving fisheries considerations in the Commune Agroecosystem Analysis (CAEA) process undertaken in Cambodia, to facilitate better planning at the commune level. Under this project a number of changes were made to the CAEA tools and process and pilot tested in an adaptive, iterative manner in four communes - two that had conducted a CAEA previously and two that had not. Results and analyses indicated that the project had significantly strengthened the manner in which livelihoods, water resources and fisheries are now addressed by CAEA. The revised CAEA guidance manual has also shown potential for having wider uptake, and a number of tools have been used by several other projects within Cambodia.

Discussion Paper 17. Functions and forms of brokerage in the Malawi fisheries platform.

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:10 GMT

Document Type: Discussion Paper
Creator: Madzudzo, E.

Production Year: 2011

Citation: RIU 2011 Discussion Paper 17, 33 pp.

Summary: Making agricultural research relevant for development remains a challenge for development planning. The Research Into Use (RIU) programme has attempted to tackle this question and has identified the role of an innovation broker as key in creating a conducive environment to make better use of research, by building up networks of relevant actors. This paper examines the facilitation or brokering efforts of the RIU Malawi country programme in developing the fish farming sector of the country, specifically chambo fish production. Chambo is a major source of animal protein for the rural and urban poor in Malawi, but its production has been declining over the last 20 years. While it is too early to gauge the long-term impact of RIU initiatives in Malawi, this paper shows that the programme did not develop new technologies but facilitated a way of working together between private hatcheries, government departments and research organisations. According to the paper, flexibility in the roles performed by RIU Malawi allowed innovation to take place.

Policy Brief No. 40. CAADP and Fisheries Policy in Africa: are we aiming for the right reform?

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:51 GMT

Document Type: Briefing
Creator: Bene, C.

Production Year: 2011

Citation: Future Agricultures Policy Brief 040, April 2011, 8 pp.

Summary: There has been much talk in the last few years about how agriculture is key to both poverty reduction and economic growth. In Africa, the New Economic Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) launched the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) in 2003 with the objective to attract significant donor funding for a new push for agricultural development. Although fisheries are officially part of the CAADP, the sector has yet to demonstrate its capacities to contribute to the CAADP objectives. This brief reviews the main policy issues related to fisheries in Africa. It discusses in particular the current model (the so-called 'wealth-based approach') that is being proposed as the overall policy 'blanket' for the continent’s fisheries, and examines why this model may not be the most appropriate for African small-scale fisheries.

Fisheries ecology of spiny lobsters Panulirus argus (Latreille) and Panulirus guttatus (Latreille) on the Bermuda Platform: estimates of sustainable yields and observations on trends in abundance

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 05:10 GMT

Document Type: Miscellaneous
Creator: Evans, C.R. and Evans, A.J.

Production Year: 1995

Citation: Fisheries Research (1995) 24 (2) 113-128 [doi:10.1016/0165-7836(94)00367-6]

Summary: The maximum sustainable yield (MSY) of legal-size spiny lobsters Panulirus argus (Latreille) was estimated at 37 (±SE 7.7) × 103 animals by regression of catch per unit effort (CPUE) on total effort. A graphical plot of P. argus fishery catch and effort data for lobster seasons from 1975/76 to 1986/87 resulted in a second estimate of the P. argus MSY of 30 × 103 lobsters per season by a quadratic regression of catch on total effort. A graphical plot of catch on total fishing effort data for the Guinea chick Lobster Panulirus guttatus (Latreille), with a quadratic curve fit (R2 = 0.612), resulted in an estimate of MSY of approximately 33 × 103 lobsters per calendar year. The 1985 and 1986 fishery catches of Guinea chick lobsters were close to the MSY. There was an overall increase in the CPUE of P. argus lobsters (1975/76–1986/87), whereas there was an overall decline in the CPUE of P. guttatus spiny lobsters over the same time period.

The two species interannual patterns of change of CPUE followed that of sea temperature change on the Bermuda Platform; superimposed was a 5-year cycle of CPUE, which was particularly noticeable with P. guttatus lobsters, suggesting a causal relationship with a 5-year cycle in the annual mean temperature of sea surface waters, averaged from six temperature stations on the Platform. Annual yield of P. argus lobsters was correlated with Platform average sea temperature at the 10% level (Spearman rank test).

Both P. guttatus and P. argus yields on Platform sea temperature were parabolic in form. Platform CPUE of Guinea chicks on Hamilton Harbour temperature also suggested a parabolic relationship in the range 22–26 °C (coefficient of determination R2 = 0.43). There was clearly a parabolic association between P. argus CPUE and Hamilton Harbour temperature over the same temperature range (R2 = 0.93). It is suggested that the Lellis and Russell quadratic model for survival and growth of P. argus postlarvae may be extended to juvenile P. argus to explain these findings.

EU Agricultural and Fisheries Market Access for Developing and Transition Countries. Final Report.

Mon, 04 Jul 2011 02:51 GMT

Document Type: Miscellaneous

Production Year: 2000

Citation: Institute of Development Studies and Bureau Européen de Recherches S.A. 44 pp.

Summary: This report describes the characteristics of a trade policy analysis database constructed for the International Trade Department (ITD) of the Department for International Development (DFID) and the findings of an initial round of enquiries undertaken either with the database or as a result of its outputs. The objective of the project has been to assist the ITD to undertake a range of enquiries on agriculture and fisheries trade policy. With respect to agriculture, this has been particularly with regard to the implications of alternative EU positions on market access in the WTO Agreement on Agriculture negotiations for developing countries.

Liquid assets: community-based fisheries management in Bangladesh

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 02:33 GMT

Document Type: Miscellaneous
Creator: WRENmedia

Production Year: 2010

Citation: WRENmedia Impact Brief, WRENmedia, Eye, UK, 5 pp.

Summary: This case study describes the work of the community‐based fisheries management (CBFM) initiative. This initiative has developed a series of management approaches for ensuring equitable access to fisheries resources for community‐based organisations (CBOs), which has resulted in over 60 per cent of fishers in project areas experiencing significant increases in their fishing incomes.