The fishers’ livelihoods in small-scale fisheries: a case study of a fish-dominated economy in the United Nations
Qualitative and quantitative social-science research has been carried out for many years. Painstaking case studies have examined how these communities operate, including the gender split of the workload; how much of fishers’ overall activity is fishing; how rights to fisheries are determined; cultural practices; catch processing; and how fish are taken to market. But you won’t find this information in the models. The authors of the project want to change this. Policymakers have to work harder to support this important sector now that numbers are beginning to come out.
The fishers in small-scale fisheries are people who do not have access to much capital who catch fish for themselves or sell it. Their health is key to several of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The models used to make policy decisions and economic statistics are often missing. The project’s researchers think that the marginalization of already-vulnerable people will only get worse if that doesn’t change.
We do not seek to dominate the seas. We seek to coexist. Small-scale fishing, with its low ecological impact, selective methods and knowledge passed down through generations, is a model of sustainability. This is a ‘blue economy’ that respects life.
In Senegal, the sound of the waves shapes daily life. Small-scale fishers like me supply the local markets with food from canoes in a context in which more than 280.2 million Africans are in some degree of food insufficiency. Around 500 million people depend on small-scale fishing.
Our future is under threat. Industrial overfishing scrapes our sea beds; coastal urbanization eats away at our workspaces; plastic pollution invades our nets; climate change alters fish-migration routes, erodes beaches through rising seas and destroys fishing nets in storms.
Women are the heart of the sector: they process and sell the catch. Without them, there are no fish on the table. They are invisible in public policy.
