ROUNDUP
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HUNGER AND PROVERTY
Committee on World Food Security
Faced with rising world hunger and unacceptable poverty and in response to calls for greater coherence and coordination, members of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Committee on World Food Security (CFS) have agreed on a wide-ranging reform.
The reform aims to make CFS the foremost inclusive international and intergovernmental platform dealing with food security and nutrition and to be a central component in the evolving Global Partnership for Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition. The CFS reforms are designed to focus the Committee’s vision and role on the global coordination of efforts to eliminate hunger and ensure food security for all. This includes supporting national anti-hunger plans and initiatives; ensuring that all relevant voices are heard in the policy debate on food and agriculture; strengthening linkages at regional, national and local levels; and basing decisions on scientific evidence and state of the art knowledge.
The new CFS will be inclusive. In addition to member countries, participation in the Committee will be made up of a wider range of organizations working with food security and nutrition from UN agencies like the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the World Food Programme (WFP), the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis and other UN bodies.
The CFS will also include civil society and non-governmental organizations, particularly organizations representing smallholder family farmers, fisherfolk, herders, landless, urban poor, agricultural and food workers, women, youth, consumers and indigenous people.
Participation will also include international agricultural research institutions, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, regional development banks and the World Trade Organization. The Committee shall also be open to representatives of private sector associations and philanthropic foundations.
Another important part of the new Committee is that it will receive advice from a high level panel of experts on the subject of food security and nutrition. This will ensure that effective solutions to ending hunger are based on scientific and knowledge-based analysis. http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/36446/icode/
O R G A N I Z A T I O N A L P R O F I L E
Lonxanet Foundation for Sustainable Development
Based in Galicia, in the north of Spain, the Lonxanet Foundation for Sustainable Development, (www.fundacionlonxanet.org), was launched in 2002. The name Lonxanet’ is derived from Lonxa’ the market where the first sale of fish takes place.
The overall aim of the Foundation is to involve artisanal fishers in human development, business and environmental projects, and resolve or reduce fishers’ problems through a systematic approach and within a sustainable development framework.
Today, the Foundation works with artisanal fishing communities and their organizations whose livelihoods are based on all kinds of aquatic ecosystems (sea, river, estuaries, lakes, etc.). Lonxanet is developing and partnering projects with Galician, Latin American and African artisanal fishing communities, but with global aspirations. Its work includes an innovative approach to establishing marine reserves for fishing (icsf.net/icsf2006/uploads
http://www.icsf.net/icsf2006/uploads/publications/samudra/pdf/english/issue_53/art04.pdf). The Foundation is a founder member of Recopades, a network of fishing community organizations across Latin America and Spain.
The Foundation wishes that artisanal fishermen and women lead dignified and sustainable lives, with a pride in their profession and culture, and be recognized as caretakers of the sea and custodians of the various aquatic ecosystems where they work, which are the heritage of all humanity.
The mission of the Foundation is to valorize and spread good practices as developed by artisanal fishing organizations through civil society, political, and scientific communities so as to highlight the efforts and contributions of artisanal fishers towards achieving a more sustainable world.
The Lonxanet Foundation is the major shareholder in Lonxanet Directo SL, a socially responsible company that distributes fresh Galician fisheries products directly to consumers through the Internet. Consumers are guaranteed quality fresh fish, at a reasonable price.
Fishermen receive the market price (sold at auction) for their fish, plus a three per cent bonus. Fifty per cent of the profits are ploughed into sustainable fisheries projects undertaken through the Lonxanet Foundation.
It recently made a documentary film, Fishery Guardians’, which tells the story of seven artisanal communities in Latin America and Spain, who took up the challenge of sustainability to achieve a better quality of life for their people.
(www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8hM5BTfyw4)
RECOPADES, the Network for the Sustainable Development of Artisanal Fishing Communities, works for artisanal fishing communities through concrete actions and projects aimed at solving their problems. It was founded in 2004 by communities from Argentina (Puerto Madryn), Spain (La Restinga and Lira) and Uruguay (la Laguna de Rocha). (http://recopades.org/)
Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences
Ostrom, First Woman Nobel Economics Laureate
On 12 October 2009 the American social scientist Elinor Ostrom became the first woman to win the the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, better known as the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
Ostrom shared the Economics Nobel with Oliver Williamson, Edgar F. Kaiser Professor Emeritus of Business, Economics, and Law at the University of California, Berkeley.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited Ostrom for her analysis of economic governance, saying her work had demonstrated how common property could be successfully managed by groups using it.
Born on 7 August 1933, Ostrom, currently the Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science, and Co-Director of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University, Bloomington, is considered one of the leading scholars in the study of common-pool resources. In particular, Ostrom’s work emphasizes how humans interact with ecosystems to maintain long-term sustainable resource yields.
As the first woman to bag the prize in its 40-year history (the Economics Nobel was instituted in 1968), 76-year-old Ostrom has shown how communities can successfully manage common property or common-pool resources such as fisheries, forests, grazing systems, wildlife, water resources, irrigation systems, agriculture, and land tenure and use, among others.
An official press release noted: Elinor Ostrom has challenged the conventional wisdom that common property is poorly managed and should be either regulated by Central authorities or privatized. Based on numerous studies of user-managed fish stocks, pastures, woods, lakes, and groundwater basins, Ostrom concludes that the outcomes are, more often than not, better than predicted by standard theories. She observes that resource users frequently develop sophisticated mechanisms for decision-making and rule enforcement to handle conflicts of interest, and she characterizes the rules that promote successful outcomes.
Ostrom’s work shows that commonly owned resources can be preserved and managed by stakeholders as well asor better thanby governments or through systems of private ownership, like catch shares’ or individual transferable quotas (ITQs).
The conventional wisdom of management of common property resources draws on a seminal 1968 article by Garrett Hardin, titled The Tragedy of the Commons’.
Ostrom and four colleagues noted in a 1999 article in Science that Hardin concluded, from a look at fisheries’ history, that the users of a commons are caught in an inevitable process that leads to the destruction of the very resource on which they depend.
In an interview to the Editor-in-Chief of Nobelprize.org, the official website of the Nobel Foundation, Ostrom used the example of lobster fishermen in Maine, in the United States. In the 1920s, they almost destroyed the lobster fishery, she noted. They regrouped and thought hard about what to do and over time, developed a series of ingenious rules and ways of monitoring that have meant that the lobster fishery in Maine is among the most successful in the world.
There are many other small to medium-sized groups that have taken on the responsibility for organising resource governance, she added. We’ve studied several hundred irrigation systems in Nepal. And, farmer-managed irrigation systems are more effective in terms of getting water to the tail end, higher productivity, lower cost, than the fancy irrigation systems built with the help of Asian Development Bank, World Bank, USAID etc.
The day after she bagged the Nobel, Ostrom said, I think we’ve already entered a new era and we recognize that women have the capability of doing great scientific work. I think it’s an honour to be the first woman, but I won’t be the last.
For more, see:
newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/12185.html
nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2009/ostrom-telephone.html
W O R L D F O O D S U M M I T
Parallel Forum to the World Food Summit on Food Security, Rome, 13-17 November 2009
We, 642 persons coming from 93 countries and representing 450 organizations of peasant and family farmers, small-scale fisherfolk, pastoralists, indigenous peoples, youth, women, urban people, agricultural workers,local and international non-governmental organizations, and other social actors, gathered in Rome from the 13 to 17 of November, 2009, have united in our determination to work for, and demand, food sovereignty in a moment in which the growing numbers of the hungry has surpassed the one billion mark. Food sovereignty is the real solution to the tragedy of hunger in our world.
Food sovereignty entails transforming the current food system to ensure that those who produce food have equitable access to, and control over, land, water, seeds, fisheries and agricultural biodiversity. All people have a right and responsibility to participate in deciding how food is produced and distributed.
For the full text of the Civil Society Declaration, see http://peoplesforum2009.foodsovereignty.org/sites/peoples forum2009.foodsovereignty.org/files/Final_Declaration-EN.pdf
W E B S I T E
Fisheries and Fishing Communities in India
ICSF has just launched a new website, Fisheries and Fishing Communities in India’, indianfisheries.icsf.net
For India, with a coastline of over 8,000 km, an exclusive economic zone of over 2 mn sq km, and extensive freshwater resources, fisheries is an important sector. It provides employment for over 14 mn people, and contributes significantly to food security and the economy.
The new site provides an overview of the marine and freshwater fisheries sector in India. It provides information on coastal fishing communities and their traditional governance systems, on fisheries development and management, and on coastal issues. It also provides information on five specific themes: women in fisheries; labour; trade; aquaculture; and legal instruments, with exhaustive bibliographic references and links to online resources.
VERBATIM
Nature and religion are more intimately interfused in many indigenous cultures than in the West.
R E JOHANNES IN USE AND MISUSE OF TRADITIONAL ECOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE AND MANAGEMENT PRACTICES
INFOLOG: NEW RESOURCES AT ICSF
ICSF’s Documentation Centre (DC) has a range of information resources that are regularly updated (dc.icsf.net). A selection:
Videos
A Sea Change
A Sea Change is the first documentary about ocean acidification, directed by Barbara Ettinger and co-produced by Sven Huseby of Niijii Films. Chockfull of scientific information, the feature-length film is also a beautiful paen to the ocean world and an intimate story of a Norwegian-American family whose heritage is bound up with the sea.
Weather the Storm: The Fight to Stay Local in a Global Fishery
This 35-minute video, directed by Charles Menzies and Jennifer Rashleigh, and produced in Canada in 2008, documents the struggle of small-scale fishermen in France in the face of the storm of globalization.
The fishing communities on France’s western coast are determined to fight back. These small-town fishermen have launched a sophisticated and multi-faceted strategy to stay small and successful in the face of global competition.
The battle to save the oceans is often publicly waged between environmentalists and corporations. Yet this film gives voice to an important group who just may have the solutions we need: small-scale artisanal fishers.
Un Siecle de Lutte/Fighting to Fish
Adapted from Charles Menzie’s thesis Red Flags and Lace Coiffes’, this film uses animated archival images to tell the turbulent history of industrialization and resistance over the last century in the French fishing region of Brittany. The film illustrates the Bigouden fishers’ determination to defend their way of life through direct action within their borders.
Publications
Fisheries, Sustainability and Development
This Academy Blue Book’, published in 2009 by the Swedish Board of Fisheries, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry, describes global fisheries and aquaculture from the points of view of sustainable ecosystems, economy, trade and development
The main objective is to provide an overview of production and aquaculture, their natural conditions and their significance for economic development and people’s livelihoods.
This publication brings together contributions from 52 authors from academia, international organizations and public administrations. Special attention has been paid to fish stock conservation and to fisheries in developing countries.
F L A S H B A C K
Reserving a Role for Communities
Coastal fishing communities, threatened as they are by biodiversity loss and degradation of coastal ecosystems, have been demanding effective action to protect and manage coastal and marine habitats and resources. In several parts of the world, they have been known to take their own initiatives to protect and manage their resources, given the close links between their livelihoods and the health of the resource base.
Clearly, communities can be powerful allies in efforts for conservation and management of coastal and marine resources. Problems arise, however, due to conservation approaches with pre-determined agendas that serve to alienate indigenous and local fishing communities. The current target orientation in some countries to expand areas under marine protected areas (MPAs), while short-circuiting participatory processes, is a case in point. Not surprisingly, such approaches are proving ineffective from the perspective of both conservation and livelihood.
Empowering indigenous and local fishing communities to progressively share the responsibility of managing coastal and fisheries resources, in keeping with Programme Element 2 on Governance, Participation, Equity and Benefit Sharing in CBD’s Programme of Work on Protected Areas (Annex to Decision VII/28), would undoubtedly meet the goals of both conservation and poverty reduction.
For this, however, much work remains to be done in ensuring that provisions in existing international legal instruments supporting the rights of indigenous and small-scale fishing communities with respect to conservation initiatives, are reflected in national legislation, policy and practice. In particular, there is a need to recognize the traditional and customary rights of fishing communities to resources, as well their rights to engage in responsible fisheries, in keeping with the principle of sustainable use of biodiversity.
Communities traditionally dependent on the resource base must be seen as rights holders in decision-making processes. This means that the choice of appropriate management/conservation tools, objectives and plans, governance structures, provisions for community representation, and implementation and monitoring, should be decided in consultation with local communities, and the governance structure itself ought to represent the various social groups within the community, including women.
From Comment in SAMUDRA Report No. 48, November 2007
A N N O U N C E M E N T S
Meetings
12th Session of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) Scientific Committee, Victoria, Seychelles, 30 November to 4 December 2009.
COP 15 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference, Copenhagen, 7-18 December 2009.
The 16th meeting of the Scientific and Technical Review Panal (STRP) of RAMSAR, Gland, Switzerland, 22-26 February 2010.
The 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP15) to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Doha, Qatar, 13-25 March 2010. Among other things, the COP will focus on various trade control and marking mechanisms. Besides it will also consider trade in Humphead wrasse, Atlantic bluefin tuna, and conservation and management of sharks and stingrays.
WEBSITES
Safety for Fishermen
The Safety for Fishermen website is the gateway to information and material related to safety for fishermen. The website is hosted by FAO and managed by a selected group of experts contributing information and material on safety at sea in the fisheries sector.
http://www.safety-for-fishermen.org/en/
World Hunger
This new website from FAO provides the Hunger Report, The State of Food Insecurity in the World’. It offers statistics on hunger in different parts of the world, highlighted through an interactive world hunger map.
