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Document Author(s): Allison, Edward H. , Ratner, Blake D. , Asgard, Bjorn , Willmann, Rolf , Pomeroy, Robert , Kurien, John

In the last twenty years, policy prescriptions for addressing the global crisis in fisheries have centred on strengthening fisheries governance through clarifying exclusive individual or community rights of access to fishery resources. With a focus on small-scale developing-country fisheries in particular, this article argues that basing the case for fishery governance reform on assumed economic incentives for resource stewardship is insufficient when there are other sources of insecurity in people’s lives that are unrelated to the state of fishery resources. The authors argue that more secure, less vulnerable fishers make more effective and motivated fishery managers in the context of participatory or rights-based fisheries governance, and further suggest that insecurity among fishers living in poverty can be most effectively addressed by social and political development that invokes the existing legal framework supporting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This perspective goes well beyond the widely advocated notion of ‘rights-based fishing’ and aligns what fishery sector analysts call the ‘rights-based approach’ with the same terminology used in the context of international development. Embedding the fisheries governance challenge within a broader perspective of human rights enhances the chances of achieving both human development and resource sustainability outcomes in small-scale fisheries of developing countries. This article is extremely useful to the impact of NWP inputs. It goes beyond a "devolution of rights" and beyond "rights based fishing" but as a pure governance issue and ensuring that having the right to fish is a human rights issue. It is felt that more secure, less vulnerable fisherfolk have more incentive to participate in saving fish stocks and therefore make more effective and motivated fishery managers in the context of participatory or rights-based fisheries governance.

Reviewer: Shreya Mehta

Publisher: Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Document type(s):

• Tool/methodology (e.g. legal analysis, value chain analysis, participatory methods, rapid assessment)
• Journal article

Star rating: ★★★★

Natural resource(s):

• Fisheries

NWP Principles - Nature

• Improved information and knowledge management systems - [Critical]

NWP Principles - Wealth

• Proportional equivalence between benefits and costs - [Critical]
• Promoted or developed economic strategies for natural resource management - [Relevant]
• Created a framework for better NRM choices - [Relevant]
• Strengthened markets and NRM market incentives - [Relevant]

NWP Principles - Power

• Procedural rights for all people, especially vulnerable or marginalized groups - [Accomplished]

Tools used

• Devolution to communities
• Devolution to local governments
• Other (Write In)

Solutions

• Governance/empowerment - [Communal]
• Environmental/productivity - [Communal]
• Economic/income generation - [Communal]

Additional Discussion Topics

• Governance - [External or structural policies that influenced success or failure]