Spanish oceanographic boats to undertake studies

Phuket – During a two day meeting, six Asian countries mapped out detailed plans to address severe poverty of artisanal and small scale fishers and halt ecosystem degradation, emphasizing the need for participatory and sustainable approaches.

Coastal communities make important but often poorly recognized contributions to the food security and development of many millions of people. Funded by Spain, a four year regional programme for fisheries livelihoods implemented by FAO aims at building a base for positive change in the daily lives of fishers.

Concrete plans to be implemented during 2010, for each of the participating countries – Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Timor-Leste, Viet Nam – were officially approved during the first Steering Committee meeting in Phuket on 27 April.

The Spanish Ambassador to Thailand, HE Ignacio Sagaz, underlined the importance of results based project implementation by the countries and FAO, and reiterated Spain’s commitment to support artisanal and small scale fishery coastal communities in the 6 countries in order to address severe poverty and to halt “ecosystem degradation”.

Co-management
Co-management mechanisms will be promoted by the programme to increase the capacity of local institutions and people for a wide series of critical issues such as safety at sea, the quality of fish products and enhanced access to marketing chains.

Together with better micro finance facilities and sharing of knowledge, coastal families will be able to diversify and increase incomes.

Sustainable fishery resource management
Support to fisheries management and sustainable livelihood enhancement is urgently needed in order to support artisanal and small scale fishers, fisher communities, and entire coastal populations and economies.

“FAO urges countries to adapt an ecosystem approach and promote direct involvement of small fishers in participatory natural resource management, environmental protection as well as mitigation and adaptation to the effects of climate change”, stressed Hiroyuki Konuma, FAO’s regional chief in Asia.

To this end, the FAO implemented regional programme for fishery livelihoods, based in Bangkok, is looking at cross-cutting themes in the areas of environmental sustainability, resilience of coastal communities and gender mainstreaming.

Research
The representative from the Minister of Environmental and Rural and Maritime Affairs of Spain, Sebastian Fraile, offered the use, at no cost to the participating countries, of Spanish oceanographic research vessels to conduct exploration studies of sea natural resources.

Vast tracks of insecure and vulnerable coastal areas exist in the six countries and “Millions of people are dependent on an increasingly depleted and degraded resource, due to overcapacity, resource access conflicts, and inadequate resource management”, noted the FAO regional project manager, Josè Parajua.

The FAO programme has now established an office in each of the six countries, local staff have been hired, and national mechanisms put in place during the first quarter of this year, FAO said.

* * * * *

The First Regional Inception Workshop and First Programme Steering Committee meeting of the Regional Fisheries Livelihoods Programme (RFLP) took place in Phuket on 26 and 27 April 2010. Senior government officials of the six participating countries attended together with representative from the donor country Spain and FAO.

For more information, please contact José Parajua, email [email protected] , telephone +66 (0)2 697 4316