APPENDIXES

A. Agenda

1. Opening of the Session

2. Adoption of the Agenda and Arrangements for the Session

3. Introductory Statement by the Chairperson

4. Review of FAO's Fisheries Research-related Programmes/Activities

5. Review of the Work of the ACFR Working Party on Small-scale Fisheries

6. Review of the Work of the ACFR Working Party on Human Capacity Development in Fisheries

7. Future Work of the Committee

8. Election of Officers

9. Date and place of the next Session

10. Any other Matters

11. Adoption of the Report

B. List of participants

Thabit Zahran Al Abdessalaam
Director
Marine Environment Research Center
Environmental Research and Wildlife Development Agency
P.O. Box 45553
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Tel. +971 6934658
Fax. +971 26817353
E-mail: [email protected]
(special observer)

Pedro Bueno
Director General
Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific (NACA)
P.O. Box 1040
Kasetsart Post Office
Bangkok 10903, Thailand
E-mail: [email protected]

Rognvaldur Hannesson
Professor, Centre for Fisheries Economics
The Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration
Helleveien 30
N-5045 Bergen, Norway
Tel: +47 55.959260
Fax: +47 55.959543
E-mail: [email protected]

Kwame A. Koranteng
Acting Director
Marine Fisheries Research Division
P.O. Box BT-62
Tema, Ghana
Tel: +233 22208048/202346
Fax: +233 22203066
E-mail: [email protected]

John Kurien
Professor
Centre for Development Studies
Ulloor
Thiruvananthapuram 695 011
Kerala, India
Tel: +91.471.2446989(home)
+91.471.2448881 (office)
Fax: +91.471.2447137
E-mail: [email protected]

Miguel Petrere
Professor of Fisheries
UNESP Department of Ecology
Rio Claro -SP 3526-4237
Brazil
Tel: +55 19 35264237
Fax: +55 19 35264245
Email: [email protected]

Gudrun Petursdottir
Director
Fisheries Research Institute
University of Iceland
Taeknigardur
107 Reykjavik, Iceland
E-mail: [email protected]

Michael Sissenwine
Director of Scientific Programs and Chief Special Advisor
National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration
National Marine Fisheries Service
1315 East-West Highwest
Silver Spring, MD 20910
United States of America
Tel: +1.301.713.2239
Fax: +1. 301.713.1940
E-mail: [email protected]

Meryl J. Williams
Chair, Board of Management
Australian Center for International Agricultural Research, and Executive Officer
Future Harvest Alliance Office
5 Lintang Pantai Jerjak
11700 Jungai Nibong
Pulau Pinang
Malaysia
Tel. +60 4 6591515 Ext. 1501
Fax. +60 4
E-mail: [email protected]

SECRETARIAT

B.P. Satia
Secretary of ACFR
Chief, International Institutions and Liaison Service
Fishery Policy and Planning Division
Tel. 0039 06 57052847
Fax. 0039 06 57056500
E-mail: [email protected]

R. Al Khafaji
Meetings Officer
International Institutions and Liaison Service
Fishery Policy and Planning Division

A.M. Defendi
Secretary, International Institutions and Liaison Service
Fishery Policy and Planning Division

FAO FISHERIES DEPARTMENT

Ichiro Nomura
Assistant Director-General
Fisheries Department

S.M. Garcia
Director
Fishery Resources Division

J-F. Pulvenis de Séligny
Director
Fishery Policy and Planning Division

L. Ababouch
Chief, Fish Utilization and Marketing Service
Fishery Industries Division

R. Grainger
Chief
Fishery Information, Data and Statistics Unit

H. Bage
Fishery Industry Officer
Fishing Technology Service
Fishery Industries Division

D. Bartley
Senior Fishery Resources Officer
Inland Water Resources and Aquaculture Service
Fishery Resources Division

W. Emerson
Fishery Officer
Fish Utilization and Marketing Service
Fishery Industries Division

N. Hishamunda
Fishery Planning Officer
Development Planning Service
Fishery Policy and Planning Division

J. Jia
Chief, Inland Water Resources and Aquaculture Service
Fishery Resources Division

H. Josupeit
Fishery Industry Officer
Fish Utilization and Marketing Service
Fishery Industries Division

A. Lem
Fishery Industry Officer
Fish Utilization and Marketing Service
Fishery Industries Division

E. Reynolds
FishCode Programme Coordinator
Fishery Policy and Planning Division

R. Subasinghe
Senior Fishery Resources Officer
Inland Water Resources and Aquaculture Service
Fishery Resources Division

H. Watanabe
Fishery Liaison Officer
International Institutions and Liaison Service
Fishery Policy and Planning Division

R. Willmann
Senior Fishery Planning Officer
Development Planning Service
Fishery Policy and Planning Division

C. List of documents

D. Opening statement by Mr Ichiro Nomura Assistant Director-General, FAO Fisheries Department

Madam Chairperson, Gentlemen,

Good morning and welcome to FAO headquarters and to the Fifth Session of ACFR. It is heartening to see all of you present at this session. Your presence here reflects your consciousness of the importance of your role to advise the Director-General of FAO and, through him, the international community, on aspects related to sustainable development of fisheries. I wish also to welcome Dr Thabit Zahran Al Abdessalaam, Director of the Marine Environment Research, Environmental Research and Wildlife Development Agency of the United Arab Emirates as our special observer to this Session.

Madam Chairperson,

This is too an excellent opportunity to stress that the achievements of your Committee were recognized by the FAO Committee on Fisheries (COFI) when, at its Twenty-Fifth Session, it adopted the FAO Strategy for Improving Information on Status and Trends of Capture Fisheries, which your Committee so actively crafted and promoted over the years. The Strategy was approved afterwards by the FAO Council in June 2003 and then endorsed by a Resolution of the United Nations General Assembly during the same year. Congratulations.

We look now forward to your continued guidance to ensure the effective implementation of the Strategy.

It is also important to recognize that the emphasis which your Committee has placed on the issue of small-scale fisheries resulted in the inclusion of this subject as a stand alone item on the agenda of the Twenty-fifth Session of COFI. The Committee on Fisheries strongly advocated that more efforts be made to support the small-scale fisheries sector, both inland and marine, and requested the preparation of technical guidelines on increasing the contribution of small-scale fisheries to food security and poverty alleviation. Small-scale fisheries will again be addressed at the Twenty-sixth Session of COFI in March 2005 with a view to encourage governments, other stakeholders and the international community to improve the environment in which small-scale fisheries operate. The outcome of your Working Party on Small-scale Fisheries during the intersession period has been reflected in the draft of the document that will be submitted to COFI. Copies of this draft will be made available to you at this Session, with a view to duly take into account your informed opinion on this subject in finalizing the document.

During the intersession, FAO has also worked to implement the major recommendations you formulated at the Fourth Session of ACFR. In this regard, the Working Parties on Small-scale Fisheries and on Human Capacity Development were convened. The preparation and organization of these meetings generated a lot of information, much of which is placed before you at this Session. The outcome of these meetings provided valuable background material for the Expert Consultation on the Role of Small-scale Fisheries in Poverty Alleviation and Food Security that was held in Rome from 5 to 8 July 2004.

I am pleased to note the active participation of Members of ACFR in all these meetings. Your Committee will have the opportunity to review during this Session the work that was done within the Working Parties.

Madam Chairperson, Gentlemen,

Allow me to refer to a very important and ongoing phenomenon. As you are aware, FAO and other international institutions dealing with renewable resources and the environment are facing growing pressure from some interest groups. In particular, these interest groups have a tendency to interpret or "spin" information to support their own views and to develop in the public and political arenas a dramatic perception of the state of world fisheries. By design or inadvertently, the information they spread often corrupts the communication landscape on which we operate. FAO has the responsibility to provide our Members and the international community, objective information and accurate description of the reality of the world fisheries situation, as far as we know it. Your Committee's advice on what strategies to adopt in the face of such negative and distorted media coverage would be most appreciated.

Madam Chairperson,

This is an important Session because you will undertake an exhaustive review of the work of the Fisheries Department and also address not only research but also policy matters for small-scale fisheries, as well as a strategy on human capacity development to ensure that critical gaps and emerging issues of the fisheries sector are appropriately addressed.

As you have a tight schedule, I will refrain from going into further details of these and other topics listed in the provisional agenda. The substance of your whole discussion will be conveyed to the Twenty-sixth Session of COFI to be held in March 2005.

I wish you a very stimulating and successful Session and hope you will enjoy your stay in Rome in spite of the amount of good work that you are expected to do.

Thank you.

E. Trade in aquatic products

The study on trade in fishery products and food security indicates that trade in fish is not harmful to food security. But it did highlight the negative impacts of increasing trade in aquatic products on resources. In aquaculture, these impacts likely arise from the need to be competitive and therefore resorting to "shortcuts" that impact on sustainability. In capture fisheries, these arise from neglect to manage the resources.

Further research on trade in fish should address the following problems:

• effects of trade barriers on trade flows and prices,

• importance of resource management on trade.

Tariffs affect the price that fish exporters get form their products. Tariffs often discriminate against products with high value added, impeding fish processing in fish exporting countries. Anti-dumping measures also affect trade flows and the price received by exporters. The magnitude of these effects needs to be investigated.

A further research issue is to find ways of increasing the value that producers get from trade and to give them incentives for better management of aquaculture and fisheries resources.

A further area of trade-related research is enabling developing countries to cope with health and food safety regulations and the requirements of environmental seafood labels.

A complementary research issue is the fragmented nature of the production units and the extent to which this prevents utilization of economies of scale.

Given the importance of safety at sea, studies should be undertaken to improve safety and working conditions of fishers and fishworkers.

F. Small-scale marine and inland fisheries: realms of transition

The ACFR appreciated the efforts made by the FAO to put small-scale fisheries back on the central agenda of fisheries development and management. This is a clear recognition of its crucial importance in the realm of fisheries most importantly in developing countries and also in several developed countries too.

There are many challenges before the fisheries sector in many developing countries in the context of small-scale fisheries development and management. A matter of great importance is that, in many countries, these fisheries are in a process of major transition. These transitions are fuelled by both internal factors (e.g. loss of rights, population growth) and external factors (e.g. market demand) factors. This situation throws up many issues that need further investigation and nuanced study and research.

These include importantly:

1. The need to highlight the relevance of small-scale fisheries to national economies using a menu of multi-criteria indicators that relate to matters of national priority. It is important that these indicators stress features such as foreign exchange earnings, employment generation, contribution to direct food security and poverty alleviation, etc.

2. There is need to investigate the role of collective action among small scale fishers which can alter the "power relations" and thereby ensure that their contributions are recognized and their problems are addressed in a holistic manner. The concrete manner in which this process of collective action can be articulated (unions, cooperative etc) should be investigated.

3. The governance of the fisheries sector with particular reference to the hard decisions that need to be taken to re-instate or introduce the concept of rights to the resource should be examined. The compulsions that lead to governments being reluctant to take these decisions warrant closer examination. The political, economic and socio-cultural factors, which vary across countries and regions, which may explain this reluctance, need to be studied.

4. The nature of market distortions, particularly at the lower end of the chain of custody of fish that are an important factor for small-scale fishing communities being unable to fully benefit from the fruits of their labour, warrant close investigation. The circumstances and the causes that lead to the emergence of these distortions as well as the manner in which they can be removed (collective action from below, enabling legislation from above, a combination of these) need careful study.

5. The increasing competition for coastal space by activities other than fishing has greatly expanded in the recent phase of globalisation. In the context of these competing claims, the small-scale fisheries always seem to loose out. The mechanisms by which their claims to access to the resources and space can be given adequate priority should be examined.

6. The nature of demographic and occupational transitions taking place in small-scale fishing communities and the varying impact (e.g., income, health such as prevalence of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus [HIV] aids, education) of this on the future of the small-scale fisheries sector.

7. The question of issues that directly affect the condition of the stocks, in particular overcapacity fuelled by a race for fish in open access, and its implications on sustainability of the resources need to be addressed.

8. Fishing is the most dangerous occupation with far reaching social consequence, especially in developing countries. Safety in the fishing sector remains a serious problem in small scale and artisanal fisheries. What are the factors that make fisheries dangerous, and how can small-scale fisheries be made safer? FAO has many years of experience in providing advice and assistance to improve safety at sea, and ACFR recommends that awareness of the issue of safety should be heightened, and that FAO should continue to provide assistance to improve safety and working conditions.

These issues require a two-pronged approach. The first deals with the development and implementation of sustainable programs to assess small-scale fisheries. These assessments need to address yield and product flow, welfare of participants including their safety, distribution of benefits, and efficiency (taking account of externalization of costs).

The second approach is to undertake case studies of selected small-scale fisheries. The case studies should be selected to address hypotheses about the characteristics of small scale fisheries that determine how they evolve and how well they perform in the face of change drivers (globalization, climate, technology). For example, case studies might be used to test the hypothesis that rights and collective action by participants in fisheries are necessary for small-scale fisheries to perform well. A secondary hypothesis might deal with enablers of rights and collective action.

ACFR recognizes that case studies are broadly important as a research tool. We suggest that an ongoing communication vehicle (e.g., traditional or electronic journal, database) be established for case studies in fisheries. In addition to case studies on small-scale fisheries, case studies on impacts of trade, response to climate change, performance fisheries with various types of rights, factors effecting safety in small-scale fisheries, and effectiveness of human capacity development programs, are examples where case studies would serve ACFR's priorities.

G. Aquaculture - how can species choice and domestication^[1] drive sustainable aquaculture development?

Aquaculture requires suitable, marketable species. The majority of the species used today in aquaculture do not even have closed life-cycles, requiring sourcing of seed from the wild or from parents captured from the wild. However, the majority of production comes from species that do have fully closed life cycles and, increasingly, from those which are domesticated or especially bred to improve their production under farm conditions. A question in decision-makers' minds is whether aquaculture will, or is, developing towards a typical agriculture sector model where production is based on a small number of key exotic, domesticated species, and the benefits and threats of such a development pathway.

The choice of species sets in train all the factors that will determine the long term viability of individual enterprises and the collective viability and sustainability of the sector, including whether domestication will be possible. The following questions arise once an aquaculture species is chosen:

• Where, how much and in what product form is the demand for this species and its products?

• Will the expected long term prices enable a profitable business?

• What types of production systems will be feasible and where?

• What types of feeds will be needed, where will they be sourced and, if aquatic product-based feeds are required, how will this impact on fisheries?

• What are the environmental risks: biodiversity, including genetic resources conservation issues, such as the need for exotic introductions, the threats to local biodiversity and genetic resources, and the needs of ex-situ and in-situ conservation?

• What are the food security implications of growing this species?

• From where will the seed be sourced and how? Has the life cycle been closed?

• Can this species be domesticated for long term deliberate adaptation of strains for farming use?

• What are the economic and food security trade-offs in species choice, such as between quick gains from introducing a known exotic species versus domesticating a native species?

• What partnerships and institutions are important in determining species choice and domestication, especially those between technical experts and the farmers, and the institutions for maintaining the tools and products for domestication (gene banks, breeding collections, etc.)?

• Would this species be alternatively or additionally suitable for use in stock enhancement or culture-based fisheries, and if so, in which ecosystems and with what safeguards for responsible stock enhancement?

As part of its ongoing aquaculture research and development program, FAO is recommended to examine the question of how species choice for aquaculture and culture based fisheries and the full domestication of aquaculture species can be used to improve the sustainable contribution that aquaculture makes to the future world fish supply needs. The study should also address the procedures and criteria, implicit and explicit, that are and could be used in species collection.

H. Sustainability of livelihoods and environmental fluctuations

Sustainability of fisheries has over the years become an increasing concern. In practice, however, it is not straightforward to apply the concept of sustainability to fisheries. The growth, reproduction and migration of fish stocks are heavily influenced by climatic fluctuations. These fluctuations operate on various time scales. Regime shifts that change the relative abundance of species in a given area are known to occur from time to time. On shorter time scales substantial changes in fish stock abundance and migratory pattern do occur. For most fish stocks it is probably undesirable or even impossible to stabilize catches on an annual basis.

The concern about sustainability derives largely and perhaps wholly from concern about the sustainability of the livelihoods of people that get their food and income from the sea. What needs to be looked into, therefore, is the potential threat to the sustainability of livelihoods that is posed by environmentally driven fluctuations in fish stocks and how this can be dealt with. This threat need not only lie in the fact that the abundance of fish stocks changes as a result of environmental fluctuations; it may also be the case that people in a given country are from time to time excluded from pursuing their traditional livelihoods because fish stocks change their migratory behaviour and occur in another country's jurisdiction.

A research agenda:

• How real is the threat to sustainable livelihoods posed by fish stock fluctuations?

• What are the areas or stocks where this problem is most severe?

• What are the remedies?

Potential remedies to this problem are presumably related to the flexibility and adaptability of the fishing industry and the opportunities available for the people who work there. Are there other stocks of fish available when one particular stock goes down because of adverse environmental conditions? Is alternative employment available when fishing must be curtailed? Are income insurance schemes needed, of a kind similar to crop insurance systems that deal with crop failures? Is there a need for closer cooperation between states in order to deal with changes in fish migration so that people can have access to fish stocks which are their traditional sources of livelihood but from which they might be barred temporarily?

A related research topic is the implications of fish stock fluctuations for the capacity of fishing fleets. It is highly likely that the variability in fish catches caused by climatic fluctuations will call for a fleet capacity that in some years is excessive because fish stocks are in a poor condition and in other years insufficient. Mobility of fishing fleets across national jurisdictions obviously has implications for this.