Cabo Verde: small-scale fishers set out to sea ©FAO/Luis Costa

23 April, Rome - The Coastal Fisheries Initiative (CFI) has just finished piloting the Fisheries Performance Assessment Toolkit (FPAT) on 10 fisheries in what has been a five-year effort involving researchers, fishers and fish workers, the private sector and decision-makers in Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Ecuador, Indonesia, and Senegal.

FPAT is an indicator-based tool that employs a participatory process to measure the social, economic, ecological and governance performance of fisheries. It was developed by FAO through the CFI in collaboration with the University of Washington and Blue Matter, an independent ocean science consultancy.

Why do we need FPAT?

Managing a fishery means deciding who gets to fish, what species they can target, where and when they can do so, and how much of it they are allowed to catch in order to maintain social and economic benefits while keeping ecosystems healthy.

The consequences of those decisions have an impact on fisherfolk and their communities, the economy, and the environment, so it’s important that they be based on quality data and accurate information.

“We know that 35.4 percent of stocks assessed by FAO are overfished,” FAO Senior Fishery Officer Nicolas Gutierrez said. “And we also know that when fish stocks are managed effectively, they are able to recover.”

One of the reasons why some fisheries are mis- or unmanaged is lack of the human and technical resources to monitor and assess them. “This might happen due to a limited availability of data, which is where FPAT can help,” Gutierrez pointed out.

How does it work?

FPAT users start by collecting data through desktop studies, expert interviews, and workshops with stakeholders familiar with the selected fisheries. Then they organise and analyse the data using Fishery Performance Indicators (FPIs), which are based on the Triple Bottom Line of sustainability – community, ecology, and economy.

“Management can be unsuccessful if it leads to overfishing, but also if it doesn’t have community support, or if it’s unprofitable, or doesn’t lead to enough decent livelihoods,” according to Chris Anderson, Professor of Fishery Economics and Director of the Center for Sustaining Seafood at the University of Washington.

Using the FPIs results in a set of performance outcomes, which allows stakeholders to identify gaps and weaknesses and discuss possible solutions together.

“It is critical to involve as many stakeholders as possible in the process,” says Gutierrez. “Fishers, processors, exporters, scientists, managers all sit at the same table to score the indicators together.”

Lastly, the data that has been collected in this participatory way is uploaded into the FPAT App, which simulates the possible outcomes of different management decisions.

Blue Matter CEO Thomas Carruthers explained that the FPAT App “is basically a calculator for providing tactical management advice”.

“In the case of the grouper fishery in Cabo Verde, it generated an empirically credible working model, demonstrating a specific harvest strategy that you can implement today, which would for the most part lead to sustainable and productive fishing,” Carruthers said.

“FPAT not only provides a method to assess a fishery and find out what’s working and what isn’t, but it also informs managers about their options and the related trade-offs, which is a really powerful aspect of this tool,” Gutierrez added.

Feedback and scaling up

The feedback has been very positive: managers and scientists in the five beneficiary countries reported that through the FPAT process, they were able to identify the gaps in their data collection and analysis system and started to work on how to tackle them.

It also facilitated inclusive dialogues between researchers and fishers and fish workers: stakeholders from all the pilot areas reported that this was the first time they had all sat down to discuss specific fisheries issues and potential management decisions together.

FPAT should be part of long-term interventions and be disseminated and replicated in many languages. As well, efforts should be made to institutionalise it so that governments and fisheries organizations can take ownership and replicate it nationwide with minimum external support, Gutierrez said.

About the CFI

The CFI is a collaborative global effort funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF). It brings together fishing communities, international conservation organizations, governments, United Nations agencies and the World Bank with the goal of achieving sustainable coastal fisheries and conserving marine biodiversity in Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Ecuador, Indonesia, Peru and Senegal.

Related links:

FPAT e-learning course

FPAT factsheet

The CFI launches international FPAT workshop series