In celebration of the upcoming International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture, 2022, November 24th will mark the release of a new online resource highlighting how small-scale fishers globally are engaging in environmental conservation and stewardship. Fishing communities and fisher organizations have long been leaders in a wide range of environmental conservation and stewardship activities, but this key role needs to be more widely recognized. FAO and Saint Mary's University (Canada), in cooperation with global fisher organizations and the Community Conservation Research Network (www.CommunityConservation.net), are documenting a wide range of fisher-led environmental conservation and stewardship initiatives around the world. The goal is to build awareness and promote dialogue on the role of healthy environments in contributing to sustainable livelihoods of fishing communities, factors of success in stewardship, and the role of governments and others in supporting small-scale fishers environmental stewardship. From November 24th onward, dozens of small-scale fishery experiences and success stories will be available online, on the SSF-Stewardship website https://ssf-stewardship.net/. These experiences, provided by fisher organizations and communities directly, demonstrate a broad range of activities in 30 different countries, and include collaborations with many local partners and support organizations. The stewardship initiatives range from actively protecting/restoring spaces or species in the ocean and freshwater, to local planning for the impacts of climate change, to developing and applying fishery management and ecosystem conservation measures. The initiatives are based on strong collaborations, traditional and local knowledge, and engaging in education, communication, outreach and advocacy. The compiled small-scale fishery experiences will inform a new guidebook on stewardship being developed for fishing communities, organizations and policymakers. The guidebook, to be released in 2022, will support implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication and contribute to the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
External Link: Fisheries | Stewardship in Small-Scale Fisheries (ssf-stewardship.net)