the same is true for employment, as it is estimated that more than 260 million people<\/a> around the world work in the fishing industry. this number doesn\u2019t necessarily account for those who aren\u2019t employed as fishers but rely on sustenance fishing to feed their families. aquaculture and fisheries assure the livelihoods of 10% to 12%<\/a> of the world\u2019s population, or about 770 million to 925 million people.<\/p>\n if you picture huge industrial fishing boats \u2013 or the tv show \u201cdeadliest catch\u201d \u2014 when you hear the word \u201cfisherman,\u201d you\u2019re not alone. industrial-scale fishing tends to dominate how the western world understands fishing, but it doesn\u2019t reflect the reality for most of the world\u2019s fishers. small-scale fisheries employ 90%<\/a> of the world\u2019s capture fishers. adjust your mental image to include open-air fish markets, small fishing boats, and \u201cthe old man and the sea,\u201d and now you\u2019re closer to the truth. oh, and half the people in your mental image should be women.<\/p>\n women make up half<\/a> the workforce of the seafood industry (including both fisheries and aquaculture). because the fishing activities are often equated with capture fishing and most capture fishers are men, the number of women involved in the fish supply chain has typically been vastly underreported.<\/p>\n \u201cwe see some women are fishing, but they are certainly marginalized often because they don\u2019t often get on the boat, and that might also depend on some traditional beliefs \u2013 for example, that women are bad luck having on the boat,\u201d said nicole franz, a fishery planning analyst for the fao.<\/p>\n women do the majority of the post-harvest work in many small-scale fisheries worldwide, whether they are cleaning and selling the fish or repairing fish nets and boats. but carrying these responsibilities doesn\u2019t mean women always have access to necessary resources or to the markets, and they rarely reap the full benefits of their work.<\/p>\n \u201c(women) don\u2019t necessarily get the fair distribution of benefits within the value chain. if they\u2019re not organized, that\u2019s even worse. we see examples when you have a women\u2019s organization that can act as a trade group together then obviously they can demand higher prices and they\u2019re in a better position to access the market,\u201d franz said.<\/p>\n the fisheries department at fao works closely with women\u2019s groups, especially in africa and asia, to help support the rights and empowerment of women fishers. franz cites the recent establishment of a national women fishers\u2019 organization in tanzania as an example.<\/p>\n technology can make a critical difference in the fish supply chain, especially in terms of productivity and nutrition. in africa and southeast asia, it\u2019s common to dry small fish by placing them directly on the beach. access to something as simple as a drying rack can completely change how much a small-scale fishing community can gain from their harvest.<\/p>\n \u201ca small innovation like putting this fish on a rack rather than on the floor could make a big difference in terms of the product quality and hence the price, the nutritional qualities, and the overall volume that is produced by these women,\u201d franz said.<\/p>\n some traditional fish-smoking processes can cause respiratory illnesses among women and children who are exposed to the smoke. the fao is working on providing access to better ovens that allow women to work without health risks. usually, a country or an organization will make a request to the fao for better technology, and the fao will provide training on how to build, operate, and maintain the technology. this helps to avoid dividing the market, which is what would happen if some women were directly given the technology and others were not.<\/p>\n \u201cyou need to very carefully assess the situation beforehand and discuss with the women themselves a solution on how maybe as a group they can come up with a system where they take turns in accessing this oven or how they divide the benefits of the products that are coming from the use of this improved technology,\u201d franz said.<\/p>\n small-scale fisheries also are critically important to indigenous communities, from the arctic circle to the coasts of south america. as with women, it\u2019s difficult to track how many fishers are indigenous, but this is an area that the fisheries department of fao is beginning to dedicate more attention to because of how important fishing is to indigenous peoples around the world.<\/p>\n one of the main issues facing indigenous fishers is the recognition of access rights. customary or informal access rights are often disregarded when governments develop regulations and create fishing quotas. in the united states, the fish wars<\/a> were a notable series of conflicts between the washington state government and native american tribes in the 1960s and 1970s. the state government tried to enforce fishing laws that were in conflict with hundred-year-old treaties held by the tribes, and the u.s. government eventually sided with the tribes.<\/p>\n tribal governments and organizations can help people organize and assert their rights, and franz has noticed an uptick in organizing among young indigenous people, especially.<\/p>\n \u201cit\u2019s an expression of this growing awareness and interest to get organized, to get the voice into processes, and to see how the particular issues that indigenous peoples depending on small-scale fisheries are also facing on top of what already is often a challenge for small-scale fishers,\u201d franz said.<\/p>\n you may be wondering why any of this matters, since climate change is acidifying and warming our oceans, killing our fish, and driving people away from their coastal and island homes. but climate change only makes the need for fisheries-focused work even greater, because the people who rely on fish for income or food will be hit hardest. the role of the fao, then, is to figure out how to increase the resilience of coastal fishing communities.<\/p>\n \u201cwe have colleagues (who) work on climate change impacts on fisheries because obviously, in particular, coastal communities are very, very exposed, and the vulnerability to the impacts of climate change are considerably higher in coastal areas,\u201d franz said. \u201cthey\u2019re looking at the impact both on the resource, in terms of, for example, how stocks are shifting patterns based on the change of temperature in the sea, but also the impacts of increased climate vulnerability on coastal communities.\u201d<\/p>\n multibillion-dollar fisheries in the united states are threatened<\/a> by ocean acidification, which impedes the structural development of corals, lobsters, and other marine organisms. one state that is particularly threatened is alaska, the home of the nation\u2019s largest crab fishery. alaskans tend to rely<\/a> more on subsistence harvests than many other americans, so communities that rely on subsistence crab harvests are especially threatened by the changing ocean. thousands of miles away in the caribbean, ocean acidification is harming the coral reefs that are critical to the economies of florida, puerto rico, and the u.s. virgin islands. coral reefs bring in tourism, produce fish to be harvested, and reduce coastal flooding and erosion.<\/p>\n women and indigenous fishers are especially vulnerable<\/a> to climate change because their more limited rights and mobility make it harder for them to migrate when their current homes no longer yield enough fish. increasing their economic mobility and power in the market can make women and indigenous fishers more resilient to climate change.<\/p>\n destructive fishing practices and overfishing can transform ecosystems and reduce fisheries, sometimes to the point of no return. when there are few regulations over access to a fishery, resources become depleted and communities are devastated.<\/p>\n \u201cwhat we see often is that there are no regulations for access, and that\u2019s part of an issue in terms of environmental sustainability, because we see growing populations, increased pressure on coastal areas,\u201d franz said. \u201con the other hand, for many of these communities, fishing is the only way to make a living, to get food.\u201d<\/p>\n the presence of industrial fishing companies puts pressure on the already tenuous balance of access and protection. common resource management models include coastal zones that are reserved for small-scale fishers, quota systems assigned to a community or an individual, and co-management systems that allow governments to directly collaborate with small-scale and industrial fishers. but monitoring and enforcement is always a challenge for a government, which is a benefit of co-management.<\/p>\n \u201cit\u2019s about handing over, in many ways, the responsibility for the stewardship directly to the communities by generating a system in which they really recognize and value those management measures because they have co-designed them,\u201d franz said.<\/p>\n conflicts between conservation efforts and fishing communities are also a growing issue, especially since national or state governments may create marine protected areas without consulting small-scale fishing communities that will be affected. conservation has social costs, and just access to resources is sometimes overlooked in pursuit of environmental protections.<\/p>\n \u201cin fao, what we\u2019re using is the ecosystem-based approach to fisheries, which tries to look at the environmental, the human, and the institutional dimensions together to make sure that these tradeoffs and tensions are identified from the beginning, and that whenever management measures are decided or the use of an area is decided, this is kept in mind,\u201d franz said.<\/p>\n when negative impacts on the community are unavoidable, it\u2019s important to look out for them in other ways.<\/p>\n \u201cyou make sure that either there\u2019s a compensation mechanism or there\u2019s some kind of a safeguarding function to ensure that you\u2019re not having these unintended impacts afterwards that you haven\u2019t even thought about,\u201d franz said.<\/p>\n not all fish are harvested from the wild, which is a good thing since climate change and overfishing are shrinking<\/a> fisheries worldwide. aquaculture is responsible for about half<\/a> of global fish production.<\/p>\nempowering female fishers<\/h2>\n
technology as an intervention in fisheries<\/h2>\n
indigenous fishers and rights to the resource<\/h2>\n
climate change threatens livelihoods<\/h2>\n
the social costs of conservation<\/h2>\n
wild-caught vs farm-raised: the aquaculture debate<\/h2>\n
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