Resist Corporate Capture of
Fisheries, Build Sustainable Fisheries for the People
21 September 2012
Iloilo, Philippines
We, representatives of 32 organizations of traditional
small-scale fishermen and fisherwomen from marine and inland fisheries and
their advocates, from 15 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America met from
19 – 21 September 2012 in Iloilo, Philippines to discuss the destructive
impacts of globalization and to bring back traditional knowledge systems and
practices for sustainable fisheries that uphold the rights and welfare of
small-scale fisherfolk and all other oppressed and marginalized sectors of
society, and strengthen international solidarity.
Small-scale
fisherfolk feed the world. We are the backbone of the fisheries sector. We
contribute to local and national food security using traditional fishing
practices that take into account the sustainability of the environment for the
present and future generations. Half of us are women who take on the burden of
raising our families and providing food on the table.
But the
globalization of the fisheries sector has further marginalized small-scale
fisherfolk, pushing us into deeper levels of poverty and sub-human conditions.
Our communities suffer from the onslaught of neoliberal interests seeking to
maximize economic returns through profit and export and import oriented
production.
Large-scale
industrialized fishing fleets with their high technology to catch and process
vast quantities of fish for profits have polluted and destroyed our seas and
ecosystems. We suffer from poor working and safety conditions – on fishing
vessels, in aquaculture farms and fish processing factories. We struggle to
fight for our rights as we are displaced from our fishing grounds and our land
in the name of the environment and development. These problems are compounded
by the effects of climate change as mitigation and adaptation policies fail to
take on ecosystem-based fisheries that principally support small-scale
fisherfolk.
International
institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), along with governments
and multilateral institutions have promoted the corporatization and
privatization of fisheries and community resources. The World Bank-led Global
Partnership for Oceans, by proposing measures such as rights-based fisheries
that includes individual transferable quotas (ITQs) and similar systems, is
another mechanism for more systematic and intensified wholesale plunder of our
inland, freshwater sources and seas and resources in the name of blue and green
economy and sustainable development. The globalization of fisheries sector has
led to the disregard of our inalienable rights to life, land, seas and other
resources.
We stand for our inalienable
human rights and community rights to access fisheries resources, manage our own
resources through our traditional wisdom and to benefit from our resources.
OUR CALLS
1. We urge our national governments to strive towards achieving
national food sovereignty by abandoning profit and export and import oriented
laws and policies. We also call on our governments to put a halt on destructive development projects and to protect the interests of the poor and vulnerable
people.
2. We strongly reject structures of globalization,
including the World Bank and its Global Partnership for Oceans, and the World
Trade Organization (WTO), which have facilitated intensified plunder of our
seas in the last decades. We want fisheries out of WTO which has promoted the
privatization of our common resources through onerous trade agreements and
policies. We oppose the extension of market-based mechanisms to climate change
discussions and we push the international community to protect the fisherfolks
3. International institutions must be stopped from
developing programmes and policies that undermine small-scale fisherfolks. They
must recognize the important contribution of small-scale fisherfolk to food
security and more importantly food sovereignty and poverty alleviation. While we recognize that the draft
International Guidelines on Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries is a
step in the right direction, we maintain that the guidelines will not be
sufficient to promote the interests of small-scale fisherfolk unless they
address the structural challenges posed by neoliberalism and large-scale
fisheries.
4. We call on our fellow
small-scale fishermen and fisherwomen, fishworkers and vendors to organize
ourselves as we collectively struggle for our inalienable rights and promotion
of a genuinely sustainable, people-centred development framework at the
community, national and international levels. We act in solidarity with indigenous
peoples, artisans, peasants and unorganized workers to advance our advocacies
for food sovereignty.
OUR RECOMMENDATIONS:
1.
National and
local governments should adopt a people-centred approach to fisheries
management which recognizes and protects the rights of local communities to
control natural resources and determine their own environmentally and
ecologically sustainable fisheries harvesting and farming systems. The
processes must be transparent and participative to ensure the representation of
the people.
2.
Frameworks to
achieve sustainable fisheries must be in place which includes the promotion of
traditional and indigenous fishing practices and management of resources, the
dismantling of commercial fishing fleets and an overhaul of the unfair current
systems of fisheries production and trade that favour profits over people.
3.
National
governments must take steps to fulfil their obligations in international
instruments to recognize, protect and uphold our human rights, including our
social, economic and cultural rights as well as our native customary rights.
There must be mechanisms in place to ensure governments are held accountable.
4.
Strategies for adaptation
and mitigation for man-made and natural disasters contributing to climate
change must be hinged on the promotion and protection of small-scale fisherfolk,
and based on their proposals. These strategies should also protect and
safeguard our ecological systems. National governments must ensure the safety
and protection of Small-scale fisherfolk from the man-made and natural
disasters from climate change. Our national governments must also support
small-scale fisherfolk in the event of the disasters.
5.
Small-scale
sustainable aquaculture of local and indigenous species must be promoted and
large-scale unsustainable, industrial aquaculture rejected. There must be
improved regulation and support for aquaculture farms to reduce their
environmental impacts and reorient aquaculture from export and import based
policies to local market needs. National governments must take adequate actions
to provide financial support for small-scale fisherfolk and promote small-scale
fisherfolk organizations’ through which they can maintain they livelihoods.
6.
Society and
national governments in particular should recognize, protect and realize
women’s rights in the fisheries sector. Women should receive equal wages and
have equal rights to land and resources. They must have greater participation
and representation in various levels of decision-making processes and their
representative fisherfolk organizations should be supported in their
advocacies.
7.
Social
movements, civil society and networks among fisherfolk and their advocates must
be strengthened at the community, national and international levels. Effective
strategies for communication to strengthen our collective advocacies for
fisherfolk communities must be developed. And there must be support to build
the capacity of social movements to operate freely and autonomously in a
democratic system.
8.
Local techniques
and research which build the people’s capacity and improve their participation
and ownership in fisheries must be promoted.
We reaffirm our commitment to protect and defend the
rights to life and livelihood of fishing communities, promote sustainable and
indigenous fishing practices and strengthen fisherfolk organizations and
networks at various levels as we reject structures that trample on our
inalienable rights.
Resist
corporatization of fisheries!
Uphold fisherfolk’s
rights!
