Fisheries Stock Exploitation Stock = (Family, Genus, Species) by FAO areas, max annual catch >= 1,000t and year count >=5 100 Crashed 80 Over exploited 60 Fully exploited 40 Developing 20 Underdeveloped 0 1950 1960 1970
Figure 3: Status of fish stock exploitation: 1950-2000 Source: Froese and Pauly (2003)
such as climate change and globalisation of fish markets, that can negatively affect the small-scale fisheries. In addition, over-fishing by SSF contributes to the problem in many cases. It is important to recognise that given the above external factors, solving the sustainability challenge for SSF requires coordinated, multi-faceted approaches that aim to improve fishery governance at a local level – so that coastal fishers are involved in developing, and thereby support fishery management measures – while simultaneously dealing with other fleets, and market and infrastructure issues to improve coastal environmental quality. An integrated approach is thus unavoidable.
Certain realities of SSF pose challenges but also provide opportunities:
■ Small-scale fisheries are relatively immobile and are closely tied to coastal communities. This implies that fishers may have few other livelihood opportunities and may have high dependence on the fishery resources. Such a situation can lead, at times, to over-fishing, but alternatively this can lead to stewardship over local fish stocks that are so important to the community. The key is to discourage the former and encourage the latter;
■ Small-scale fisheries benefit a very large number of people, and the recognition of this reality can make it difficult to reduce fishing effort when that is needed to ensure ecological sustainability. On the other hand, the labour-intensive nature of SSF also means that there is
less sunk capital – the capitalisation, and consequent debt payments, that seriously limit flexibility in industrial fisheries. Furthermore, small-scale fisher organisations can be drawn upon to play a constructive role in policy actions (Salas et al. 2007). It should be noted that the high levels of employment provided by SSF may well help to limit resource exploitation elsewhere in coastal areas. Again, an integrated systems analysis is required to properly recognise these interactions (Garcia and Charles 2007); and
■ Many small-scale fishing fleets are capable of depleting fish stocks and damaging aquatic ecosystems. There is thus a direct challenge both to the aquatic ecosystem and to economic sustainability. Moving to sustainable paths for the future implies improving the ecological sustainability of SSF. At the same time, SSF also provide an opportunity for environmental improvement, one that arises in comparing such fisheries with the major alternative, namely, fuel-intensive industrial fishing. Industrial fisheries are not only a threat to coastal small- boat fishers, as discussed above, but also contribute most
Type Good Bad Ugly Total
World total (US$ billion) 7.9
16.2 3.0
27.1
Table 2: Global fisheries subsidies Source: Sumaila et al. (2010)