The first, possibly ground-breaking, steps in a future hand-in-hand walk between NGOs and small-scale fishermen were taken at a meeting in Spain in late April.
The meeting in the Galician port of La Coruña, set off with a joint declaration urging EU decision-makers to set small-scale coastal fisheries “at the heart” of the upcoming reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), involved some 60 representatives for a long line of artisanal, or small-scale, fishermen’s organisations representing several nations and regions, as well as NGOs, many under the umbrella of the OCEAN2012 coalition.
The declaration was echoed in the opening remarks in a session panelled by Domitilla Senni of the PEW Environment Group – an OCEAN2012 founder member – Domingo Jimenéz Beltrán, a former European Environment Agency (EEA) executive director, and Brian O’Riordan of ICSF, The International Collective in Support of Fishworkers.
The La Coruña Declaration made it possible for the more than 70 signing parties to speak with as single voice to the EU fisheries ministers gathered for an informal meeting in the neighbouring fishing stronghold of Vigo May 4-5, but Domitilla Senni also underlined that now remained to be staked out where to go next in this new collaboration between artisanal coastal fishermen and NGOs.
Insiders also pointed out that the new Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki is personally interested in small-scale fisheries, implying “an opportunity for us”.
Much of the discussions centred on how to define what “artisanal coastal” really means, and it ended in general agreement on the “Elephant Syndrome” – hard to describe, but anyone knows what it is when they see it, and everyone knows what it’s not.
“We started our organisation’s work in 1986 by trying to find such a definition – and we failed”, admitted Brian O’Riordan.
The EU Commission has so far defined it by vessel length or how far off the coast such fisheries are performed, but the meeting in La Coruña generally agreed that a definition should rather focus on sustainability: artisanal fishing is sustainable fishing.
Some speakers also called for a regional outlook on how it should be defined: vessel length may be relevant in the Baltic Sea, but not on the Spanish fishing grounds.
Many of the fishermen voices expressed great concern about future “privatisation” of their business – i.e. a transition to the ITQ (Individually Transferable Quotas) system, an issue that was conspicuously avoided in the declaration.
“This is the kind of philosophy we’ve been fighting for 200 years”, said a Basque representative, bringing down the evening’s longest applause.
Brian O’Riordan added that the road ahead must also include the people in the artisanal fisheries working ashore, making it possible, often women – making nets and setting gear – as well as “the very important” women shellfish gatherers, not the least on this Spanish Atlantic coast.
O’Riordan also summed up the La Coruña declaration/meeting by stressing that a key issue will now be to find a way for artisanal fishermen to be represented both at the European and the regional level – “as it is now, they’re very scarcely represented at the EU level, and at the regional level hardly at all”, he said.
“… and when we’re represented, they don’t listen to us”, added sarcastically a Spanish small-scale fisherman representative.
The meeting was followed the next day – May 1 – by a popular field trip to neighbouring Malpica, a village where 80 percent of the population are involved in fisheries.
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FOOTNOTE: OCEAN2012 is an alliance of organisations dedicated to transforming European Fisheries Policy to stop overfishing, end destructive fishing practices and deliver fair and equitable use of healthy fish stocks. FISH was one of five founding members in June 2009; it has now 63 members, and is still growing.