A series of illustrative narratives daylighting fisheries-related disputes around the world that identify drivers, actors, mitigation strategies and likeliness of increased intensity or frequency. Authored by members of the Fisheries Conflict Research Consortium, a research collective directed by Secure Fisheries.
A series of illustrative narratives daylighting fisheries-related disputes around the world that identify drivers, actors, mitigation strategies and likeliness of increased intensity or frequency. Authored by members of the Fisheries Conflict Research Consortium, a research collective directed by Secure Fisheries.
Sorry, the legend is unavailable. Please reload the story.
The legend is not available when the device is rotated to portrait mode after the story is loaded.
Sorry, the legend is unavailable. Please reload the story.
The legend is not available when the device is rotated to portrait mode after the story is loaded.
Fisheries Conflicts:
Saint Martin's Island, Bangladesh
Mr. Md. Ruyel Miah
Graduate Student, Department of Coastal and Marine Fisheries, Sylhet Agricultural University
Dr. Mohammad Mahmudul Islam
Researcher, Department of Coastal and Marine Fisheries, Sylhet Agricultural University
Saint Martins Island. Photo credit: Md. Ruyel Miah
Bangladesh is endowed with one of the most suitable territories for fisheries in the world as it has the largest flooded wetland and third largest aquatic biodiversity after China and India (Shamsuzzaman et al., 2017). The fisheries sectors of Bangladesh are divided into three major sectors i.e., inland open water fisheries, inland closed water fisheries and marine fisheries. The Saint Martin’s Island is the only coral-bearing Island of Bangladesh, situated close to one of the major marine fishing ground.
Geographical location of Saint Martin’s Island (Source: Hossain 2007).
The area of Saint Martin’s island is 600 ha and it is a dumbbell-shaped island highlighted by large areas of sand dunes and scattered mangrove (Islam 2002). The island is encompassed with plain land, intertidal zone, sandy shore, rocky shore, mangrove forest, algal bed, coral zone, fishing ground and wetlands and the resources in and around it include fisheries, coral and associated reef fisheries, seaweed and seagrass and mangrove forests (Hossain, 2007). Fisheries are the dominant livelihood strategy for the people of this island.
Status of Conflicts
Conflicts among different stakeholders in the Saint Martin’s island of Bangladesh according to local people perceptions.
The socio-economic situation of island dwellers is below par than the mainland communities., illiteracy is widespread. Most of the people involved in fisheries-related occupations. This island is a popular tourist spot in Bangladesh, thus tourism becoming a major economic activity. The government of Bangladesh declared it as an Ecologically Critical Area (ECA) in 1999 to address degradation biodiversity driven by because of high demographic pressure, tourism activities and building new infrastructure. This case study aims to discuss the status of fishery conflicts, the drivers and impacts that are happening among the stakeholder in the St. Martin’s Island fisheries (Table 1). In Bangladesh, the conflicts are arising due to inequitable power relations, structural injustices and institutional failures, changing government priorities and rules that govern the fishery (Islam, Shamsuzzaman, & Rahman, n.d.).
Drivers of Conflicts
Interviews with local fishers revealed a number of drivers that spark conflicts among fishery stakeholders in the St. Martin’s Island fishery.
Reduced Fish Population: The fish populations around the island are declining slowly but surely. As the fish populations have decreased the fisherman started to migrate from one area to another for hunting fish that escalate conflicts with other areas fisherman. Most of the fishermen are small-scale fishers thus poor catch makes difficult to lead their life. Out of poverty and desperate needs, they do not hesitate to get involved in illegal activities to earn their livelihood. That situation leads to further degradation of fisheries resources and thus further contributing into diminishing fish population. Local fishermen opined that they are willing to accept the decision from the government if it is for their well being and regeneration fish population.
Keeping place of fishing trawlers. Photo credit: Md. Ruyel Miah
Weak Governance: The governance system of Saint Martin’s island based on some elite person and some political person from Teknaf (island lying 10 km south of the southern tip of Teknaf peninsula in the Cox's Bazar District) areas. There have only one Union Parishid and it consists of nine words. Chairman takes the main responsibility for the governance of that island discussing with nine word members. People from that island said that the leaders do not consider the well being of fish and fisheries all the time, they just think about their own benefit and sometimes just obey the order of their senior leader. They also said that political leaders from Teknaf take decisions and deliver it to the chairman, who obeys their order. Thus, the governance systems are weakening gradually which substantially leads conflicts among the resource user.
Illegal Fishing: Government imposed restriction on some fishing gear which is destructive for the fish population. But some fisherman still now illegaly is using these destructive fishing gears to have a good catch. By seeing this other fisherman is also getting involved them too into illegal fishing. Thus, illegal fishing around the island is generating multiple conflicts among and with the local fisherman. They also said that restriction from government should be obeyed by all the fisherman then the conflicts will be minimized within the community. Increased fishing pressure: Fishing pressure are increasing gradually and contributing in destruction of fish biodiversity. Deep sea fishing production is going down due to reduced catch hence large scale commercial fishing take place within 40 m depth area. People from other areas such as Cox’s Bazar, Chittagong and Myanmar perform fishing activities along with local fisherman around this small island.
A local fisherman said that -
“The fisherman from Cox’s Bazar areas is coming into this area with large trawler and modern equipment to catch fish very often. They torture local fisherman and take their fish by force, make them injured, cut their net into pieces and sometimes take their net too.”
Maritime Crime: Different types of crime are taking place in the Saint Martin’s island areas such as piracy, human trafficking, fishing by explosive and fishing by destroying coral reef. Some fishermen are losing hope for fishing due to maritime crime over small scale fisherman.
One of the effected victims said that -
“Pirates take my all fishes, net and food when I was fishing within the 40m depth of this island. They not only take my catch but they also physically tortured tightening me by a rope and I was almost died but Allah (God) saved my life sending a small boy from another trawler.”
Political Marginalization: Most of the state benefits for island people are getting by politically active person who have muscle power and linkup with higher authority. Politically active person get escape from the eye of authority in case of illegal activity or any crime. Government enforced rules and regulations but it implemented just over the small scale and weak fisherman who have no connection with politics and not for muscle man. The leaders of local organizations regarding fishing are controlled by political person who have very little connection with fishing activities.
Foreign Fishing: Fishing by foreign fisherman frequently occurred in the Bangladesh waters especially around the Saint Martin’s island as it is close to Myanmar. They come into Bangladesh waters with modern equipped fishing gear and harvest fish. This kind of activity make conflicts between two nations and the local stakeholder suffers most. Sometimes it happens that when foreign fishing trawler caught by coast guard of Bangladesh they give their identity as refugee.
A local fisherman is also opining that -
“Fisherman from Myanmer (Neighboring country) frequently come into Bangladesh waters and harvest fish illegally avoiding the eye of coast guard. Sometimes they torture local fisherman and take their fish and net”.
Monofilament Current Jhal. Photo credit: Md. Ruyel Miah
Multiple Scales of Fishing Operations: There are two main types of fishing operations occur around the Saint Martin’s island i.e. Small scale fishing and large scale fishing. Small scale fishing performs within the 40m depth and large scale fishing outside of the 40m depth. Research found that deep sea fishing are declining in the sea hence large scale fishing taking place within 40m depth. That is making conflicts with small scale fisherman and increasing fishing pressure as.
One of the respondents said that -
“Fishing in deep sea is not good due to lack of modern equipment and the big trawlers are come into the coastal areas to catch fish. In the coastal areas they do not think about the small scale fisherman’s condition.”
Tourism: Saint Martin is the only coral island of Bangladesh and caught up into eye of tourists. Every day more than ten thousand tourists visit this island and eventually it creates many conflicts. Tourists like to make noise and bath in the shore areas which force the fishes to go away from shore.
One of the local fishermen opine -
“We do not find fish as much as we got 5-10 years before because of tourists are coming more and more into this island.”
Tourists stand on coral. Photo credit: Md. Ruyel Miah
Tourist are destroying coral reef which is the feeding, breeding and nursery ground for fish. They also collect coral as their memory from the island though it is prohibited by the government recently.
Another local fisher said -
“We are not allowed to dry fish in the beach areas because of tourism. To make more attractive the beach areas to the tourists, they restrict us to dry fish and it is difficult for us to make dry fish for commercial purposes.”
In addition, the tourists also perform some embarrassing activities which make conflicts with the fisherman and tourists.
An informer said -
“Some tourists especially the young get involved in some forbidden activities in the trawler which make embarrassing moment for them. If we go to protect them then a conflict arises between tourist and fisherman.”
Suggestions
Saint Martin’s island is blessed with lot of natural resources and it demands to be well preserved. The conflicts between different stakeholders need to be solved and the cooperation between them is indispensable. To do this at first we need a strong governance system which will ensure that nobody beyond the rules and regulations. Everybody should have to obey the laws and do their duties without performing any destructing activity. The more we will aware the better we can preserve this island. The conflicts between the stakeholders are discussed in the above is just a picture of a particular area of Bangladesh fisheries sector. More or less similar kind of picture will be found through the Bangladesh fisheries sector. A better management system and equitable distribution of benefits can retrieve from the present situation of conflicts in fisheries. Community be involved in every decision-making process to make it more flexible and more compliant.
Fisheries Conflicts:
Fernando de Noronha, Brazil
Dr. Priscila Lopes
Associate Professor, Departamento de Ecologia, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte,
Crystal clear blue waters, large colorful fish, plentiful sharks, and astonishing boulders that invite even the less inclined to give it a try and dive head first in this Brazilian archipelago in the middle of the Atlantic, known officially as Fernando de Noronha and jokingly, by the locals and insiders, as Inferno de Neuronha or "Neurosis Hell”.
Noronha is an island of controversies from its beginning. After first being occupied by the Dutch and the French, the island became a correctional colony and military base. Later it was turned into a political prison until it became a strategic a military base during the World War II. At the end of the Brazilian military dictatorship, it became a district of Pernambuco State, although it lied almost 400 km from Pernambuco’s coast. By then, its civilian population relied already heavily on fisheries, who for the first time were being integrated with the mainland through tourism. Tourism was a double-edged sword: it promised potential financial gains, but it mostly delivered land grabbing, privatized accesses and inflated life costs.
But there was another road, which was eventually taken: the promise to keep their livelihoods if fishers and locals supported a Marine Protected Area, where fishing would be allowed in parts of the archipelago and closed in others, and tourism would be limited. The deal was topped with a gentlemen’s agreement: in the swell season, when the fishing area is swept by large waves, fishing could take place in the no-take zone. The year was 1988, one after the transition of the archipelago to civilian hands, when hopes were high and new deals were being forged on trust everywhere. The agreement worked relatively well, as park managers came and went, until 2000, when a new federal law regulating parks established clear directions about what could and could not be done: fishing definitely could not take place in a no-take zone. The first managers that followed the 2000 law still turned a blind eye to some eventual fishing in the no-take zone, especially if it was to catch baitfish, as most of the actual fishing happens offshore and target large migratory fish crossing the oceans outside the boundaries of the park. The honeymoon was over, but fishers and park managers kept their marriage going on shaky legs. As years passed, younger and eager managers started following the law to the letter, and the divorce was imminent.
Conflicts surged, with fishers being constantly fined and having their gear confiscated. While managers were following the law, fishers saw them as traitors that disrespected their past deal. As for today, more conciliatory managers have tried to break new official deals that include transitioning into alternative bait use and lures. A new generation of fishers, more open to innovation, is likely to adopt such changes. The lessons, however, are more about learning to communicate to find solutions together than to proposing top down alternatives or punishment.
Managing Fishery Commons at Marseille:
How a Medieval Institution Failed to Accommodate Change in an Age of Globalization
Dr. Florian Grisel
Research Fellow; Associate Professor, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; King's College London
Beginning in the 1720s, the fishery of Marseille (which was managed by fishers themselves through a special organization named the “Prud’homie de Marseille”, or the “Prud’homie”, faced a great challenge when groups of Catalonian fishermen progressively settled in Marseille. The reasons why these fishermen left Spain for France are unclear, but their settlement in Marseille was part of successive streams of migration that unfolded beginning in the late 16th century in an overpopulated Mediterranean Europe. In other words, the arrival of Catalonian fishermen in Marseille was a manifestation of the early globalization process that occurred in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The Catalans deeply affected the life of the Prud’homie in a context that was already challenging for the local fishermen: their finances had been gravely affected by the introduction of tuna traps (the “madragues”); the Prud’homie even had to introduce a tax on the sale of fish (the so-called “half share”) in 1725 to bring its finances back into equilibrium; and finally, the fishermen suffered heavily from the Great Plague that struck the neighbourhoods surrounding the port of Marseille in the years 1720–1722.
The Spanish fishermen quickly demonstrated their reluctance to abide by the norms of the Prud’homie. Therefore, the arrival of foreign fishermen in Marseille throughout the 18th century provides a useful case study of the invasion of a self-governed fishery by a group of defectors. The Prud’homie had great difficulty addressing this arrival and offered unclear policy responses that oscillated between the exclusion and assimilation of these newcomers. The rivalry between two clans of fishers arguably led to the overexploitation of the fishery resources.
CEO, I.R. Consilium; Maritime Crime Expert, UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
In late April and early May 2018, between 15 and 20 fishermen were massacred off the coast of Suriname and French Guiana. While some of the attackers were resident in Suriname, the majority of both the attackers and victims were Guyanese nationals. This spectacularly violent incident, straddling several countries, stands in contrast to years of piracy off the Horn of Africa, the Gulf of Guinea, the Straits of Malacca, and the Sulu and Celebes Seas where, while violent, pirates have been more interested in money or oil than killing people. Furthermore, this incident is part of a wider phenomenon in the Southern Caribbean where fishermen face daily threat from cartels that seek to either take their fishing boats by force or steal their cash and catch at gunpoint. As the effort to prosecute this incident in both Guyana and Suriname has begun, other stories of attacks have started to come to light. According to villagers in one coastal community, at least one fisherman comes back with either a stab wound or gunshot wound every day, or in more extreme cases, does not come back at all. In the massacre off Suriname and French Guiana, the situation appears to have been one of escalating reprisals. Some of the fishermen who were killed had previously resisted having their vessels stolen and had killed one of the would-be-thieves in the process. It just so happened he was the brother of the head of a cartel. He and his gang perpetrated the brutal attack as revenge for his brother’s death.
The situation in Guyana and Suriname does not, however, exist in isolation. The frequency of attacks on fishermen on the water has been driven partly by spillover of the growing political, economic and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. Desperate for food and basic goods, those with boats will take what they can on the water. And those engaged in trafficking have found benefit to attacking fishermen both on the way out and on the way back. On the way out, traffickers will rob fishermen of both their cash and their fish to use as “cover” for their own trafficking operation. On the way back, they will rob them again for both cash and catch – this time to use as food or to sell at home. As weapons have become more readily available in the region, fishermen are also arming themselves for protection, leading to an escalation of violence like what happened with the Guyanese reprisal.
While many are focused on the political situation in Venezuela, few are focusing on the conflict taking place on the water in the Southern Caribbean. Piracy, armed robbery at sea, and murder in the maritime domain have been problems for several years. While attacks on commercial vessels or luxury craft tend to garner immediate international attention, violence towards fishing communities tends to go unnoticed. This situation is reaching a boiling point and needs swift and decisive intervention.
Fishing Conflicts in South Asia:
The Indian Trawlers in Sri Lankan Waters
Mr. Venkatesh Salagrama (Narrative)
Research Director, Integrated Coastal Management (ICM)
Dr. Joeri Scholtens(Captions with Illustrations)
Postdoctoral Researcher, Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam
Ms. Laura Eggens (Illustrations)
Freelance Illustrator
An outstanding example of fishing conflicts in the South Asian context would be the ongoing (and seemingly endless) tug-of-war between the Civil War-ravaged, Tamil-speaking, northern Sri Lankan (SL) small-scale fishers and the mechanised trawl fleet operators of south-eastern India. Largely, this conflict will fall into the category of violence between fishers operating on different scales, although there are more players involved in this conflict than just the two opposing parties. This case study is an attempt to summarise the key issues here from a decidedly subjective perspective.
Put simply, the story goes something like this: the mechanized trawlers operating from a few landing centres along the coast of Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India (and especially from Rameswaram, at the south-eastern tip of India closest to Sri Lanka, which is only about 24-km away) travel in large numbers across the Palk Bay to undertake trawling in the Sri Lankan waters, mostly at night (both because the target catch — shrimp — is more easily caught at night and also because it is easier to evade detection by the patrol forces at night). In the process, they practically sweep the coastal Sri Lankan waters of all commercially important fish and shrimp to the detriment of the small-scale fishers of northern Sri Lanka, especially those between Jaffna to Mannar who had faced thirty years of bloody Civil War and are only now trying to rebuild their lives from scratch.
While the Indian trawlers’ regular encroachment into the Sri Lankan waters is obviously a clear violation of the international maritime agreements between the two countries, the issue is more complicated than that. Both history and culture act as two-edged weapons as far as the beleaguered northern SL fishers are concerned. For one thing, the affected SL fishers have more in common — language and food, religion and rituals, marital and familial relations, even films — with the marauding trawler fishers than with the majoritarian Sinhala population of their own country. The Civil War also meant that, for 30 years, the SL fishers had to depend on their Indian counterparts for a wide range of essential services like fuel and foodstuffs, for political and military support and for a safe refuge when things got too rough. Such considerations put them at a disadvantage — and even lead them to being branded as ungrateful — when protesting against the incursion of the Indian trawlers, despite the latter hitting their livelihoods adversely.
On the historical front, the Palk Bay and the archipelago of islands dotting the Gulf of Mannar between India and Sri Lanka had long been a haven for both Indian and Sri Lankan fishers, who had long fished those waters together, took refuge on the islands and used them for fish drying and sundry other purposes in a decidedly amicable manner. Now, despite the two countries having agreed to a clearly demarcated maritime line by the 1970s, the trawler fleet refuses to accept the ‘new’ maritime borders and continues to claim traditional rights to fish in the Sri Lankan waters. This assertion is not only simplistic in ignoring the reality of international maritime treaties, but - it can be argued - plainly wrong because the trawlers themselves had been a relatively new entrant in Indian fisheries at the time the borders were officially agreed upon, so to talk about the ‘traditional' rights of the neophyte trawlers is clearly a travesty.
For the 3-decades of the Civil War, the Indian trawlers had untrammelled access to the Sri Lankan fishing grounds and, perhaps because they were also bringing in the much-needed supplies, faced little if any resistance from the local people. But once the War had ended and the devastated communities of the North began rebuilding their lives, the continued arrival of the Indian trawlers into the local waters posed a major obstacle to restarting the fishing operations.
In an ironical switch of friendships and loyalties, as former friends from across the sea turned their main foes, the northern SL fishers turned to the Sri Lankan government (which had been fighting them till the other day) for support and succour. The Sri Lankan navy also intensified its patrolling of the waters between the two nations and there have been several violent confrontations, a few deaths, regular seizure of boats and arrest of the fishing crews, extensive reporting in the newspapers and on television, a few research projects and acrimonious bilateral exchanges at the highest diplomatic levels, but with little improvement in the ground situation.
The Government of India does want to see an end to the problem directly because it affects India's bilateral relations with Sri Lanka (which has a significant geopolitical interest for India) and possibly also because the whole ’traditional’ rights argument, if acceded to, could have potentially serious impacts elsewhere, i.e., in terms of settling the border issues with its other neighbors. But the local Tamil Nadu political context - which sees the SL fishers’ opposition to the trawler-incursion in more nationalistic terms – hinders effective measures to be put in place to curb the practice.
The trawler fleet owners present the situation in existential terms: that, without fishing in Sri Lankan waters, their livelihoods, and those of their crew members, would be at risk and thousands of people would become unemployed. They insist that they are stuck in a ‘vicious circle’ on account of having invested in a technology that hardly pays them their living, but requires them to brave their lives every day in order to survive. (Curiously, this argument flies in the face of new boats being added to the fleet from time to time!).
The trawler owner’s solutions to the issue range from the government offering a buy-back arrangement for their trawlers to help their boats to diversify into deep-sea fishing (both options being problematic for a whole new set of reasons), to spurning the maritime border treaty with Sri Lanka altogether so they could have unhindered access to their ’traditional’ fishing grounds. Overall, aside from putting the burden of solving the problem entirely on the government or the ‘other’, all such proposals amount to wishful thinking.
Alongside the government-level efforts, there have also been a few grassroots-level efforts — led by civil society and fishworkers' organisations of both countries, perhaps more from the Indian side — to defuse the tensions and resolve the issue by bringing together representatives of the two parties (i.e., the Indian trawler operators and the SL small-scale fishers) to discuss face to face the possibility of a mutually and locally acceptable solution.
The process carried on for several years without making much of a headway and, for all practical purposes, seems to have lost steam. Which is perhaps just as well because it may have been an attempt to find a common ground where none exists: put bluntly, the predators and the prey cannot possibly agree to a rational settlement of how much the former can take and how much the latter can forego.
While the conflict has all along been presented in the dominant discourse as a transboundary issue involving two opposing sides - of different nationalities - failing to come to a mutually satisfactory agreement (unfortunately, this is a viewpoint prevailing even among some of the research and civil society bodies which should have known better), a different perspective might have helped to see things more clearly and in less nationalistic terms. This will require seeing the conflict as a confrontation between a mechanised trawling fleet operating in waters traditionally used by the small-scale fishing boats. Once the national boundaries are ignored and the conflict understood not in terms of involving two different nations, but as involving two different fishing systems operating at different scales, it not only becomes easier to comprehend and relate to, but also to address meaningfully.
The fact of the matter is that mechanized trawling has had a very long, troubled and even violent history within the Indian waters. In the 1970s, within Tamil Nadu, the trawlers and small-scale fleets had several violent confrontations from the very beginning. In the 1980s, the Tamil Nadu trawlers shifted their operations to the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh, giving rise to a new bout of conflicts with the local small-scale fishers there. Not to be outdone, the trawlers from Andhra Pradesh moved their fishing operations through the 1980s and 1990s into their neighbouring Orissa state and got into violent face-offs with the local fishers there and beyond. Overall, the whole of the East coast of India can be said to have experienced a long history of confrontations wherever trawlers set foot and, inevitably, encroached upon the small fishers there. The West coast of India is even more replete with another long history of fishing conflicts involving the mechanized trawlers encroaching upon the small-scale fishers everywhere. If those conflicts have somewhat abated in the recent past, it had more to do with everybody – including the trawlers themselves – failing equally to make ends meet rather than with the two parties finding an equitable solution to the problem.
In other words, the story of the mechanized trawlers – despite their evident economic and livelihood importance to Indian fisheries - is marked by repeated instances of trouble-making and fishing conflicts within India. In case of Sri Lanka too, it is the fact of the mechanized trawlers moving into their waters that appears to be the key problem for the local Sri Lankan fishers. As evidence, one can point to the fact that, alongside the trawlers, a number of Indian small-scale fleets also go and fish in Sri Lankan waters, but they elicit little resistance. That is not to justify the encroachment of smaller boats into another nation’s waters, but to suggest that the problem may be not one of national boundaries but one of technological differences.
When the trawlers became a major source of conflicts in India, the respective state governments, with the guidance of the national government, implemented a series of marine fisheries regulation acts to keep them at bay and to protect the interests of the small-scale fishers. But when it came to the same trawlers encroaching into a neighbouring country, thus violating not only international treaties but also the other country’s ban on trawling, the discourse suddenly becomes cautious and reverts to the 'serious' livelihood implications that any control measures would have for the people working on the trawlers, and offers lame justifications for them to continue their depredations. There is no doubt that many of the crew on the trawlers from the Indian side come from a poor and deprived social and economic background, which explains their willingness to face almost any kind of danger in order to fish in the SL waters, but there is also no denying that their plight cannot be alleviated at the expense of thousands of other people whose livelihoods are even more precarious and whose capacity to cope with the problem much less so than their own.
Fisheries Conflicts: Lake Victoria
Ms. Colleen Devlin
Researcher, Secure Fisheries, One Earth Future
Tilapia Fishers near Kikondo, Uganda, Photo by Sarah Glaser
Lake Victoria lies at the confluence of western Kenya, southeastern Uganda, and northern Tanzania. These three nations control 6 percent, 45 percent, and 49 percent of the lake, respectively. The social stability of Lake Victoria stakeholders and the health of its Nile perch stocks are linked through a dynamic feedback cycle. The Lake Victoria basin, which includes Rwanda and Burundi, has been one of the most conflict-affected regions in the world since 1989 (Sundberg and Melander, 2013). The armed conflict produced by the Ugandan Bush War (1980-1986), the Burundian Civil War (1993-2005), Rwandan Civil War (1990-1994), and the First and Second Congo Wars (1996-1997 and 1998-2004, respectively) drove millions of displaced persons toward and around the Lake Victoria shoreline. A recent study by Sarah Glaser, Cullen Hendrix, Brittany Franck, Karin Wedig, and Les Kaufman found that internal displacement in Uganda coincided with increased fishing pressure on the Nile perch. Eventually, a decline in Nile perch abundance throughout the lake caused increased competition over dwindling stocks.
Woman sorting Dagaa in Kikondo, Uganda, Photo by Sarah Glaser
The Nile perch, a non-native fish introduced to the lake in 1954, drove hundreds of native species to extinction andbecame the dominant fish in the ecosystem by the 1980s. International demand, particularly from the EuropeanUnion, spurred a rapid development of the region’s export industry. Small-scale fishers were soon outpriced byfishing companies and they could no longer afford fishing gear; many then resorted to unsustainable and evendangerous methods to keep up with the market demand. For example, imported chemicals intended to kill theinvasive water hyacinth were repurposed and traded throughout the region. These chemicals efficiently killed Nileperch, but the poisoned fish was then sold to unsuspecting consumers. A spike in lake insecurity in the early 2000’swas also attributed to fishermen who resorted to banditry in order to steal fishing gear from others.
People watch as confiscated fishing nets are burned by the Tanzanian government
Fierce competition over fishing grounds created international turmoil. Prior to the surge in popularity of Nile perch,fishers were allowed free movement across the lake. To protect their perch stocks, Uganda and Tanzania began toenforce their borders. In 2003, Ugandan and Tanzanian authorities jailed over 250 Kenyan fishers charged withtrespassing, fishing with banned nets, or using chemicals to catch fish. More than $300,000 worth of equipment,including boats, high powered motors, nets, and hooks were confiscated (Thibodeaux, Sept. 3, 2002). The followingyear, 85 Kenyan fishers who had been fishing in Tanzanian waters were arrested by Tanzanian armed patrol officers,sentenced to three years in prison, and forced to forfeit their gear (Xinhua, Sept. 17, 2004). Kenyan officials whonegotiated their release said the fishers’ families were starving without the income from fishing. On the eastern partof the lake, an ongoing rivalry over fishing grounds between Tanzanian and Ugandan fishers was worsened by thisregional fixation on borders.
Fishermen putting Nile perch into an ice box on Migingo Island, 10 5 2018, Yasuyoshi Chiba AFP Getty Images
Harassment and conflict became a pervasive threat on Lake Victoria. Nowhere was this more evident than onMigingo Island, 2,000 square meters of heavily-contested rock near the Uganda/Kenya border (Dijkstra & VanLoon, Feb. 18, 2019). The island had traditionally been considered within Kenya’s control, but escalating tensions in2007 made Migingo a disputed territory. Across the lake, 2007 was the second consecutive year of Lake Victoria’sdeclining catch rates (Glaser et al, 2019, Fig. 2), but Nile perch remained plentiful in Migingo’s deep waters. Kenyaand Uganda both claimed the island in 2008 and 2009. Armed Ugandan police began forcing Migingo’s Kenyans topurchase fishing permits. Kenya responded by deploying marines to the island. Though Uganda conceded the islandto Kenya in May 2009, both nations continue to dispute the ownership of the deep waters west of Migingo.
Migingo Island, Carl de Souza AFP Getty Images
Responding to claims that illegal fishing was threatening the health of the lake’s fish stocks, Ugandan PresidentYoweri Museveni deployed the Ugandan People’s Defense Force (UPDF) on a 2015 illegal fishing crackdownmission. Fisherfolk were accustomed to lax enforcement of fishing regulations, and the sudden military mobilizationgave fishing communities no time to adapt. The confiscation and destruction of illegal gear and illegally-caughtimmature fish made it difficult for fishers to provide for their families.
Dagaa Saleswoman at the Masese Landing site. Masese, Uganda, Photo by Sarah Glaser
According to Dr. Anthony Munyaho, the Director of the National Fisheries Resources Research Institute (NaFIRRI), up to 40 percent of all boats in Ugandanwaters were destroyed by this UPDF mission (Glaser, 2018). In recent years, the UPDF has maintained a culture offear among foreign and domestic fishermen, raiding villages and brutally beating residents in the name of fisheries-management (Mutaizibwa, Jan. 22, 2018). The Beach Management Units, put in place in the 1990s to incorporatethe fishers’ perspective in fisheries management decisions, were replaced by Landing Site Management Committees,a management structure run by the military. Without the BMUs, fishing communities no longer have the space toparticipate in the management dialogue (Mudlair, Apr. 19, 2018). In Tanzania, Operation Sangara was created in2018 to enforce a similar mandate using the combined efforts of their police, coastguard, and fisheries officers. OnMonday, March 4, 2019, the ministers in charge of fisheries from Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya adopted a jointillegal fishing operation to “protect and sustain resources found in the lake” (Xinhua, Mar. 4 2019). The operation’saction plan has yet to be disclosed.
Artisanal Fisheries Resource Use Conflicts:
A Case of the Cross River Estuary, Nigeria
Dr. Francis M. Nwosu
Professor, Department of Biological Oceanography, Faculty of Oceanography, University of Calabar
Background information
The story narrated below is an eye witness account of a deadly conflict between artisanal fishers exploiting the Macrobrachium fishery in this estuary. At the time of the incident, I was a PhD student assessing the stock of the said fishery. I worked with these fishermen and traders continuously for 18 months. The story narrated here happened within the sampling period and actually truncated my sampling activity.
The Macrobrachium fishery is a multispecies fishery, with two freshwater prawns of the genus, namely: the giant African River Prawn (Macrobrachium vollenhovenii) and the Brackish River Prawn (Macrobrachium macrobrachion), dominating the catches.
In the area under reference, these shellfish are exploited for food and income using three gear types, viz: beach seine, push net and baited funnel-shaped, non-return valve trap. The gears have varying selectivity and efficiency in favour of the trap fishery. Here is the main source of the conflict.
Why the conflict?
Two fishing communities operated different gears: one on the coast of Calabar operated the beach seine and push net which caught smaller sizes and lower quantities of the prawns, and the other, an offshore community operated the trap gear which is very effective in catching the large-sized M. vollenhovenii and M. macrobrachion.
Problems started when the coastal community fishermen engaged in poaching the trap fishery. Unknown to the thieves, the offshore community laid ambush for whosoever was responsible. On that fateful night, one man was caught and murdered by the trap fishermen. His corpse was deposited on the coast for his kinsmen to see. Of course, that triggered a reprisal attack. But before the coastal fishermen would mobilize, the trap fishermen had abandoned their settlement and fled with their entire families. Few days later, their community was completely razed by the angry kinsmen of the murdered ‘thief’.
Conclusion
The incident was never reported or investigated. To my knowledge, no arrests were made. It went same trend as most of the activities of these artisanal fisher folk, who usually live in difficult to access environments. It could have been one of several conflicts associated with the (unregulated) exploitation of common property resource such as the Macrobrachium fishery of the Cross River Estuary, Nigeria.
Environmental Change and Social Conflict:
The Northeast Atlantic Mackerel Dispute
Ms. Jessica Spijkers
PhD Candidate, Stockholm Resilience Centre
Image Credit: Ocean Spirit
In 2007 the mackerel extended its summer feeding distribution towards the north and west, moving into the EEZ of Iceland (Spijkers & Boonstra 2017). More specifically, the stock migrated and spawned further towards northern and western regions of the Nordic Seas and their surrounding coastal and oceanic waters (ibid. 2017).
Locations of mackerel catches from scientific surveys by the Marine Research Institute (red) and of mackerel samples taken by the Icelandic pelagic fishing fleet (blue) for 2000, 2005, and 2010 (Astthorsson et al. 2012: 6) (Color figure online)
Changes in the geographical distribution of the stock have induced an international conflict between the EU, Norway, the Faroe Islands, and Iceland which are responsible for management of the stock (Gänsbauer 2016, Spijkers & Boonstra 2017). The States had differing views about appropriate entitlements for each State, both in terms of volumes of allowed catch as well as potential access to other States’ waters for catching those volumes (Spijkers & Boonstra 2017).
Timeline displaying important events within the mackerel dispute and the agreed TAC for all Coastal States. Data for that total agreed TAC taken from ICES (2015).
For a few years, Iceland and the Faroe Islands set unilateral quotas, to which the EU responded with trade sanctions against the Faroe Island (an embargo of imports of mackerel (products) to the EU) (ibid. 2017). Since the shift, Iceland has not been fully integrated in the Coastal States’ agreements on the total allowable catch (TAC) and quota allocations per country (ibid. 2017).
Upper limit of ICES advice (i.e., highest tonnage recommended) compared to actual catch (2000–2016) (ICES2015). Remarks on certain data points: year 2014 “advice” data point updated advice after benchmark exercise by ICES, year 2015 “actual catch” data point total agreed TAC (i.e., not actual catch as recorded by ICES), year 2016 “actual catch” data point TAC as stated in the Coastal States agreement for 2016 (not taking into account unilateral quotas).
The conflict resulted in the overfishing of the northeast Atlantic mackerel stocks since 2007 (and it has recently lost its Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification), and also eroded the legitimacy and functioning of the existing management plans (ibid. 2017). It was even a contributing factor to Iceland's withdrawal from the process to access the EU as a member state.
Patagonian Shelf Fisheries Conflicts
Dr. Michael Harte
Professor, South Atlantic Environmental Research Institute, Oregon State University
Abundant fisheries on the Patagonian Shelf support major international fishing fleets. These fleets have been taking up to 1 million tonnes of squid annually and over 1 million tonnes of fish annually.[1] Yet the Southwest Atlantic is the only major fishing region of the world not to have some coordinated international fisheries management among flag states fishing in the region under the auspices of a Regional Fisheries Management Organization (RFMO).[2] A 186 year sovereignty dispute between the United Kingdom and Argentina over the Falkland Islands/Malvinas severely impacts bilateral cooperation over shard fisheries and overshadows potential multi-lateral discussions to create a RFMO for the Southwest Atlantic.
"Argentina's coastguard says it has chased and sunk a Chinese vessel that was fishing illegally in Argentine waters" | Report by Sarah Johnston, On Demand News
Absent bilateral and multilateral regional fisheries cooperation, shared stocks are likely below widely recognized management reference points such as maximum sustainable and maximum economic yields. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that in the Southwest Atlantic statistical area, 42 percent of the assessed stocks were fished within biologically sustainable levels, the third worst performance among the 15 major FAO statistical areas.[3] The global average for assessed stocks fished within biologically sustainable levels is 66%.[4]
Long-term causes of conflict in the region
The United Kingdom and Argentina fought a war over the Falkland Islands/Malvinas in 1982, the most serious conflict in the 186-year sovereignty dispute over the Islands. Today, the Falkland Islands/Malvinas remain an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom and the United Kingdom maintain a military base in the Islands in large part due to ongoing Argentinian actions to claim sovereignty of the Islands. Argentina has actively isolated the Falkland Islands/Malvinas from participation in South American geopolitical discourse and reiterates its sovereignty claim to the Falkland Islands in a number of international fora. In 2009, Argentina formally claimed under the United Nations Convention Law of the Sea an area of the Patagonian Shelf encompassing the Falklands, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands, and parts of Antarctica. This is made more significant by the discovery of commercial oil reserves in the Falkland Islands/Malvinas Outer Conservation Zone.
Short-term causes of conflict and incidences of conflict
Compounding these longstanding regional tensions (or slow variables), Argentina has taken actions in the recent past that could be considered fast conflict variables. For example, in 2010 Argentina announced that ships travelling to the Islands/Malvinas would require a permit to use Argentine territorial waters.[5] The Argentinian military have stopped and boarded Spanish fishing vessels transiting Argentinian waters on the way to the Falkland Islands/Malvinas.[6] In 2011 the Mercosur group of countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela) closed ports to ships flying the Falkland Island flag.[7] In 2015, Argentina named four new fishery patrol vessels after strategic locations in the Falkland Islands/Malvinas which the Falkland Islands/Malvinas viewed as a provocation.[8] In September 2018 an Argentine Navy Oceanographic survey vessel triggered a routine response by a UK patrol vessel as it neared Falkland Islands/Malvinas territorial waters.[9]
Argentina’s actions have the potential to impact the financial security of the Falkland Islands. Fishing is the Falkland Islands largest economic sector. It accounted for 39.4% in 2015 and 58.5% of GDP in 2016.[10],[11] The Falkland Islands Government receives revenue from quota fees and from company taxation paid by fishing companies and local companies are dependent on partnerships with foreign companies to harvest and market catch. Given the importance of fishing to the Falklands Island economy any disruption to fishing activities will have major economic and social impacts.
In addition to tensions between the Falkland Islands/Malvinas and Argentina, both are facing the unreported and unregulated harvest of highly migratory squid stocks (Illex argentinus) and other species. There are routinely 300-400 vessels fishing on the high seas adjacent to the Argentine EEZ.[12] Anecdotal reports suggest a substantial increase in Chinese fishing effort on the high seas, pressuring valuable Illex argentinus stocks.[13] Argentina has reportedly fired on Chinese vessels fishing illegally in its waters in 2015, 2016 and 2018. In the 2016 incident, Chinese fishing vessels are reported to have attempted to ram an Argentinian patrol vessel.
Further exacerbating tensions between Argentina and the Falkland Islands/Malvinas and between these countries and distant water fleets are oceanographic regime shifts driven by climate change. The impact of climate driven changes on the southwestern Atlantic fisheries though unknown, is likely to be significant. This is signaled by the abrupt changes in fish catches observed during the last decade. In Argentina, for example, they have increased quite significantly (doubled) while in Brazil they have decreased. The governance of fisheries resources that migrate between or straddle different national economic exclusive zones is always complicated and often contentious. Climate-driven changes in stock range and distribution will exacerbate ecological, economic, food and conflict-related insecurity. These conflicts will be amplified by a failure to coordinate the management of stocks that straddle or migrate between the waters of different countries and between exclusive economic zones and the high seas. There are very limited institutional mechanisms for sharing data or developing mechanisms to address climate-driven changes in stock abundance and distribution.
Outlook
Both coastal and flag states in the Southwest Atlantic have reason to cooperate to address slow acting variables. Regional geopolitics, however, mean that enhanced bilateral and multilateral cooperation is a long-term process. In a positive move, Argentina and the United Kingdom revived the South Atlantic Fisheries Commission in 2016. Set up in 1990 to facilitate the exchange of fisheries data, the co-ordination of joint research cruises and scientific analysis, and the provision of conservation advice to the respective governments, the Commission had not met since 2005. Meetings were held in 2018 and joint research cruises are again happening with two in 2019. Despite the reinstatement of bilateral cooperation, the creation of a multi-lateral RFMO for the Southwest Atlantic is still someway off. If and when discussion begin, it will take many years for agreement to reached between cooperating states and for this cooperation to bring about change. In the meantime, illegal, or perceived illegal activities, committed under the flag or auspices of one state might provoke a reaction from the aggrieved state, which in turn might create cascading responses leading the system from uneasy coexistence to conflict.
Footnotes
[1] Arkhipkin, A., Brickle, P. and Laptikhovsky, V., 2013. Links between marine fauna and oceanic fronts on the Patagonian Shelf and Slope. Arquipélago. Life and Marine Science, 30, pp.19-37.
[2] Villasante, S., Sumaila, R. and Antelo, M., 2014. Why cooperation is better? The gains of cooperative management of the Argentine shortfin squid fishery in South America. Environment and development economics: essays in honour of Sir Partha Dasgupta. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp.270-294.
[3] FAO. 2018. The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2018 - Meeting the sustainable development goals. Rome. Licence: CC BY-NC-South American 3.0 IGO.
[10] Falkland Islands Government. 2017. State of the Falklands Islands Economy 2017. Policy and Economic Development Unit, FIG. Avilable at: http://www.fig.gov.fk/policy/component/jdownloads/send/5-reports-and-publications/89-state-of-the-falkland-islands-economy-2017.
[11] Falkland Islands Government. 2018 Falkland Islands National Accounts 2007-2016. Policy and Economic Development Unit, FIG. Avilable at http://www.fig.gov.fk/policy/component/jdownloads/send/4-statistics/119-falkland-islands-national-accounts-2007-to-2016.
[13] Undercurrent News. Chinese vessels amass near Argentine waters ahead of squid season start https://www.undercurrentnews.com/2018/12/13/chinese-vessels-amass-near-argentine-waters-ahead-of-squid-season-start/. Accessed 12/16/2018.
Fisheries Conflicts:
El Mar Tropical de Grau, Northern Peru
Ms. Emi Koch
Director, Beyond the Surface International
Digital Storytelling Fellow, Fulbright-National Geographic
“Pirates are lazy,” Justo, a fisherman from Cabo Blanco, Peru, uses his teeth to sever a stubborn piece of fishing line he’s successfully secured to a single hook. “These people like the easy life… stealing. They surround you, take your fishing gear, any electronics. If you resist, they kill you.”
Justo’s humble boat seesaws gently in the sea, as the heavy sails fold and breathe open in today’s favorable winds, propelling the traditional barco de vela through one of the world’s most productive marine ecosystems. In Peru’s Mar Tropical de Grau__, the cold Humboldt Current encounters the warm Southern Equatorial Current along the coastal states of Piura and Tumbes, creating a particular environment of transition with high concentrations of nutrients that favors a rich, unique biodiversity. For generations, Justo’s family has navigated these sapphire waters and survived from the marine resources they’ve traditionally extracted from beyond the surface. Their community, Cabo Blaco, looks unassuming, squeezed in-between rugged desert cliffs and the pounding surf. Yet this fishing villages once hosted Hollywood’s A-list celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Joe di Maggio and even a writer, Ernest Hemingway. Apart from its solitude, this stretch of desolate coastline offered adventure–the chance to hunt 1000 pound marlins and massive blue fin tuna not a mile or more from shore. But with the crash of Peruvian anchoveta fishery in the late 1960s due to changing ocean conditions and overfishing, came the billfish’s decline as well. The hype around Cabo Blanco lessened and the celebrities left, leaving Peru’s local artisanal fishery to secure and sustain what remained.
However, today, two main forces–industrial fishing fleets and foreign pirates–threaten small-scale fishing communities like never before and fishermen, like Justo, are struggling to stem the tide.
Over the last decade, an increase in fishing effort by mechanized fleets like trawlers or “Bolicheras1” has resulted in a depletion of fish stocks and tensions with local artisanal fishers, in addition to petitions from the industrial sector to minimize federal protections for small-scale fisheries. By the Peruvian government’s definition, artisanal fishers are individuals who engage in primarily manual fishing activities purposed only for direct human consumption in the local markets with particular fisheries for export such as the Mahi-Mahi. There are more than 16,000 artisanal fishers in the northern region whose livelihoods depend on the sea.
In 1992, the Peruvian Ministry of Fisheries declared a zone exclusively for artisanal fisheries, understood as the zone from the shoreline out five nautical miles into the sea. Therefore, all purse seine boats and industrial trawlers (except those targeting shrimp) were banned from the coastal, nearshore waters. However, with deficient enforcement and further advances in technology, the illegal fishing fleets continuous enter the exclusive zone reserved for artisanal fishermen and harvest more fish in one day than traditional fishers can in fourteen. In 2016, officials in Tumbes uncovered 140 unregistered bolicheras boats purse seining fish vessels within the five mile zone. Moreover, last year, two Peruvian naval patrol boats carried out 55 operations and intersected 241 vessels fishing illegally within the exclusive five mile zone along the state of Piura. Local artisanal fishermen admit to slashing their nets at times when they come close enough to an industrial vessel. With the height in fishing pressure, mechanized fleets now demand rollbacks to Decreto Supremo 017-92-PE2 allowing trawlers and purse seine fleets to fish as near as one mile from the shoreline.
The Tropical Pacific Sea supports 70 percent of Peru’s marine biodiversity, and supplies the majority of domestic seafood markets. However, inadequate exploitation, illicit fishing activities, oil exploration and development jeopardize the region’s ecological sustainability and the food security of its fish-dependent communities. And now, there’s piracy.
In 2015, Peruvian journalists from El Comercio reported that in the past 15 years, 50 fishermen were murdered by pirates mostly coming from southern Ecuador, including José Pizarro, who was shot in the head as he tried to help his father, who was beaten by raiders. With the five miles exclusive artisanal fishing zone pillaged by illegal fishing fleets, artisanal fishermen in traditional sailboats, like Justo, are forced to sometimes venture further out to sea. “You used to go out there calmly… but now, no way. In pirate waters, you risk everything.” Justo shrugs his shoulders.
In 2016, El Comercio reported that each month, an average of two assaults perpetrated by pirates on artisanal fishing boats occurs. However, the Peruvian government has yet to adopt measure that might safeguard small-scale fishers against armed robbery or murder at sea. Moreover, there’s little to no information –only speculation–concerning why the sudden surge in piracy, who these pirates are, their backgrounds or their reasons for entering Peruvian wartime jurisdiction to attack small-scale fishing vessels, etc. If you ask Justo or speak with others on the piers, these pirates could have been fishermen who followed their fish stocks south as populations migrate closer to the poles with warming sea waters. Others believe these men have always been pirates with a blatant disregard for laws, including those statues that delineate national boundaries. With a serious lack of law enforcement, pirates find it particularly convenient to loot in Peruvian waters and target artisanal fishing vessels given their already vulnerable status.
Too Big To Ignore Project Director Dr. Ratana Chuenpagdee argues that small-scale fishers often find themselves in a disadvantageous position relative to other actors, especially those competing for the same maritime space, resources, and government’s attention. Like in many other countries, artisanal fishing in Peru is considered a low-class occupation. Small-scale fishing villages lack adequate infrastructure and live in poor conditions. A legacy of colonial power structures supports the kind of poverty most natural resource dependent communities experience today. Systems of authority politically marginalize and can manipulate through corruption, serving ultimately to benefit landowners for growth and development over traditional hunters and gather communities. The ocean is complicated because there are no fences, only laws written on paper unless otherwise felt through enforcement. However, Recent violent pressures such as piracy and surmounting conflicts between fishers at different scales now demand more constructive, participatory community-based approaches and effective strategies for human security.
This past January through May, Marco Ruiz Serkovic with the nonprofit Beyond the Surface, facilitated participatory community mapping workshops with five artisanal fishing villages along Peru’s Tropical Pacific Sea to better understand the distribution of their marine resources and how conflicts take place and over which traditional fishing grounds. The workshops were part of Festival Somos Mar, Beyond the Surface’s’s inaugural ocean literacy and audiovisual arts festivals which toured five local schools along Peru’s Mar Tropical de Grau in an effort to establish stronger and collaborative conservation management strategies for social-ecological wellbeing. The mapping exercise itself served as a communication tool for more engaged, informed conversations with local stakeholders while the maps as a product serve as traditional knowledge data to support the process to establish a well-monitored and enforced Marine Protected Area within the region.
It is necessary to mention the need to increase efforts to empower artisanal fishermen and contribute to their socioeconomic development in a way that also assures the sustainability of marine resources for next generations to come. This is a complex task, considering the intrinsic nature of the ocean and its common access to resources by multiple stakeholders. Exercises of community mapping become an opportunity to understand local knowledge and communicated in a scientific vehicle that needs to be taken into account by decision-makers at different government levels.
Trinidad & Tobago and Barbados:
Flying Fishery Conflict
Ms. Cierra Villegas
PhD Candidate, Oregon State University; Contract Worker, Secure Fisheries
To Barbados the flying fish is a quintessential aspect of intangible heritage: a symbol of Barbadian pride and industry – the country’s motto. It appears on the Barbadian silver dollar coin and is on the logo of the Barbados Tourism Authority (2).
When Trinidad and Tobago established its EEZ in 1986, the flying fish fishing site was placed under the sole control of Tobago. Initially, a dispute arose from failed bilateral negotiations for access by Barbadian fisherfolk to the flying fish fishing site in the waters off the coast of Tobago (1). For decades there was no official boundary between the countries. The lack of clearly defined boundaries gave rise to conflict, as Trinidad and Tobago authorities periodically arrested Barbadian fishermen who claimed the waters were shared, while Trinidad and Tobago asserted the fishermen were on the wrong side of the hypothetical line (4).
General Fisheries Conflict Timeline
From 1992–2002, there was at least one report of Barbadian fishermen being arrested, charged and fined for fishing illegally off Tobago’s waters. On January 15th 2003, during a lapse in the negotiations which had re-started in March 2002, Barbadian fishermen were again arrested and fined. This resulted in a publicized letter from the Prime Minister of Barbados to the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. An arrest of Barbadian fishermen on November 28th 2003 was met with an angry response from the Barbadian government with threats of retaliation. The Barbadian Prime Minister at the time threatened, among other things, to places duties on Trinidadian goods being imported into Barbados. On February 5th 2004, more arrests were made and two days later the Barbadian Cabinet imposed ‘monitoring’ licenses on all goods being imported from Trinidad and Tobago (1).
In 2006, the Permanent Court of Arbitration demarcated a boundary to determine which country had the rights to the offshore nonliving resources—but as of 2013 the fishing dispute remains outstanding (4).
Future Implications
Some scholars have argued that any assessment of small-scale fisheries in the Caribbean would conclude that exposure and sensitivity to the threat of climate change are high. Others say it is still too early to say whether any changes have occurred in the eastern Caribbean flying fish stock due to climate change. Therefore, one strategy that academics recommend is increased engagement in research involving the potential impact of climate change on the eastern Caribbean flyingfish fishery, and the possible shift in the stock’s distribution (2).
Conflicting Maritime Uses
In November 2013, the fishing community of Trinidad Tobago held a series of peaceful pickets to protect the fish that have fed their nation for thousands of years - fish that are known to be harmed by oil companies’ offshore quest for oil and gas. In a press release, Fishermen and Friends of the Sea note that the Environmental Management Authority (EMA) has never required Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) before seismic surveys for oil and gas are undertaken. They understood that oil exploration would undoubtedly occur there, but they requested basic science to figure out the degree of impact on fisheries and wanted the fish stock restored (5).
On December 17, 2013 officials discovered a massive oil spill in Trinidad and Tobago. Trinidadian state-owned oil company, Petrotrin (formally known as Texaco), admitted the 11th oil spill in the Gulf of Paria in ten days. These oil spills amounted to 236,250 gallons. Petrotrin took responsibility for nine of the eleven spills and blamed the other two on saboteurs. These spillages earned Petrotrin a fine of $20 million from the country’s Environmental Management Authority as well as Petrotrin’s reimbursement of $2.6 million dollars to the Cedros fishermen for their loss due to the spillage in the area (3). The oil spills in Trinidad raised new concerns over the country’s plan to pursue offshore drilling.
Fishing During War?
The Impact of War on Yemeni Fisheries
Dr. Moosa Elayah
Researcher, Centre for International Development Issues Nijmegen (CIDIN), Radboud University
Dr. Lau Schulpen
Researcher, Centre for International Development Issues Nijmegen (CIDIN), Radboud University
Mr. Taha Yaseen
MA Student (Researcher), Doha Institute for Graduate Studies
Introduction
After seizing power in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, in late September 2014, the Houthi rebellion extended its control over other Northern areas in the country bordering the Red Sea. As a consequence, fishing, shipping lines and commercial corridors in the Red Sea were severely destabilised; a situation that only worsened after a Saudi-led coalition launched a military intervention under the name ‘Operation Decisive Storm’ in the beginning of 2015 to restore the legitimate rule of the internationally recognised president of Yemen Abdu Rabu Mansoor Hadi. On top, terrorist group seized the opportunity and increased their activities in this vital sea region adding to the dwindling security situation. Both for national and international security, the Red Sea is of major importance. Internationally because it is the shortest route between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean and good for maritime trade worth some US$ 700 billion annually. Nationally because controlling, for instance, the port of Hudaydah – the second port of Yemen after Aden –means control on major supply lines to the capital Sana’a and other northern governorates.
Apart from such military and security issues, the Red Sea is also of high importance due to its huge fish wealth on which many Yemeni fishermen rely as a major for life and livelihoods of their families. Now, work, income, food and nutrition are under imminent threat and got impacted as large areas of Yemen’s beaches and coasts have become a theatre of military operations and restricted areas. In this contribution, we delve deeper into the consequences of the ongoing war for the Yemeni fishing sector: to what extent do actions by the Houthi movement, the Saudi-led coalition and terrorist groups threaten the ability of fishermen to exercise their daily activities; what is the effect on the hunger and levels of starvation in Yemen, and what is the impact of war of the fishing sector in the country?
We use secondary data to provide a first and tentative answer to such questions. The first section then reviews the importance of the fisheries sector to Yemeni society and economy. Section 2 presents the main challenges facing fishermen and section 3 tackles the negative impact of a collapsed fisheries sector on the reality of hunger and famine in Yemen.
The importance of the Yemeni fishing sector
In Yemen, the fishing sector represents a major source of food, income and employment. Yemen's seafarers are an essential resource for the Yemeni population needs of fish, which is an essential food component – certainly for coastal citizens. There are more than 350 species of fish and other marine life in Yemeni territorial waters, which makes Yemen a major country in the production of fish in the MENA region. Prior to the current war, the fisheries sector contributed between 2-3% to the Yemeni gross domestic product (GDP) according to the latest statistics in 2013 making it ‘the third most important agricultural sub-sector’ in the country (FAO 2017: 4). And although export of fish dwarfs when compared to crude petroleum and gold, Yemen exported fish to 50 Asian, African and European countries, of which 12 were Arab countries with 58% of the total fish exports, mainly Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Oman (Yemeni Central Statistical Organization n.d.).
Fishing has always been ‘the most important source of income and food security in coastal areas’ but, as Oxfam (2017: 9) adds, ‘21% of fishing communities are considered poor and 71% are considered very poor’. Prior to the current war, fishing effectively contributed to the alleviation of poverty by providing job opportunities for more than half a million individuals who in turn support 1.7 million people, forming 18 percent of the coastal communities’ population of 9.4 million. Fishing had contributed to the food security of the nine coastal governorates (Hojjah, Taiz, Hudaydah, Aden, Lahj, Abyan, Shabwah, Hadramawt and Mahrah). In addition, the fish production had its day-to-day markets in the other remote areas of Yemen, especially with improved transportation roads in the country. Overall, fishing activities were practiced by five main actors and sectors: cooperatives and individuals (79.2%), private sector (13.8%), mixed (public and private sectors) (3.3%), public sector (1%), and international investors (2.7%).
Main challenges facing fishermen
Notwithstanding its importance in terms of income and nutrition, the traditional Yemeni fishing sector had major challenges already before the war. Naturally, also this sector was a victim of the decade-long unstable political and security situation, but it also suffered from poor governance causing fish stock depletion and the destruction of fish habitats, and the lack of appropriate legislation and poor infrastructure. Besides, the fisheries sector was (and is) characterised by absence of fish stock assessments combined with an unreliable statistical database on landings and fishing manpower. This has resulted in bad management decisions, the over-exploitation of many fish stocks and a failure to control fishing capacity (Alabsi & Komatsu 2014). The FAO (2017: 4) summarises the challenges facing the fishing sector by stating that development of the sector is challenged by ‘low productivity; low quality of fisheries products (which limits trade potential); inadequate access to lucrative international markets; unknown fisheries stock carrying capacity; declining stocks; and limited private sector development of the sub-sector.
The current war naturally has made matters worse. Perhaps one could even say that the present situation is well underway of destroying this vital sector for many years to come. High fuel prices are then just one of the many new challenges being faced by fishermen, as are depleting catches if only because fishing equipment has been destroyed, access to the sea is severely limited, only around 50% of fishermen are at present still working, and there is a constant danger of being – literally – blown out of the water.
One of the most prominent challenges then is the substantial threat of so-called Marine-Borne Improvised Explosive Devices (MBIEDs) and naval mines. These mines are scattered randomly by Houthis and other warring parties in fishing areas and near the beaches. According to NYA (2017), the ‘threat is not limited to western Yemen’ and is mainly prominent around four spots along the coast (also see Figure 1). Maritime forces, as part of efforts to maintain the safety of international maritime and commercial lines south of the Red Sea, have discovered and detonated 86 naval mines since the beginning of military operations in Yemen. These mines cannot be detected at night, and pose a danger not only to merchant shipping transiting along the Yemeni coast, the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and southern Red Sea but certainly also to fishing boats in the Red Sea. In fact, there have been several explosions by sea mines in several fishing boats killing dozens of fishermen (NYA 2017).
Apart from mines, also terrorist attacks threaten the work and life of fishermen – although principally indirectly. The attack of terrorist groups and militias – in possession of sophisticated weapons that were previously only available to National Armed Forces such as unmanned drones, anti-ship and armour-piercing missiles – on military and civilian vessels as well as oil tankers poses not only a high security risk but also causes an environmental disaster (Elayah n.d.). This is particularly also so for many poor fishermen families for whom the Red Sea is a lifeline.
During four years of war in Yemen, the red sea suffered from 22 attacks on modern warships, trade ships and oil tankers by small boats loaded with explosives and driven by suicide bombers often causing severe damage to these vessels. The Houthis and other groups use the same tools as used in the famous terrorist attack on the American warship USS Cole in Yemen, which cost al-Qaeda as little as US$ 40,000 but killed US sailors on board and damaged the ship at a cost of US$ 250 million (Greenfield & Hausheer 2014). Terrorist and rebel groups are expected to step up the threat to fishing and shipping in the Red Sea in the coming period (also see Table 1). Apart from the loss of lives and cargo, these attacks on vessels and oil tankers caused environmental pollution that threatens marine life and forces fish to move to different areas (Strategic Thought Centre 2018).
Table 1. Important attacks creating instability in Red Sea
Source: Strategic Thought Center 2018
Traditional fishermen generally stay close to the coast. Before the war, they could find all kinds of fish in places close to five to seven miles offshore. At present, they have to sail 20 to 30 miles in order to find desirable species of fish in sufficient amount, which increases the risks of losing life because of the widespread war. Most fishermen are now very afraid to practice their traditional fishing activities in the Red Sea in order to feed their poor families (Almasa Press 2018).
As indicated already, the impact of war on fishermen is not limited to restricted access to the sea. There are also other direct and indirect effects such as high fuel prices for boats and generators, disruption of fish exports and destruction of fishing equipment and boats and the direct attacks by fire. The Arab coalition forces led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have hit Houthi forces and terrorist groups in the Red Sea, sometimes destroying fishing boats off the coast of Yemen and killing dozens of fishermen (Oxfam 2017). In fact, data from the General Authority of Fishing in the Red Sea indicates that up to December 2017 a total of 146 fishermen died ‘due to Coalition airstrikes’, that ‘every fish-offloading port along the coast was targeted’ and 220 fishing boats have been destroyed (also see Figure 2) (Mundi 2018: 16).
Figure 2. Fishermen casualties and boats destroyed – March 2015-December 2017
Source: Mundi 2018: 17
The impact on society
There is no doubt that the war as played out in the Red Sea area is catastrophic for the Yemeni people and has major repercussions for the spread of poverty and famine that the Yemeni people are currently suffering. The United Nations estimates that 22.5 million Yemenis have just one meal a day to eat. There are about 14.5 million of them on the verge of deadly famine (Elayah 2017). The collapse of the fishing sector has contributed to this tragic situation in Yemen, resulting in the loss of about US$3.5 billion in a country with a pre-war national budget of just US$8 billion (Alsama Press 2018).
Mundi (2018) (but also see: Alsama Press 2018) also shows that these losses include the demise of many fishing-related industries in the Red Sea, such as ice mills, fish processing and export companies, boat maintenance workshops, spare parts suppliers and fish transport vehicles. About forty thousand people lost their source of income in these productive institutions, or about 92.5 percent of the total workers in the fisheries industrial sector. All this is then is in addition to the loss in state taxes from companies. Some 20,000 government employees in the fisheries sector have lost their jobs due to the collapse of this vital sector. With each employee supporting three to five people (or even up to ten in the case of many fishermen families), it is clear this has increased suffering and poverty in the Yemeni society. Suffering and poverty which are worsened by the displacement of around 15,000 fishermen from their homes due to the war, and by the exploitation of the fishing areas by illegal foreign companies whose methods (e.g. trawling, dynamite) are destroying precious feeding and cloning sites and coral reefs (Alayyam Press 2019).
In conclusion, the war might well lead to the total collapse of the Yemeni fishing sector in the Red Sea. It certainly has already led to a significant reduction in fish quantity and production value. Most important are the negative consequences of the war on traditional fishing practices as well as its impact on a society that is suffering from hunger and poverty. The ongoing war, in particular the indiscriminate use of naval mines, the terrorist attacks on ships and oil tankers, as well as targeting fishermen and fishing boats by the conflicting parties, creates a polluted marine environment for fish, destroys the artisanal fishing sector and displaces thousands of fishermen with their families. The war has reduced marine fishing inputs and ecosystems. It has destroyed a large part of fishing sector infrastructure, and negatively influenced relevant stakeholders in fish processing and marketing and development of the fishing sector in the Red Sea. It will take a very long time – and a lot of effort and determination – to reverse this present-day destruction of a vital sector in Yemen.
