The Big, Uber, Super Year for Our Ocean
By Dr. Steve Box, Managing Director of Rare’s Fish Forever Program
2020 is a pivotal year for global environmental action. The countless references to the “Super Year for People and Nature” (the GEF, The Nature Conservancy), “Decade of Action to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals” (the UN-Secretary General), “Super Year for the Oceans” (UN Foundation), and “Year to build a truly ‘blue economy’” (Economist Group’s World Ocean Initiative) all underscore how much is at stake for the world in the next few decades — for biodiversity, for the future of food, for people’s well-being, and for our ocean in the face of climate change and continuing environmental degradation.
Fish Forever adds another refrain to the mix: “2020 must be the Year for Prioritizing Small-Scale Fisheries.” By this, we mean that global and national targets — the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the 30×30 call to action, nationally-determined contributions (NDCs), etc. — must increasingly recognize small-scale fisheries’ contributions to climate resilience, livelihoods, and conservation; and further, that reaching these goals is only achievable through coastal fisheries reform.
To this end, Fish Forever continues to build vital connections among local, national, and global policies relevant to small-scale fisheries, coastal zone protection, and a global movement of local leaders committing to these reforms. Further, with governments and fishing communities around the world, Fish Forever is focused, in 2020 and beyond, on:
- Balancing fisheries production with their protection: By decentralizing fisheries management, and empowering local communities with legal rights to exclusively fish in coastal waters and the responsibility to protect their essential fish habitat and rich biodiversity, the program balances production with protection and helps these communities more effectively protect the ecosystems they rely on.
- Helping coastal communities adapt to the realities of climate change: Building climate resilience is growing nationally. Countries like Indonesia are adopting ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) approaches to combat climate change and incorporating conservation, sustainable management, and ecosystem restoration into fisheries management and governance plans at local and national levels. Rare’s ongoing project with Germany’s International Climate Initiative is mainstreaming EbA into fisheries management in coastal fishing communities in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Pacific Island countries.
- Implementing innovative ocean management and conservation: Rare continues to work at the intersection of high biodiversity and high human use to benefit people and nature. Establishing managed access with reserves contributes to the growing global movement to protect 30 percent of the oceans by 2030 (30 x 30). Improving small-scale fisheries management while protecting certain parts of the ocean (i.e., those that contain vital habitats, like coral reefs) through networked marine reserve design prioritizes the part of the ocean most critical to people and nature and the ecosystems that build climate resilience.
- Creating data for decision-making AND putting it into users’ hands: Not only are we collecting extensive and robust biological, ecological and socio-economic data about the small-scale fisheries sector, but through a new public data portal, we are: 1) providing decision-makers with access to both raw and analyzed data; 2) building management capacity (hundreds of decision-making bodies) to help in making decisions based on this data; and 3) building an unparalleled public collection of tools and materials for global practitioners’ use.
- Transitioning fishers into the formal economy: Using tools like OurFish and best practices like savings clubs and financial literacy training, Fish Forever is helping communities build financial and market inclusion: increasing both their access to formal financial services and the economic resilience of households.
- Working with local, sub-national and national governments and other stakeholders to prioritize small-scale fisheries in their development planning and identify pathways to establish and sustain managed access with reserves: For example, as a founding signatory of RISE UP A Blue Call to Action — an unprecedented joint call from civil society, fishers, Indigenous Peoples and philanthropic organizations that provides governments and businesses a clear roadmap of the critical goals and solutions they can adopt to tackle the ocean crisis — Rare is actively helping to move the needle in favor of bold and transformative action for the ocean.
2020 is also a critical year to develop and enhance international and national political and financial commitments for the next decade. The Oceans focus of December’s ‘Blue’ Climate Change conference in Madrid, for example, set the stage for heightening the focus on oceans within the climate change and biodiversity agendas of 2020, and gave Rare and NGO policy coalition partners a platform to elevate small-scale fisheries’ role in contributing to these agendas.
And at this year’s big events — the IUCN World Conservation Congress, UN Ocean Conference, FAO’s 34th Committee on Fisheries meeting, the Convention for Biological Diversity (CBD) COP15 and the UNFCCC COP26, among others* — Rare will continue to make the case for how more significant political and financial support for small-scale fisheries can deliver on a range of goals under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Stay tuned and join us in committing to improve the lives and well-being of fisher households and coastal communities and the ecosystem conditions and productivity upon which they depend.
This article can also be found in Rare’s Fish Forever Progress Update — Issue #22.
*Or the virtual versions by which they are replaced due to Coronavirus
