Without Safety Nets
The COVID crisis emphasized the need to build resilience of small-scale fishing communities.
From her home above the waters of Mai Root, one of many traditional fishing villages dotting the coasts of eastern Thailand, Mayuree Thammachat’s voice breaks as she speaks.
“Nobody is buying our fish, we cannot go out and sell it,” she says, addressing a virtual audience. “I just don’t know what to do.”
That was in September 2021, as Thailand faced its worst surge of COVID-19 yet. Mayuree couldn’t get to her local market where she would typically sell her husband’s catch of the day.
She is worried about not only her health, but also her food and income.
She is far from alone. Across the small-scale fisheries sector — which secures an income and affordable source of nutrition for more than 800 million people — COVID-19 disruptions have added to pre-pandemic struggles, making it even harder to make ends meet.
Mayuree was speaking to community leaders, researchers, allies and fellow small-scale fishers and fishworkers who gathered online from various locations across Asia to discuss how the pandemic has affected the many people who are small-scale fishery dependent.
The event, hosted by the Small-Scale Fisheries Resource and Collaboration Hub (SSF Hub), was held in direct response to requests from fishers and fish workers for a space to share their stories and concerns, and identify solutions.
Counting on fish
Despite its name, the small-scale fishery sector is massive.
Estimates suggest that 800 million people are directly engaged in small-scale fishing globally, with a majority coming from low and middle-income countries. That’s 90 percent of the world’s capture fishers and fish workers, nearly half of whom are women. For perspective, the sector provides more livelihoods than industrial fisheries, oil, gas, shipping and tourism combined.
In developing countries, that’s around 56 million jobs added to national economies, often in contexts where employment opportunities are limited. And that’s just wild capture; another 20 million people are also directly involved in small-scale aquaculture.
But in terms of demography, social significance, and role in maintaining food security, small-scale fisheries play an often overlooked and underestimated role.
Manas Roshan, Programme Officer at the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers, says that’s why it takes extra effort to understand the magnitude of the pandemic’s varied impacts.
“When talking about something as grave as a pandemic, we need to look at the entire fisheries value chain and assess how the domino effect of demand and supply disruptions affected everyone involved,” Manas said during the virtual event.
This value chain strings together a significant number of people, many of whom are not counted in the official numbers — despite serving key roles in the many stages that move fish from water to dish. Manas lists examples: net making, net selling, boat building, fish processing, fish cleaning, fish smoking, ice supply producing, packaging, and distributing.
“While fishing and fishers were recognized as essential services and workers, the operations of upstream and downstream industries were restricted,” Manas said.
Among those who are not formally counted are undocumented fishers, many of whom were barred from fishing during lockdowns across the world.
Lack of access to formal recognition particularly affected women, said two representatives of the Tamilnadu Women Fishworkers Sangam.
“My husband went to work at the sea but he flipped over due to the wind and passed away. So now we have to go to the sea. But they only give fisher compensation during the lockdown to men. There are only women in our family, so they would not give us money,” said one.
“It was very hard during the lockdown as we could not go to the sea for 45 days. We only eat if we go to the sea. Otherwise we are borrowing money and rationing our rice,” said the other.
Other fishers also pointed to their concerns about facing crippling debt.
“The biggest challenge faced by fishermen during COVID-19 is the decline in fish prices, even while other things are expensive. Now, many other traditional fishermen are selling their boats and switching to growing secondary crops. I have even taken from my children’s education savings and borrowed money,” said Abdul Kadir, a traditional fisherman from Ujung Tinggi village, Aceh province, Indonesia.
“We borrowed 10 kg of rice to feed seven people. Now that rice is nearly gone. We can’t even manage the cost of fuel for fishing boats. Everyone’s condition is like mine,” added Nurajahan Begum, a fisher’s wife from Charfasson, Bhola, Bangladesh.
The coast is not clear
Other stories shared at the SSF Hub’s event pointed to concerns that existed even before the pandemic: the changes brought by a warming climate and industrialization.
A fisher representing the Coastal Action Network in Tamil Nadu, India, said climate change impacts, pollutants from industrial and infrastructure projects, and the shift from traditional gear to mechanized boats and trawl nets by large-scale industrial fisheries, have degraded shorelines, permanently altering how his village engages in fish work.
“From a young age, I was interested in doing shoreline fishing. But industrial activities have destroyed the shoreline ecosystems. As small-scale fishers, we could not go beyond territorial waters where the fish are with our country boats. This is a very difficult time,” he said.
Changing tides
For many who are directly or indirectly involved in the small-scale fishery sector, fishing is not just a profession. It’s a way of life — centering traditions, daily rituals, and local economies.
To sustain this way of life, many traditional fishing communities apply intimate ecological understanding — enriched through generations — to keep natural resources healthy and resilient for mutual survival.
Despite growing evidence on their capacity to help countries meet policy goals set nationally and globally on the use of aquatic resources, small-scale fisheries continue to be overlooked and underestimated in policy, and continue to be held behind by a lack of governance, management, and fulfillment of human rights.
To address the factors limiting small-scale fisheries from playing more of a central role in conserving ocean and freshwater resources, the Food and Agricultural Organization’s Committee on Fisheries adopted the SSF Guidelines in 2014.
The guidelines call for a human-rights based approach for the management of fisheries, aquatic ecosystems and biodiversity, and stress that the right to use a resource and the responsibility to manage it sustainably must not be separated.
To amplify this global call to action, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2022 the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture — a big step for the small-scale fisheries sector.
The aim is to increase global understanding of the role that small-scale fishers, fish farmers, and fish workers play in food security, nutrition, poverty eradication and sustainable natural resource use — ultimately bringing small-scale fisheries and related industries where they deserve to be: front and centre.
