25 January, Rome - Fishing community representatives and stakeholders from Cabo Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, Ecuador, Indonesia, Peru and Senegal met to compare notes and learn from each other during a four-day global exchange visit held in the city of Tumbes, Peru, from 29 November-2 December 2022.

The event organized by the GEF-funded Coastal Fisheries Initiative (CFI) brought together a total of 60 people, including fishers and fish workers, private sector actors, government representatives, and CFI partners.

Participants presented their work, shared their experiences and discussed good practices and lessons learned on sustainable fisheries and mangroves co-management.

They also took field trips to the José Mendoza fish processing plant, the Puerto Pizarro fish landing site, the Tumbes National Mangrove Sanctuary, which is one CFI Latin America’s pilot sites, and the facilities of Incabiotec, a socially and environmentally responsible biotechnology company that develops ways to repopulate shellfish and other mangrove biodiversity while also educating the community and working with at-risk youth.

"We don't have such a facility in our country, and we need one," commented Patricia Flores, a member of the Asociación 6 de Julio Naranjal, an association of crab harvesters and processors in Ecuador who is also a beneficiary of CFI Latin America. "We need scientists to help us repopulate the mangrove crabs, so that we can have more resources.”

Co-management + diversification + incentives = sustainable fisheries

The exchange visit distilled key learnings on successful co-management of protected areas, on how to enhance and diversify livelihoods, and which kinds of incentives for sustainable fishing work best.

Co-management is itself an incentive: by delegating responsibility to fishers, authorities gain key allies in the safeguarding of protected areas, while communities are motivated to fish responsibly and to take care of the ecosystems on which their livelihoods depend.

"We have about 1 000 forest rangers and some 20 million hectares of protected areas in our country," commented Marco Arenas, an agricultural engineer who works at Peru's Natural Protected Areas Service (SERNANP, in its Spanish acronym).

"This means each ranger would have to patrol 20 000 hectares, which is impossible. So the SERNANP strategy is to get people involved: our goal is for civil society to take on more responsibility for it own natural spaces, which are opportunities for development, based on the pillars of conservation," Mr Arenas added.

Participants from CFI West Africa, where two of the countries — Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal — have extensive mangrove forests, were particularly interested in the SERNANP co-management model.

Certification schemes leading to better prices and market incentives can also act as drivers of sustainable fishing, participants agreed. One example is the so-called "Sasi" label for sustainably caught fish, which is being spearheaded by CFI Indonesia.

Finding alternative livelihoods is an additional pathway to sustainability, explained Clarissa Sastra, founder and CEO of Seaweed Manufacturing, a company that hires fishermen to farm seaweed in Indonesia.

"We provide them with a reliable alternative income, we improve their livelihoods and we reduce fishing pressure," said Ms Sastra, a beneficiary of the World Bank-led CFI Challenge Fund. "We protect the environment and the coral reefs, and everyone is happy.”

About the CFI

The CFI is a collaborative, global effort funded by the GEF. It brings together fisher communities, international conservation organizations, governments, UN agencies and the World Bank in an effort to achieve sustainable coastal fisheries and conserve marine biodiversity in six countries: Cabo Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, Ecuador, Indonesia, Peru and Senegal.