IYAFA: Interview with Ratana Chuenpagdee, research professor in geography at Memorial University of Newfoundland, in St. John’s, Canada.

The Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (SSF Guidelines) have a chapter dedicated to information, research, and communication, that provides guidance on how to address these themes for the small-scale fisheries sector. Can you mention how we can effectively make the link between the collection and analysis of bioecological, social, cultural, and economic data with the inclusion and promotion of aquatic small-scale producers in informed decision-making processes?

To make the linkage effective, we need to revisit the data collection system and the questions underlying the analysis, whether they reflect the nature and key characteristics of small-scale fisheries, and whether they aim to address real issues, challenges and concerns facing the sector. Often, fisheries data are designed and collected to provide information that can be used for certain types of management models, especially large-scale commercial fisheries. They do not capture well what’s going on in small-scale fisheries and aquaculture. Recent efforts to improve data and information about small-scale producers have certainly been helpful but more innovative thinking is required. This may include a participatory approach to design data collection system, as well as to collect data, starting with deliberation about questions like what data to collect and why, how it will benefit small-scale fisheries, and how it can be used in policy and decision-making. Doing so will help avoid two pitfalls: putting burden on small-scale producers to take part in data collection that may not be useful to anyone and putting a blame on small-scale fisheries when there is no data to support their values and contribution.

Small-scale aquatic producers, including indigenous peoples, are holders of tradition knowledge, culture, techniques, and practices. What could be done better to include this knowledge in research and policies and why should it be done?

Traditional knowledge, culture, techniques, and practices of small-scale aquatic producers, including indigenous peoples, have long been subjects of research in fisheries social science. The integration of such knowledge into policies has not been effective, however. This has to do with the fact that social science research is often not used as the basis for fisheries management. It is mostly the natural science research that produces quantitative and measurable outputs that form the basis of science-based, evidence-based management and policy-making. It is important to integrate traditional and local knowledge in management and policies since local fishers and indigenous peoples are knowledge holders who have real world experiences about fisheries and who are directly affected by policies and management. Practitioners, policy makers and researchers will need to respect what fishers, fish farmers and fish workers know, and learn from them rather than imposing knowledge or techniques on them.

Paragraph 11.9. of the SSF Guidelines reads “Research organizations and institutions should support capacity development to allow small-scale fishing communities to participate in research and in the utilization of research findings". Can you mention good examples of capacity development and/or participatory practices that connect academic knowledge and aquatic small-scale producers?

Several institutions and many projects are taking participatory approach in capacity building and research activities, involving local communities and key actors in the process. It’s hard to name them. The “Transdisciplinarity in Fisheries and Ocean Sustainability” training program that Too Big to Ignore (TBTI) develops is an effort in that direction, but we are probably not as connected to specific contexts as institutions operating locally are, except when we conduct on-site training with local case studies. The International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture provides an opportunity to value and incentive more involvement of or leadership by local communities in knowledge development processes in the future.

Biography

Ratana Chuenpagdee is a University Research Professor in Geography at Memorial University of Newfoundland, in St. John’s. She is leading a major global research partnership, Too Big To Ignore (TBTI), which aims at elevating the profile of small-scale fisheries and rectifying their marginalization in national and international policies. As part of this project, she’s coordinating research and activities to support the implementation of the SSF Guidelines and transdisciplinary research for fisheries and ocean governance around the world. Ratana also co-leads a research module on informing governance responses in a changing ocean for the Ocean Frontier Institute, another major collaborative research initiative between universities, governments, private sectors and communities. Together with colleagues, she co-edits several TBTI books about small-scale fisheries, including “Transdisciplinarity for Small-Scale Fisheries Governance: Analysis and Practice” (2018) and “Blue Justice: Small-Scale Fisheries in a Sustainable Ocean Economy” (2022).