Guidelines on Fisheries Resource Co-management

What Is Co-management of Fisheries Resources?

Co-management of fisheries resources refers to a method in which fishermen or people working in the field of fisheries (hereinafter referred to as resource users) and administration cooperate to manage fishery resources.

The recent decrease in fishery resources has been caused by an increase in the number of fishermen, the development of fishing techniques, proliferation of fishing companies, and deterioration of the habitat of the target species. This has resulted in a decrease in catch and fishermen's income, difficulty in supporting fishermen's families, a threat to food security, and a decrease in foreign exchange earnings. Fisheries administrations have introduced fishing regulations to reduce overfishing and rebuild resource stocks to address these challenges. However, as fishermen whose income are reduced by fishing regulations have little awareness of the need to comply with the regulations, administrative agencies have no choice but to intensify enforcement activities. It is often difficult for administrative agencies to crack down on the many artisanal fishery landing sites scattered along the coast owing to limited personnel and budgets.

Under these circumstances, the co-management of fishery resources, in which administrations actively support resource management activities that fishermen undertake on their own initiative, has been attracting attention. It enables fishermen and administrations to work together to achieve the sustainable use of fisheries resources. By clarifying current or potential problems, resource users recognise that such problems are their own issues and develop resource management measures (such as regulation of fishing efforts) to address them. Administrative agencies provide technical and legal support to resource users for recognising the problems they face and develop measures to solve them. In the co-management of fishery resources, resource users, including fishermen, are the main actors in resource management; therefore, there is no conflict between administrative agencies and resource users regarding monitoring and control. Both parties can work toward the same goal of sustainable resource use.

Target Audience and Purpose of These Guidelines

These guidelines are intended for practitioners responsible for fisheries resource management in West African countries. The intended audience for the term 'practitioners' of fisheries resource management are central government agencies and local government fisheries administrators. The objective of these guidelines is to help government organisations and local governments involved in fisheries resource management to play an appropriate role in collaboration with fishers and fisheries organisations to ensure the sustainable and effective use of fisheries resources.

In Senegal, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) launched support activities in the field of fisheries resource management in 2003. These activities have been successful in the application of the co-management approach to fisheries resources. At the West African Regional Fisheries Seminar¹ held in 2013 under the leadership of the ‘Cogestion des Pêcheries Artisanales au Sénégal’ (COGEPAS), the following issues were discussed: (1) overfishing of artisanal fisheries in the West African region, (2) degradation of marine resources, (3) limitations of top-down resource management by the central government, and (4) achievements of the co-management of fisheries resources in Senegal. At the end of the seminar, the Dakar Declaration was adopted, which ‘recommends that each participating country in the Seminar adopt, trial, and disseminate the co-management approach to fisheries resources.

In the West African region, migratory resources that move across national boundaries are important targets for fishing, and groups of fishermen frequently follow this movement across national borders in search of highly-valued fisheries resources. Under these circumstances, when it comes to promoting the co-management of fisheries resources, resource management activities by a single country are often insufficient. Therefore, it is necessary to disseminate the co-management of fisheries resources in surrounding countries, rather than implementing it in one country. Based on the results of JICA's past support in the field of fisheries resources management in West African countries such as Senegal, these guidelines have been compiled to disseminate the joint management of fishery resources over the region.

To concretely explain the effort to implement co-management of fisheries resources, these guidelines present the essence extracted from efforts to address issues on resource management since the 2000s. In other words, the guidelines provide as many specific options as possible for starting resource management activities from scratch in one community and achieving sustainable activities in its surrounding areas.

In West African countries with different natural and social environments and at different stages of implementing resource management, the guidelines are presented to provide practitioners with practical tips for managing fisheries resources in their field activities.

Process of Co-management of Fisheries Resources

This involves selecting a fishing village community for resource management, identifying challenges related to resource management activities in a participatory manner, and sharing results with other stakeholders in the fishing village community and administration. Therefore, it is necessary to identify the stakeholders involved in relevant issues, understand interests among them, and promote interest coordination. At the same time, it is also important to build a resource management system by establishing an organisation responsible for implementing resource management activities to solve the issues and train leaders to become key members.

While developing such an environment, the resource management organisation, whose main members are resource users, will take the lead in formulating and implementing activities such as adjustment of fishing effort, nurture of new resources, and protection and restoration of the fishery habitat environment, which are direct methods of resource management, and will strengthen monitoring and enforcement activities. To enhance the sustainability of resource management, measures should be incorporated to increase the added value of marine products, introduce alternative sources of income, and strengthen the motivation of the actors involved.

The process of developing resource management measures will also consider strengthening cooperation with neighbouring fishing villages and linkages within the fisheries value chain as needed for activities, developing measures to involve migrant fishermen, and securing and properly managing financial resources for resource management organisations.

The path of activities for the co-management of fisheries resources is as follows. The administration will support community-led resource management activities, including the development of a legal framework for fishermen's rules. This includes the development of a legal framework for their rules, organisational management, and the creation of mechanisms to extend the co-management of fishery resources to other areas. To this end, the capacity of central and local government officials should be strengthened.