Case 2-9 Inter-regional collaboration among resource management organisations: case of wide-area collaboration among regional resource management organisations (establishment of CLPA Network General Directorate) in Senegal

Senegal has 38 CLPAs that have been approved by the Ministry of Fisheries and Maritime Economy. For fishers to belong to the CLPAs and take initiative in the planning of fisheries resource co-management activities, JICA’s COGEPAS project worked with fishers’ trade groups (colleges) through meetings, video presentations, awareness raising activities and technical training sessions, providing scientific data to the fishers through participatory research to deepen their understanding. The project supported the CLPA’s fisheries resource management committee to implement management activities decided on by the CLPA. Decisions taken by the CLPA are shared with the departmental (provincial) Fisheries Directorate and neighbouring CLPAs.

Given that one of the primary target resources in Senegal is migratory resources that move over a wide area, and given the role of the CLPA as the umbrella body for resource and fisheries management activities, it was essential to strengthen the collaboration between CLPAs.

The importance of establishing a national network of CLPAs and developing strategies to extend the management of widely distributed resources across the country was discussed in the COGEPAS working group on extended fisheries resource management, which was held from 2009 to 2013.

With the support of USAID’s Concerted Management for Sustainable Fisheries in Senegal (COMFISH) project and others, the National Executive Office of the CLPA Networks, a national federation of CLPAs, was created on 15 June 2017. The objective of this organisation is to exchange information between fishers’ leaders in the different CLPAs, to share fisheries resource management initiatives from each CLPA and to strengthen collaboration between them.

momentum felt by each CLPA to deepen their understanding of fisheries resource management activities, share information with the relevant stakeholders and establish a broader fisheries resource management system based on the characteristics and trends of the target resources.

Chapter 2 Establishing and strengthening the resource management implementation system

2.3 Strengthening the collaboration between several fishing villages

If the target issue requires nationwide resource management activities, such as when target species move across state lines or when fishermen gather across state lines in highly abundant fishing grounds, a nationwide management organisation such as the Directorate General of the National CLPA Network (Bureau Executif National des reseaux des CLPAs) in Senegal can play a major role.

This case study is useful for not only co-management of migratory fish species that move widely, but also situations that require inter-regional cooperation among resource management organisations, such as when migratory fishermen from the outside come to operate in search of highly commercial, fixed resources in the region.