Wise Words. Co-Management Within Small-Scale Fishing

“Nobody speaks the truth when there are fishing quotas on the table” – A Johnston.

In the past South African context, co-option and self nomination were, and still is, the main criteria to participate in the necessary bodies. Very few are elected on a mandate from constituencies and generally there is a rather hollow understanding of democracy.  Participatory Integrated Management is the structured approach to research, dialogue, decision-making, institutional reform and development-resource allocation, which promotes greater involvement of ALL stakeholders in policy process and harmonises their conflicting objectives, strategies and capacities.

It is important to recognise the social and economic dimensions of small-scale fisheries in the broader national social and economic development, especially to job creation and poverty alleviation. Co-management in fisheries is a highly technical issue and is interpreted or misinterpreted by many, mainly by management rules that behest them and by their local circumstances. Thus mostly it is neither clearly understood or can be determined upon without the new defined implemented (small-scale) fisheries policy.