Why we need an international instrument for small scale fisheries.? Small scale fishers are providing cheap protein food for people. They provide direct employment for 39.4 million people while 120 million indirect employment for the people.
So, SSF is important to,
* Food security,
* Employment opportunities
* Poverty allieviation for fishing communities
* Social and cultural aspects of coastal communities
NAFSO also seriously engage in the VGSSF drafting process. We are one of the Civil organization organized and mobilized the fishing communities from local, district and national levels to get the views from the fishers, fisher women and fish workers engage in the fisheries.
31st Session of COFI of FAO in June this year the SSF guidelines were adopted after series of national, regional and global processes since 2008.
NAFSO now engage to familiarize the contents of the guidelines. There is some technical language in the adopted guidelines. It is important to learn with difficulty as this would help to make better situation than today in many aspects.
* Access rights of SSF which would lead to ownership of the aquatic resources
* Promote gender aspects of fisheries
* Special attention on SSF and related activities
* Trans boarder fisheries issues
* Effects of climate change and disaster management
* Social welfare, social development, employment and decent work related issues
* Capacity development
How these contents effectively include in our Sri Lankan fisheries policy then implement is our challenge.
For this we need to think;
# How we push the authorities to adopt these guidelines and prepare policies and regulations in to our legal system
# How we build up a social movement to advocate these policies to implement effectively
Our role as NAFSO is to educate people and bring them for collective action.
0 comments:
Post a Comment