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Gender-focused development interventions in small-scale fisheries: lessons learnt from a past project in Isabela Galapagos in Ecuador

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Abstract

In 2001, one of the first initiatives in Galapagos promoting the sustainable use of marine resources with the participation of women in the fisheries sector was launched. This case study tells the story of Pescado Azul (‘Blue Fish’ in Spanish), an association formed by a group of women, mostly wives of fishers, from Isabela Island, Galapagos Archipelago. Pescado Azul was created as a development-focused intervention to market processed products such as smoked fish, croquettes and albacore pate from local small-scale, artisanal fisheries. This study illustrates the origin, development and management of the initiative within Isabela´s context, explores its achievements and limitations. Some of the lessons learned and pitfalls by individual members of the association and institutional actors linked to the initiative are presented and analysed. Main findings show four as key reasons for the discontinuity of Pescado Azul after some years of success: a) the different visions that were the driving forces of the initiative by both the members and supporting institutions, b) the potential negative consequences of an inadequate planning of welfare actions, c) the importance of promoting initiatives with bottom-up rather than top-down approaches, and d) the gender-based strategies, which were not adequately developed at the time the project was implemented. Our findings contribute to better understand gender-focused interventions within small-scale fisheries as a way to illustrate strengths and threats to these types of initiatives, including the need for improvement in the planning and execution of similar development projects in Galapagos or in other places with similar social contexts.

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Notes

  1. The Equatorial Prize, organized by the Equatorial Initiative within the United Nations Development Programme, is awarded every two years to recognize outstanding community efforts to reduce poverty through the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.

  2. In this article, women's empowerment is defined as “the process by which those who have been denied the ability to make strategic life choices acquire such an ability” (Kabeer 1999).

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Acknowledgements

We want to express our feelings of gratitude to the members of the Pescado Azul Association who voluntarily provided us with information about their experiences and learnings in Pescado Azul. They are named in alphabetical order: Lilia Chica, Carmen Delgado, Emma Flor, Gloria Gil, Bella Rivas, Teresa Toalombo, Yacqueline García and Nancy Valencia.

We also want to thank the institutional actors for their contributions to this case study and for sharing their experiences with us: Rubén Darío Carrión González, Rocío Cedeño Palacios, Juan Alejo Chávez, Sonia Alicia Crespo Morales, Eliecer Cruz Bedón, José González Nóvoa, Oscar Ottón Intriago Intriago, Laura López-Ortum Collado, Godfrey Merlen, María Moreno de los Ríos Almandoz, Patricia Moreno Salas, Francisco Ortuño Álvarez and Marta Romoleroux.

Special thanks to Diego Añazco and José González who provided audio-visual material from Pescado Azul. Also, to Edgardo Civallero, CDF Library, Archives and Museum Coordinator, who facilitated key information for this investigation. The work executed in this research was funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and conducted under GNPD research permit No. PC-37-19 “Socioecology, Fisheries Assessment and Management: Steps Towards Sustainability”.

This publication is contribution number 2618 of the Charles Darwin Foundation for the Galapagos Islands.

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  1. Charles Darwin Foundation, Puerto Ayora, Galapagos, Ecuador

    Ernesto Bustamante Velarde, Carla Zambrano Palacios, Gabriela Rodríguez Jácome & María José Barragán-Paladines

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  1. Ernesto Bustamante Velarde
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  2. Carla Zambrano Palacios
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  3. Gabriela Rodríguez Jácome
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Correspondence to Ernesto Bustamante Velarde.

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Velarde, E.B., Palacios, C.Z., Jácome, G.R. et al. Gender-focused development interventions in small-scale fisheries: lessons learnt from a past project in Isabela Galapagos in Ecuador. Maritime Studies 23, 14 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40152-024-00356-2

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