Towards Just and Sustainable Blue Futures: Small-Scale Fisher Movements and Food Sovereignty

Abstract

Oceans and seas have been vital food sources for both coastal and terrestrial communities for thousands of years. Traditionally, the main actors were small-scale fishers adopting more ecologically-benign fishing practices either for their own subsistence or small-scale commercial use and livelihood. Members of small-scale fishing communities frequently combine other socioeconomic activities such as small-scale agriculture and animal husbandry with their fishing activity as well. Thus, they usually have broader and different understandings and narratives regarding their relations and interdependency with the fish and the seas compared with industrial capture fisheries targeting the most profitable commercial fish species using more destructive gears and high technological capacities. In this chapter, we aim to shed light on their past and present—as well as highlight their existence as a rather neglected and marginalized social group, their political agency and their global movement for food sovereignty in order to uncover their social, political and ecological roles for the future of oceans, coastal communities, and the society in general. Our research methodology relies on participant observation and action methods based on 3 years of continuous work with small-scale fishing cooperatives in Turkey, Spain and Europe, as well as following and collaborating with the WFFP (World Forum of Fisher People) members both in Europe and globally. We conducted more than 80 interviews with key actors from fisheries sector including policy makers, NGOs, members of fishing cooperatives, and fisheries and marine scientists that inform this investigation. We claim that even though small-scale fishing communities are usually neglected actors of the ‘present’ in most mainstream marine policies, narratives and agendas such as the Blue Economy, their ‘presence’ in ocean governance is of utmost importance and their future existence needs to be ensured for an ecologically, socially and economically just ocean governance.

1 Introduction

Oceans and seas have been vital food sources for both coastal and terrestrial communities for thousands of years. Traditionally, the main actors were small-scale fishers (SSFs) adopting more ecologically benign fishing practices either for their own subsistence or small-scale commercial use and livelihood. Yet, both subsistence and commercial use can co-exist within the same community or fishing cooperative. Members of small-scale fishing communities frequently combine other socioeconomic activities such as small-scale agriculture and animal husbandry with their fishing activity. They crucially depend on marine ecosystems for their livelihoods, as opposed to the industrial capture fisheries targeting the most profitable commercial fish species using more destructive gears and high technological capacities.

Small-scale fisheries are defined differently depending on the national and legislative context. The Food and Agriculture Organization, for instance, uses the terms “small-scale” and “artisanal fisheries” interchangeably and define them as “traditional fisheries involving fishing households (as opposed to commercial companies), using relatively small amount of capital and energy, relatively small fishing vessels (if any), making short fishing trips, close to shore, mainly for local consumption”.¹ Frequently, though, vessels smaller than 12 meters are identified as small-scale by national fisheries policies. A recent FAO report (FAO 2020) indicated that in 2018, 82% of all motorized fishing vessels in the world were smaller than 12 meters, identifying them as “small-scale” vessels. Their diversity with respect to species caught, harvesting technology used, institutional characteristics, and other social and economic relations make small-scale fisheries a quite dynamic sector, which can adapt relatively easily to changing ecological and social conditions. Scientific studies therefore indicate that a broader range of social, economic and ecological relations such as gender relations, value chains and the ways of interacting with the marine ecosystems should be used to complement the analysis of SSFs (Schuhbauer and Sumaila 2016).

In this chapter, we aim to shed light on the past and present of small-scale fishers—by exploring their local and global organizations/initiatives and their role in the global movement for food justice and food sovereignty (Sinha 2012; Levkoe et al. 2017; Mills 2018). This scrutiny enables us to uncover their social, political and ecological roles for a more just and sustainable future of the oceans, coastal communities, and society in general. Our research methodology relies on participant observation and action methods based on 3 years of collaborative work with a range of groups striving for agroecology and food sovereignty in fisheries. These include small-scale fishing cooperatives in the Istanbul region, Turkey—a member of the World Forum of Fisher People (WFFP)² since 2017—, initiatives working on agroecology and food sovereignty in small-scale fisheries in Spain and Europe, as well as other European, regional and global WFFP members. We conducted more than 80 interviews with key actors most of whom were WFFP members from different countries such as Turkey, Spain, Mauritania, Kenya, Indonesia, Thailand, India, Ecuador and Honduras as well as with policy makers, NGOs, and fisheries and marine scientists, all of which inform this investigation. A table summarizing our interviews is provided below (Table 17.1).

Table 17.1 Interviewed actors

As a result, we claim that even though small-scale fishing communities are usually neglected actors of the ‘present’ of marine policies in narratives and agendas such as Blue Economy and Blue Growth (European Commission 2012; African Union 2015), their presence in ocean governance is of utmost importance and their future existence needs to be ensured for an ecologically, socially and economically just ocean governance. This way, we aim to strengthen the voice of SSFs as marginalized actors of ocean governance as well as contribute to the political debates around food security, food sovereignty and fisheries governance.

The next section analyses the past and present of SSFs by uncovering their significant role in food production, sustainable use of the seas and oceans, and employment, as well as their political marginalization in ocean governance. Section 17.3 explores justice claims of SSFs by focusing on their struggles and social movements. Finally, the last section calls for just blue futures, where SSFs are the main actors of Community Supported Fisheries models and local food provisioning and are part of food sovereignty movement.

2 Contribution of SSFs to Food Security and Local Livelihoods and Their Political Marginalization

Providing about half of global fish catches, and around two thirds of fish captures destined for direct human consumption worldwide, small-scale fishers have always played a vital role for local livelihoods and food security (FAO 2015). Moreover, considering that 90 percent of capture fishers and fish workers are employed in small-scale fisheries, it is quite difficult to grasp how SSFs have been neglected and marginalized in policy-making for the last decades. This disregard for SSFs might be related to the perceived importance of the technologically more advanced industrial fishing activities especially since the 1960s. Their large-scale operations have been considered more efficient and suitable for the capitalistic mode of production, supported by considerable levels of perverse subsidies³ leading to over-capacity and over-fishing, while SSFs were predominantly perceived as inefficient, and even backward (Knudsen 2009; Pinkerton 2015). Governments often prioritize industrial fishing activities as a source of employment and economic profits, however, small-scale fisheries provide more jobs than the combined employment generated by industrial fishers, oil and gas industries, tourism and shipping (Smith and Basurto 2019).

A second reason for the relatively little attention paid to SSFs so far seems to go hand in hand with the difficulty of precisely defining small-scale fishing and collecting statistical data about SSFs’ activity, as they constitute a very diverse subsector of fisheries, often characterized differently depending on the national context (Smith and Basurto 2019). As a result of this diversity, small-scale fishing activities have often gone unreported and did not receive government support. Instead, especially with the rise of neoliberalism beginning from the 1980s, SSFs have increasingly been dispossessed of their fishing grounds via enclosures, establishment of marine protected areas, and market-based policy instruments such as individual transferable quotas (ITQs) (Mansfield 2004; Pinkerton and Davis 2015). Even though marine protected areas can benefit small-scale fishers in case they are designed in consultation with them, in practice, their implementation may lead to exclusion from their traditional fishing grounds as well as decision making in general (Segi 2014; Mallin et al. 2019). Small-scale fishers in countries adopting ITQs (such as Denmark and South Africa) were also negatively affected as ITQs gave rise to the creation of overcapitalization and large-scale industrial fishing operations in these regions (Barbesgaard 2018). The recent wave of Blue Growth ideas prioritizing extractivist⁴ activities such as seabed mining, tourism, intensive aquaculture, offshore energy projects and biotechnology for the sake of continued economic growth will likely exacerbate such dispossession processes (Hadjimichael 2018).

Currently, scientific studies as well as policy attention to small-scale fishing seems to be rising (Smith and Basurto 2019), as the significant contribution of SSFs to employment, food security, poverty alleviation, and rural development becomes clearer. It is estimated that 22–34 million fishers are employed in the primary sector of small-scale fishing, and accounting for indirect employment in processing and trade related with small-scale fishing activities this figure climbs up to around 100 million individuals (FAO 2021; Teh and Sumaila 2013). However, increased attention to SSFs is not only needed due to their substantial contribution to employment and food security worldwide. In other words, SSFs are not only indispensable for subsistence or providing livelihoods for a large number of fisher peoples, but I they also embody social and cultural values, a particular way of life and identity, and contribute substantially to the well-being of coastal communities, as they are “firmly rooted in local communities, traditions and values” (FAO 2015, p. v). These values require more “visibility, recognition and enhancement” given the current political and economic marginalization and vulnerability of small-scale fishers (FAO 2015, p. ix).

Even though small-scale fishers are usually neglected—or ignored—by policymakers or the investors of mega projects aiming at a high level of capital circulation and accumulation, in fact, they are key social actors for social and ecological justice. As opposed to most industrial fishing activities, SSFs usually adopt more sustainable fishing practices: they frequently use passive gear to catch fish, and their total annual fuel consumption as well as consumption per tonne of fish landed are lower (Pauly 2007, 2018). They are also characterized by relatively less bycatch and discards, and therefore have lower impact on habitats (Lloret et al. 2018). Still, the actual amount of fish caught by small-scale fishers is largely unknown, as they are often under-reported by FAO member countries. Catch reconstruction studies led by Daniel Pauly and his colleagues within the Sea Around Us Project, for instance, try to quantify the actual level of small-scale fishers’ catches in order to come up with a proper statistic to evaluate small-scale fishers’ ecological and social impacts (Pauly and Zeller 2016).

In contrast to industrial fishers using high-tech equipment to catch more and reach deeper, small-scale fishers have a biophysical view of the marine space, accumulated over hundreds of years through close observation of the nature with which they interact. Moreover, SSFs can often utilize their traditional ecological knowledge to respond to local ecological uncertainties in line with the recent adaptive management approaches (Berkes et al. 2000). This knowledge and continuous close interaction with marine ecosystems is invaluable for the protection of certain marine species, and for the identification of early warnings about changing ecological conditions in the seas and oceans. This is crucial, for instance, for adaptation to climate change and biodiversity conservation as fish is commonly viewed as a living being and as food, rather than a commodity among small-scale fishers (Ertör-Akyazi 2020; Levkoe et al. 2017).

2.1 Marginalization of SSF Due to the Economic and Political Privileges of Industrial Fishing

SSFs often come into competition and sometimes severe conflicts with industrial fishers, as the latter move to marine spaces that SSF people have been traditionally using for hundreds of years. In fact, the “ever-expanding enterprise” (Pauly 2018, p. 371) of industrial fishers, relying on heavy fossil fuel use and government subsidies to continue operations, increased their catches considerably since the 1960s, and global catches of marine fisheries peaked at about 93 million tons in 1996. Currently, about 34% of global marine fish stocks are unsustainably fished (FAO 2020). This global crisis in the marine capture fisheries emerged mainly as a result of “subsidy-driven over-capitalization” (Pauly et al. 1998, p. 860) of industrial fishers, and is visible not only in the decreasing level of landings, but also in the characteristics of fish caught. Especially in the Northern Hemisphere, the species that are caught changed drastically from larger piscivorous fishes to smaller planktivorous fishes and invertebrate species (ibid). This process of “fishing down marine food webs” (ibid) calls for a reconsideration of growth in marine capture fisheries, especially the fishing activities of the industrial fleet of the Global North, as it is already leading to environmental and social crises.⁵

Proposals to overcome these crises include rebuilding of fish stocks by abolishing subsidies to industrial fishers, preventing illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing, and establishing marine protected areas. Pauly (2018), for instance, argues that marine fishing activities should be limited to the EEZs of countries only. This would allow the stocks to rebuild in high seas by reducing the large-scale, ever-expanding oligopolized activities of the industrial fleet of the Global North. Accordingly, if complemented by privileged access rights to small-scale coastal fishing communities, this would lead to a more equitable distribution of catches and improve environmental and social justice.

In fact, industrial fishing activities require more and more previously untouched marine spaces which they can fully exploit, after which they move to the next one. One such new space is currently African seas. IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) recently warned that many marine species (such as Maderian sardine) are close to extinction due to illegal- and over-fishing in West and Central African Seas, as a result of which food security for local communities is in danger in the region.⁶ Large-scale fleets of the EU countries have been fishing in these seas since 2006 via Fisheries Partnership Agreements (around 130 vessels mostly from Spain, Italy, Portugal, France, and Greece). According to a report by Greenpeace, these operations usually involve over-fishing, reduce catches of local fishing communities, and threaten local food security, while providing little benefits to the citizens of the African countries (Obaidullah and Osinga 2010).⁷ Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing is very common for both Chinese and European industrial fishers in the region (Belhabib et al. 2015) leading to conflicts between local SSF and foreign industrial fleets.

Furthermore, industrial fishing activities not rarely entail labor and human rights violations such as physical abuse, debt bondage, child labor, slavery, human trafficking, and even murder (Teh et al. 2019; Tickler et al. 2018). Fishing operations in high seas isolate fish workers, and monitoring of abusive relations is more difficult there.⁸ Increasing demand for seafood and accelerating international seafood trade (FAO 2020) imply that consumers all over the world may end up eating fish caught via slavery-like practices and that these practices might become even more common if necessary measures are not taken and the businesses continue to act only in a profit-oriented fashion.

A broader human-rights based approach for ocean governance and especially for SSF communities shall encompass social justice principles such as access to and democratic control over marine resources, participation in decision making, territorial, indigenous and gender rights, right to food and right to livelihood (FAO 2015; Teh et al. 2019). SSFs are strongly embedded in larger social, economic and ecological systems in which they operate. Therefore, specific attention needs to be paid to their diverse ways of supporting food security, poverty alleviation, and social cohesion in their communities.

This section attempted to demonstrate why SSFs have traditionally been important actors for food security and provision of local livelihoods in coastal areas, as well as for the sustenance of marine ecosystems. Comparison to and competition with industrial fishers have historically led to the marginalization of SSF people in ocean governance. However, we claim that SSFs are indispensable actors to be considered in the governance of past, present and future of the seas and oceans especially for two reasons. First, small-scale fishers still “feed the world”—as peasants and small-scale farmers do on land.⁹ In fact, a recent report of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization confirmed that “small-scale fisheries contribute about half of global fish catches. When considering catches destined for direct human consumption, the share contributed by the small-scale fisheries increases to two-thirds” (FAO 2015, p. ix). Second, they are mobilized social and political actors who organize even under very marginalized and difficult conditions, as discussed in Sects. 17.3 and 17.4 below (for a detailed analysis of fisher movements see Mills 2018; Sinha 2012).

3 Local and Global SSF Movements for Just Blue Presents and Futures

Historically, local SSF communities have self-organized in diverse ways. Some have traditionally organized in fishing cooperatives (Baticados et al. 1998; Berkes 1986; Pomeroy and Berkes 1997), while others established their own local norms and fishing rules through a range of self- and co-management mechanisms (Basurto et al. 2013; McCay et al. 2014). As opposed to corporatist structures and power relations of industrial fishing sector, most SSF communities strive for just socio-ecological governance mechanisms with their autonomous structures and social and ecological diversities. Against this background, this section explores the main justice demands of global and regional fisher movements in the context of fisheries justice and food sovereignty.

3.1 Social and Ecological Claims for Fisheries Justice

Recently, especially in the last two decades, local and regional SSF initiatives converged increasingly to a global social movement (Sinha 2012; Mills 2018). This global SSF movement has its roots in the first official assembly of World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fish Workers (WFF)¹⁰ in 1997 in New Delhi. After the regional division of WFF in 2000, the World Forum of Fisher Peoples (WFFP)¹¹ emerged as another global organization of SSF communities (Sinha 2012). Currently, both are allied and consist of SSF and fish worker and harvester representatives from about 50 countries all over the world. These two organizations were founded mostly as a response to the global fisheries policies that favor industrial fisheries and neglect the concerns, needs, and political agencies of SSF communities and cooperatives (Mills 2018; Levkoe et al. 2017). For more than two decades, they have been self-organizing to protect the rights of fisher people and fish workers and harvesters against a range of privatization and neoliberalization attempts through global fisheries policies leading to ‘ocean grabbing’ (Pinkerton and Davis 2015; Barbesgaard 2018; Mallin et al. 2019). They also resist a range of mega projects on their fishing grounds, e.g. construction of big harbors and airports, large marine conservation areas displacing local communities, industrial fish farms, as well as energy projects, most of which are leading to their dispossession and further marginalization and criminalization (Nayak and Berkes 2010; Ditty and Rezende 2014; Maharaj 2017).

SSF communities first of all demand ‘fisheries justice’, defined as “collective struggles for inclusion, equal rights, and the democratisation of access, ownership, and control of natural resources and fishing territories” (Mills 2018, p. 1278). They especially spotlight the wide range of injustices and inequalities between industrial and small-scale fisheries as well as expanding intensive fish farms restricting and displacing SSF activities (Pinkerton 2015; Ertör and Ortega-Cerdà 2015). They also highlight the injustices of the global food regime and express its link to climate justice (Mills 2018). In fact, SSFs are one of the social groups to be affected the most by climate change (e.g. by changing coastal ecological conditions in the presence and abundance of marine species), even though their use of fossil fuels and contribution to climate change are much lower compared to industrial fishers. These demands have made them part of broader movements such as the food sovereignty movement as well as the climate justice movement (Mills 2018; Levkoe et al. 2017).

Second, SSF movements organized within WFF and WFFP demand discontinuation of extractive industries and mega projects in their regions as well as globally (see the EJAtlas¹² for fisheries conflicts). These extractive industries with highly negative environmental and social impacts range from sand mining and seabed mining—especially promoted with the current Blue Growth strategies (for a critical discussion, see the Blue Degrowth framework: Ertör and Hadjimichael 2020)—to oil, gas and other mineral extraction from the seas, among others. Additionally, mega projects affecting fisher people include new massive airports or airport cities called ‘aerotropolis’ as in the case of Bulacan Aerotropolis in the Philippines¹³ or in Yogyakarta¹⁴ and Makassar¹⁵ in Indonesia, luxury touristic residences—both projects are usually placed in small island states—, as well as big harbors and ‘port cities’ such as the Colombo Port City in Sri Lanka.¹⁶ These mega projects are constructed for commercial purposes and create often conflicts not only with SSF people, but also with local farmers, trade unions, NGOs or Environmental Justice Organizations (EJOs), students, and other social movements (for a broader analysis of environmental conflicts and environmental defenders including fisherfolks, see Scheidel et al. 2020).

Third, they demand putting an end to ‘ocean and coastal grabbing’—or ‘resource grabbing’ including freshwater areas—in a broader sense (TNI 2014; Barbesgaard 2018). This is because SSFs often envision themselves linked with each other as a global social struggle, and their local fights converge against several grabbing attempts of capitalist projects, which lead to their dispossession and marginalization. For instance, large-scale marine protected areas established in the name of conservation of fishing resources are frequently enclosing the traditional fishing grounds, dislocating local people and affecting their livelihood in an adverse way through ‘ocean-control grabbing’ (Mallin et al. 2019) as well as through diverse forms of ‘blue grabbing’, in which “marine conservation results in the appropriation of marine resources and coastal land from previous custodians by more powerful actors, such as state and tourist operators” (Hill 2017, p. 97).

Finally, they claim their rights to capturing fish, right to food, human rights and tenure rights in their territories as well as recognition as relevant political actors of ocean governance—both for its present and future. In fact, SSF movements have been very active in the drafting of the “Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication” (FAO 2015), which can be considered as one of the global fisher movements’ recent achievements. This guideline is the first strong call for the recognition of the values and contributions of SSF at the international level. The document has been prepared as a result of tremendous efforts on the side of civil society supporting the rights of SSF and have been endorsed by more than hundred member states. Even though the guidelines are only voluntary, its strong reference to human rights gives the advantage of linking them to nationally and internationally enforceable laws such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Jentoft 2014).¹⁷ As mentioned in this document, these guidelines “support responsible fisheries and sustainable social and economic development for the benefit of current and future generations, with an emphasis on small-scale fishers and fish workers and related activities and including vulnerable and marginalized people, promoting a human rights based approach” (FAO 2015, p. ix). Human rights in the context of these guidelines include civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights as well as the right for the fisher livelihoods and their empowerment.

It has to be noted that while SSF movements in some instances decided to engage with these international institutions such as FAO processes, at other instances, they saw the need to protest some international governance meetings, whenever they felt that stark inequalities embedded in such political spaces would not grant them an equal participation and capability to influence the discussions. There is also awareness within SSF movements that the mere acceptance of the Voluntary Guidelines by several nation states is not sufficient for their demands to be met. Rather, they insist on their actual implementation in each policy circle they join, to open up a broader political space for their needs and rightful demands as well as for their official recognition and protection.

An important dimension of their global movement-building is organization at different scales and in non-centralized ways. There is a special emphasis, for instance, to have one female and one male representative from each region in WFFP. Together with these representatives, the General Secretary of WFFP is elected in each General Assembly, organized usually every 3 years. Moreover, the sub-assemblies open up a political space for consolidation of groups that otherwise could have remained mere minority groups in the entire assembly. These sub-assemblies consist of women, indigenous peoples, young fishers, freshwater fishers, among others. This organizational structure enables them to empower different groups of fishers, who form part of the movement but have their own political voices and social, economic, and political needs.

3.2 Food Sovereignty: A Unifying Concept for SSF Movements with Other Small-Scale Food Producers

One of the central concepts SSF movements have been engaging with in their struggles while reclaiming their rights and positioning themselves as food providers has been the ‘food sovereignty’ approach (TNI 2020; WFFP 2017). Food sovereignty was first defined by La Vía Campesina in 1996, and the term has since then been transformed to become more bottom-up through direct political action of social movements (for a discussion on the etymology of food sovereignty, see Patel 2009). Currently, the most common definition of the food sovereignty is the one announced in Nyéléni Declaration (2007), which was the result of the Nyéléni Forum in Mali with the participation of more than 500 practitioners from about 80 countries. Even though it sounds at first glance similar, the term goes far beyond food security.¹⁸ Food sovereignty emphasizes the right to food from a bottom-up perspective and bases its principles on people’s relations to food and on their decisions on how to produce, distribute and consume food. It has emerged from peasants’, pastoralists’, beekeepers’, and fisher peoples’ movements and their alliances for a socially and ecologically just and sustainable food regime. The following definition was adopted by the Nyéléni Forum in 2007 (The Nyéléni 2007 International Steering Committee, p. 9):

Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations. It defends the interests and inclusion of the next generation. It offers a strategy to resist and dismantle the current corporate trade and food regime, and directions for food, farming, pastoral and fisheries systems determined by local producers and users. Food sovereignty prioritises local and national economies and markets and empowers peasant and family farmer-driven agriculture, artisanal fishing, pastoralist-led grazing, and food production, distribution and consumption based on environmental, social and economic sustainability. Food sovereignty promotes transparent trade that guarantees just incomes to all peoples as well as the rights of consumers to control their food and nutrition. It ensures that the rights to use and manage lands, territories, waters, seeds, livestock and biodiversity are in the hands of those of us who produce food. Food sovereignty implies new social relations free of oppression and inequality between men and women, peoples, racial groups, social and economic classes and generations.

Accordingly, food sovereignty is based on the following six pillars: Food sovereignty (i) focuses on food for people; (ii) values food providers; (iii) localises food systems; (iv) puts control locally; (v) builds knowledge and skills; and (vi) works with nature. The movements defining food sovereignty claim that these principles are “interlinked and inseparable”. As such, implementation requires all of them to be applied in practice (Nyéléni Declaration 2007).

Having participated in the Nyéléni Forum for Food Sovereignty in 2007 with other allies such as “the urban poor, women, Indigenous Peoples, peasants, pastoralists and other constituencies” (WFFP 2017, p. 2), global fisher movements started to discuss the relevance of the concept for their regional and international struggles and to use it as an umbrella concept for solidarity and alliance among distinct social movements. Even though SSF movements around the world do not always call their struggle in their locality a ‘food sovereignty movement’, all of these six pillars are usually relevant for them. More concrete forms of these discussions based on their local context have already been part of their struggles (TNI 2020). While they reclaim their rights as small-scale fishers, they feel the urgent need to make alliances with other social actors and movements striving for just food regimes as well as to focus on their specific fishing practices in their own regions.

Therefore, based on continuous debates with other small-scale food producers within the food sovereignty movement, SSF people have put an effort to conceptualize how these six pillars manifest themselves in small-scale fisheries production and movement. The report “Agroecology and Food Sovereignty in Small-Scale Fisheries” (WFFP 2017) is one of the main attempts to demonstrate in which ways agroecology and food sovereignty discussions are relevant, visible and unifying for the case of small-scale fishers. The recent literature usually indicates that these concepts are still understudied both in the academic literature and on practitioners’ and social movements’ side (Levkoe et al. 2017; Mills 2018). However, there are ongoing attempts discussing its relevance for the struggles of small-scale fisher communities to weave stronger ties with broader solidarity networks mobilized around food sovereignty (TNI 2020; Ertör-Akyazi 2020).

4 Alternatives for Just Blue Futures

It has been argued that resistance movements can open up space for experimentation with new alternatives as well as for the politicization and further mobilization of the existing ones (Pelenc et al. 2019). Similarly, global fisher movements with their local nodes are struggling for their rights and resisting ocean grabbing and blue growth projects on the ground, as well as constructing their own alternatives in terms of fishing practices, supply chains and consumption in their localities by establishing alliances and networks.

Localized food systems had been very common in the past of small-scale fishing communities, when, for instance, family members of fishers were doing agriculture and markets were more local. The presence of fishing cooperatives in the supply chains can also localize the food system by eliminating intermediaries, facilitating direct sales from small-scale fishers to consumers and supporting their members socially and economically (Ertör-Akyazi 2020). However, the transformations in ocean governance and global markets in the last decades led to the emergence and expansion of agrifood and seafood businesses involving heavily privatized production and consumption of food and fish (Mansfield 2004). As a result, the accumulation of economic and political power at a few hands led to the marginalization of small-scale fishers. However, the SSF movement focuses on food for people and struggles for a food system that values small-scale food providers and localizes food systems. Therefore, there is a need for redefining the food system and local production and consumption models as an alternative to industrial fishing and globalized value chains in fisheries and for reclaiming the rights of SSF people in order to develop viable alternative models. An example of recent discussions on such alternatives is examined below.

4.1 Community Supported Fisheries

One of the key alternative models is the Community Supported Fisheries (CSF). CSF has already been adopted in many parts of the world by SSF communities, and further expansion may serve a blue just future of ocean governance, subject to the continuation of the political will and mobilization of SSF communities. In its essence, it is similar to the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model in that it brings small-scale fishers in direct contact with consumers, who often pre-pay a fish box consisting of SSF harvests in their region (Brinson et al. 2011; McClenachan et al. 2014; Campbell et al. 2014). As such, it is a form of directly marketing seafood from “deck to dish” (TNI 2020).¹⁹ In practice, there are diverse examples of the CSF model. Studies focusing on the CSF networks in North America have flourished since 2007 identifying their similarities and differences in terms of philosophy, structure, operations, and outcomes (Bolton et al. 2016). While their shared focus is direct marketing of seafood from fisher to consumer with a shortened supply chain and locally sourced seafood, they often differ in terms of organizational and ideological structures.

Based on local production and consumption and a deeper understanding of the needs of SSFs and consumers, most CSF models incorporate the above-mentioned six pillars of food sovereignty, i.e. they (i) focus on food for people; (ii) value food providers; (iii) localise food systems; (iv) put control locally; (v) build knowledge and skills; and (vi) work with nature. Moreover, some of them established a network of alliances such as the Local Catch Network²⁰ and Fish Locally Collaborative, and help producers and consumers get to know each other more closely to ensure a more just food system. Therefore, we argue that CSF models can be a driving force for the empowerment of SSF communities and give them a broader political and socio-economic space in seeking for socially and ecologically more just and sustainable futures of ocean governance.

To a certain degree, this model also exists in European coastal cities. However, CSF members in Europe live in more marginalized conditions, in contrast to CSAs, which have examples of more established networks including younger, well-educated members active in the food sovereignty movement. Therefore, in many places where there are already well-organized CSA groups present, such as those in Spain and France, the CSFs still experience difficulties of communication and organization (for some examples, see the initiatives such as “stewardship fish” promoted by the Fundació Submon,²¹ the local sale initiative of the small-scale fishing cooperative of Sitges as well as the recent CSF mapping of PleineMer in France).²² Further, the initiatives and movements of SSF people are less visible and have difficulties to reach consumers and civil society directly, explain their sustainable fishing methods to consumers, reclaim their fishing tradition, culture and fisher identities, and demand mechanisms for local production and consumption. The farm to fork strategy proposed recently by the EU Green Deal may have the potential to support such direct marketing initiatives if implemented with meaningful participation of small-scale fishers in Europe.²³

In the Global South, though, similar mechanisms have been more common until very recently even though they do not use the same terminology for their localized food systems. However, examples from Mauritania, Senegal or Indonesia show that the intervention of industrial fishing fleet from different countries led both to the grabbing of local fishing sources and weakened the local food production and consumption systems that are crucial for communities (Ertör-Akyazi 2020; DuBois and Zografos 2012; TNI 2020). Therefore, both existing and new CSF models need to be protected and promoted for just blue futures in which SSFs can raise their voices and can participate equally as other actors of food system.

5 Concluding Remarks

This chapter focused on small-scale fishers, as crucial social actors of the past and present of seas and oceans. By scrutinizing their role in coastal communities and food sovereignty, we argued that small-scale fishers and their organizations are key for just and sustainable blue futures. With this purpose, we first highlighted the structural inequalities and injustices leading to the marginalization of small-scale fisher communities around the world and then indicated models seeking for socio-environmental justice such as food sovereignty movements and community supported fisheries examples. In order to achieve just blue futures for ocean governance, however, there is the need for transforming broader political-economic systems. The analysis above establishes the food axis of such future social and economic alternatives. In this chapter, we have therefore emphasized that rather than neglecting small-scale fishers, global marine policies and politics need to put them and their needs and demands to the center, not only for a stakeholder-consultation process, but for co-developing the politics regarding how to use marine commons.