Asia-Pacific Fishery Commission

Although the principles of an ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF) are not new, there is very little practical experience in their implementation. Translating high-level policy goals on EAF into operational objectives and actions is now the key challenge to sustainable fisheries. This booklet will:

- provide an overview of EAF, for marine capture fisheries, and its benefits;
- consider what is required to implement EAF;
- consider the range of management measures available;
- provide an overview of the management process;
- outline any outstanding research requirements;
- list the main threats to the implementation of EAF.

Volume II of the proceedings on the above theme, which was held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia from 11 to 14 February 2003. The three primary objectives of the symposium were to provide a forum (i) to review and synthesize the latest information on large rivers; (ii) to raise the political, public and scientific awareness of the importance of river systems, the living aquatic resources they support and the people that depend on them; and (iii) to contribute to better management, conservation and restoration of the living aquatic resources of large rivers. Over 220 river scientists and managers from around the world attended the symposium. Selected papers appearing in the proceedings represent 96 rivers from 61 river basins from all continents and climatic zones.

Volume I of the proceedings on the above theme, which was held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia from 11 to 14 February 2003. The three primary objectives of the symposium were to provide a forum (i) to review and synthesize the latest information on large rivers; (ii) to raise the political, public and scientific awareness of the importance of river systems, the living aquatic resources they support and the people that depend on them; and (iii) to contribute to better management, conservation and restoration of the living aquatic resources of large rivers. Over 220 river scientists and managers from around the world attended the symposium. Selected papers appearing in the proceedings represent 96 rivers from 61 river basins from all continents and climatic zones.

FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific was requested to conduct a review of the development potential for fisheries and aquaculture in Nepal. This document is the output of this mission. The document provides a brief status of the sector in Nepal based on a literature review and interviews with main stakeholders in the sector. The document also list of number of priority areas where the Government of Nepal and FAO potentially can follow up with smaller projects to facilitate the development of aquaculture and fisheries in Nepal.

The review concludes that there are plenty of good smaller case studies in Nepal which could be built upon into larger scale initiatives if funding was available. It is clear that there is a considerable potential to develop both fishery and aquaculture further in Nepal and some discussions have already taken place on how to potentially link fishery and aquaculture components to other FAO activities in Nepal.

This review was prepared by the national consultant and technical backstopping officer from the fisheries group (RAPI) of the FAO regional office. All findings in this report are based on interviews, field visits and review of literature conducted during a field visit in Nepal from 28 Oct

This publication was prepared as a background paper for an Asia–Pacific Fishery Commission (APFIC) Regional consultative workshop on “Certification schemes for capture fisheries and aquaculture” held in Viet Nam 18–20 September 2007. At the 29th APFIC Session (21–24 August 2006) in Kuala Lumpur, member countries recommended that APFIC’s work should focus on “Certification in Fisheries” as one of the emerging issues for the fisheries sector in the region. To follow up on this recommendation, this paper assesses the potential costs and benefits of fisheries certification and branding for countries in the Asia–Pacific region. It does not examine certification of aquaculture production, which is to be covered under a separate publication. The publication starts by providing a comprehensive review of existing and recent environmental and social certification schemes in fisheries, as well as some examples of branding. It then considers the hypothetical and actual evidence for the demand for, and benefits of, such initiatives. Related costs are also discussed, before considering the net benefits of such initiatives, i.e. benefits less costs. There is a dearth of studies and very little quantitative evidence published on the financial costs or the benefits of certification or branding schemes; this gap is even more pronounced when it comes to an assessment of the net benefits. There is some evidence that the conditions attached to certified fisheries do encourage improved institutional structures and operational practices, but to date these are largely restricted to established, well-managed fisheries.

The publication summarizes work by others that have highlighted the potential problems faced by developing country producers in engaging with both certification and branding initiatives, before presenting some possible solutions. It is not easy to determine whether it is sensible to engage with certification and/or branding initiatives for particular products or fisheries. The net benefits are likely to be too specific to the particular country and product concerned, the end market, the characteristics of the supply chain and so forth. Generalizing about the actual costs and benefits is, in almost all cases, neither possible nor advisable. As a result, the main focus of the paper is attempting to provide some assistance toAPFIC members on how to make decisions about whether engaging in certification and/or branding initiatives is a good idea. This assistance takes the form of suggestions on how to conduct cost–benefit analyses as well as a simple decision-making tree. The decision-making tree could usefully be field tested in a small number of countries. This would enable its refinement for later use and replicability, while at the same time providing some practical assistance to the countries concerned in making decisions about the feasibility of certification or branding for particular products or fisheries. The publication concludes that certification and branding are only aspects of product promotion and that it is almost certainly more important to comply first with the basic mandatory requirements of food safety and hygiene (i.e. in terms of HACCP compliance). There are also many other ways (e.g. quality improvements, pricing strategies and improvements in logistics to meet client requirements) that may be at least as effective as certification or branding in helping producers and exporters to improve the net value-added of their business operations. Traceability is also expected to become increasingly important in this regard.

The review examines the policy and legislative frameworks for co-management in thirteen countries in Asia and the Pacific, and the extent to which these frameworks hinder or support co-management practices. Co-management in the wide sense of government partnerships with other stakeholders for the purpose of natural resource management, rather than just the narrower concept of community-based management, is an emerging trend. The trend is driven by, amongst other things, an awareness of resource depletion, conflicts both within the sector and between fisheries and other sectors, and the perceived benefits of co-management as an approach. In the face of increasing pressure on fisheries resources, the need to formally codify existing community management practices through greater government involvement and legislative support, has also been important. Furthermore, implementation of co-management is now being encouraged, or at least enabled, by decentralisation policies in
almost all of the case study countries.

Political will is the key to the establishment of co-management mechanisms. It is a necessary pre-requisite without which co-management initiatives are unlikely to succeed. It must be reflected in policy, legislation and action specific to the fisheries sector, as well as
more generally in government policy and legislative support. However, many of the current co-management initiatives remain pilot studies only, and are strongly driven and supported by donor projects. The nature of policy and legislative frameworks is varied, as is commitment by governments to co-management - in some cases support is more rhetoric than reality, with insufficient real transfer of powers and financial resources to local levels.

Through an analysis of the different case studies,

This manual is a compilation of a variety of PRA tools and techniques. Deciding what tool or technique to use, depends a lot on the type of information you need.

Maine, R.A.; Cam, B.; Davis-Case, D. Participatory analysis, monitoring and evaluation for fishing communities: a manual.
FAO Fisheries Technical Paper. No. 364. Rome, FAO. 1996. 142p.

While there are many manuals available on participatory rapid appraisal approaches to monitoring and evaluation, there were none easily used by field officers attempting to aid and encourage fishing community level participation in monitoring and evaluating activities of projects and programmes in rural fishing communities.

This manual is prepared in cook book fashion with easily followed instructions for 26 participatory monitoring tools to allow use by both local field staff acting as facilitators and directly by community members engaged in the evaluation process.

Gillett, R. (2002) Pacific island fisheries: Regional and country information, FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok, Thailand. RAP publication 2002/13, 168 pages.

This publication is based on information collected by two FAO-commissioned surveys during 2001 which reviewed the state of fisheries in the Pacific Islands, both on a regional basis as well as in each of the 14 independent countries. With exclusive economic zones (EEZs) spread across 30.5 million sq km/