Enabling people to create change: Capacity building for Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries (EAF) implementation in Southern Africa

Nicola C. Okes, Samantha Petersen, Liziwe McDaid and Janine Basson

Marine Policy, 2012, vol. 36, issue 1, 286-296

Abstract: Recent studies report that 80% of marine resources are fully or over exploited. In an attempt to address this, countries are moving towards implementing an Ecosystems Approach (EAF) to Fisheries management. A strong component of an EAF is the involvement of fishing sector stakeholders in the making of decisions that affect them but, despite this, no formal or informal information exchange or training on this and other EAF concepts existed in South Africa prior to the development of the Responsible Fisheries Programme (RFP). The RFP training course design integrates theoretical presentations and practical exercises, deliberately involving various stakeholders with differing perspectives and roles. The RFP has trained a total of 600 individuals thus far (May 2007-January 2010) from various fisheries sectors in southern Africa. Sampling evaluation forms processed across all fisheries sectors trained, indicated that participants found the practical exercises very useful and valued the group work, which allowed for interactions between the different stakeholder groups. Numerous positive benefits derived from the training are described by means of case studies. Lessons drawn from the roll out of the training include: the forging of a common understanding through stakeholder participation; the benefits of a participatory approach and the appropriate use of local and international case studies to illustrate concepts. Results of the training carried out to date indicate that the RFP training can improve compliance of fisheries regulations, adherence to voluntary measures and uplift the skills of fishers. Such benefits will increase the likelihood of long-term sustainability of southern African fisheries.

Keywords: Training; Fisheries; Sustainability; Education; Marine; law (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X11001096
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:marpol:v:36:y:2012:i:1:p:286-296

Access Statistics for this article

Marine Policy is currently edited by Eddie Brown

More articles in Marine Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().