Kingston. March 17, 2014 – Over 20 fisherfolk leaders from the Jamaica Fishermen Cooperative Union (JFCU) and affiliate cooperatives, and representatives from the Fisheries and Cooperatives Divisions were recently trained about participatory governance in a national fisherfolk workshop, in Kingston, Jamaica.
The workshop aimed to strengthen the capacities of the fisherfolk organisations to engage in the national, regional and international processes for developing and implementing fisheries policies, including Jamaica’s pending national fisheries policy.
“We need representation to affect policy. We have to ensure that fishermen are present to talk out. It cannot be that when things go wrong we speak out ... we also have to speak out when we can to influence policy,” said Havelan Honeyghan, a Jamaica Governor General awardee, who has made a business out of fishing.
His comment was supported by Andre Kong, Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Fisheries Division.
“The Fisheries Division is being transformed into an executive agency and that has implications for fisheries governance in Jamaica,” Kong told the fisherfolk at the workshops opening ceremony. “We have to facilitate stakeholder participation in governance, but there has never been a formal mechanism for this… Although, Fisheries endorses inclusion we have to look at something more formal…”
The workshop was held at the Medallion Hall Hotel on February 10 – 11, 2014. It was facilitated by Anthony Drysdale, mentor to JFCU, Indi Mclymont Lafayette from Panos Caribbean and Terrence Phillips from the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI).
During the workshop, the fisherfolk leaders, using an organisational needs assessment approach, identified challenges to fisherfolk organisations in Jamaica playing an effective role in fisheries governance and management, then identified opportunities to address some of the main challenges by getting involved in key national, regional and global policy and decision-making processes.
The fisherfolk spoke of some of the key challenges that were affecting them such as insufficient use of appropriate fishing technologies, lack of access to resources to develop fishing businesses, inordinate delays in the processing of licenses, inadequate sharing and dissemination of information on fisheries and related policies, and limited recognition of the contribution of small-scale fisheries to the national economy.
Working group of fisherfolk leaders discussing aspects of the organisational needs assessment
Supporting the engagement of fisherfolk is especially critical now as there are a number of international, regional and national policies being developed and implemented that will impact on the livelihoods of fisherfolk. At the regional level, the Caribbean Network of Fisherfolk Organisations (CNFO), in consultation with its membership, is seeking to input into the implementation of the Caribbean Community Common Fisheries Policy.
The workshop was convened under the over 1 million Euro European Union funded project Enhancing food security from the fisheries sector in the Caribbean: Building the capacity of regional and national fisherfolk organisation networks to participate in fisheries governance and management, which is targeting fisherfolk organisations in the countries of Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Belize, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Lucia, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Turks and Caicos. It is being implemented by the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI), working in partnership with the Centre for Resource Management and Environmental Studies of the University of the West Indies (UWI CERMES), Caribbean Network of Fisherfolk Associations (CNFO), Panos Caribbean and the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CFRM).
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