THE FISH SECTOR WINS WHEN WOMEN’S CONTRIBUTIONS ARE VALUED: Along the path from catch to consumer, gender limits the roles women play in the fishing industry. At the industry’s front-end, an estimated 86% of workers in fishing and… When it comes to fisheries and aquaculture policies and data collection, the rights and needs of women are ignored. This reinforces the invisibility of women. Some countries do have national… ...

Group photo, GAF-101 Training Workshop, 3 August 2016. Photo: Amonrat Sermwatanakul. The 6th Global Symposium on Gender in Aquaculture and Fisheries (GAF6) concluded in Bangkok, Thailand, on 6 August 2016 after four days that were filled with a record number of stimulating contributions of several kinds. Statistically, the diverse contributions were: The first GAF-101 Training Workshop: Theorizing Gender in Aquaculture and Fisheries Research 68 presentations – 47 oral presentations, 19 oral summaries of posters and 2 posters., organised in Special Sessions, some with panels, and Regular Sessio ...

Take a moment to browse this delightful book that celebrates the imagination, perceptions and vision of junior and senior high school students from Thailand who, during GAF6 in August 2016 in Bangkok, were asked to paint their impressions of “The role of women and youth in aquaculture development or sustainable fisheries management,” or “The impact of aquaculture or fisheries on men, women and youth in the community or along fish value chains.” ...

With deep concern we report that Dr Chandrika Sharma, the Executive Secretary of the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers, is one of the passengers on the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 that went missing on early Saturday morning. Chandrika and ICSF are great stalwarts of the struggle for fishworkers rights including the rights of women throughout the sector. ...

In studying peoples’ livelihoods in the Pinguino de Humboldt National Reserve and Isla Choro and Isla Damas Marine Reserve, Susan Qashu used a political ecology framework to study women’s and men’s strategies in adapting to a national marine reserve, national park, and tourism development while retaining their traditional fisheries. She found that women and men ‘diversified their traditional livelihoods as pastoralists, fishers and harvesters to include tourism operators.’ ...

With world attention on climate change, two recent publications on gender and climate change, though not focused on fisheries and aquaculture, deliver a similar message: yes, women and men have different vulnerabilities to climate change, gendered analysis and approaches are needed but women and men’s agency, not just women and men’s vulnerabilities should be considered. ...

To make the invisible visible, gender equality must be a stated priority in policy, research, and programs, and expertise built in the key agencies along the catch-consumer pathway. At the research level, the most acclaimed fishery and aquaculture studies rarely include gender issues. Researchers can look to gender experts in the social sciences for ideas, approaches and collaboration opportunities. Research agencies can share knowledge of successes and challenges in creating positive change. At the program level, partnerships among small organizations and sharing of resources towards common g ...

FAO has just released a new handbook, “Communicating Gender for Rural Development.” This handbook contains good materials and clarifies some concepts. “Gender is at once a sociological concept, a development approach, an operational strategy and an analytical method”. Have a look especially at the schematic on page 16. ...

Invented in Niger and the Democratic Republic of the Congo by NGOs and FAO, community listeners’ clubs are creative new institutions that help rural women and men access and share information by radio to improve their lives and solve their farming and other problems and learn about new chances. This new FAO publication describes and illustrates how they operate. Although no fisheries and aquaculture examples are included, many fish sector people share the common rural challenge of communication. ...

The Report highlights UN Women actions in 5 areas 1. Increasing Women’s Leadership and Participation 2. Enhancing Women’s Economic Empowerment 3. Ending Violence against Women and Girls 4. Engaging Women in Peace and Security Responses 5. Making Plans and Budgets Gender-Responsive ...

A recent paper published in Coastal Management (Contributions by Women to Fisheries Economies: Insights from Five Maritime Countries) investigates the contribution by women to fisheries economies in Mexico, Peru, Senegal, South Africa, and Vietnam. Through an exhaustive review of data and literature on women and fisheries, the authors of this paper, Sarah Harper, Charlotte Grubb, Margot Stiles, ...

The women of Lido Village, on the north coast of Papua New Guinea, have traditionally made an important contribution to their families’ protein intake by gleaning for marine invertebrates and small fish off exposed reef flats at low tide. Unlike their counterparts in many Pacific communities, however, Lido women improve their catch by constructing “gardens” on the reef flat, which are demarcated by metre-high rock walls, and enclose numerous rock pyramids of a similar height. ...

FAO’s Committee on Fisheries can put gender equality on its agenda. Fisheries agencies can collect regular and accurate gender-specific catch-to-consumer employment data to track trends and progress. When gender equality is not on the fisheries and aquaculture agenda and the labour contributions of women are not counted in data collection, women’s inputs are forgotten. To make the invisible visible, gender equality must be a stated program priority in policy, research, and practice, by building expertise within key agencies. Collection of fisheries data broken out by gender allows trends and p ...

Women’s as well as men’s fishing should be taken into account in marine ecology assessments, according to the recent global review, “Gender and small-scale fisheries: a case for counting women and beyond“, by Danika Kleiber, Leila Harris and Amanda Vincent. Typically, they point out, women’s participation is only considered from a social perspective. ...

A new EU report on the European Union member countries’ aquaculture sector contains some basic gender-disaggregated data on employment in the production segment of aquaculture. Although the statistics are incomplete, they nevertheless provide some useful information. The report is called: The Economic Performance of the EU Aquaculture Sector – 2012 exercise. (STECF-13-03). It is a joint Scientific and Policy Report and was produced by the Joint Research Centre. ...

Dr. B. Shanthi, Principal Scientist (Home Science), and team, Central Institute of Brackishwater Aquaculture (CIBA), Chennai (India), recently won the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) Award for Outstanding Interdisciplinary Team Research in Agricultural and Allied Sciences – 2011-12, for work done under the Department of Bio-Technology funded project on Diversification of Livelihoods among Women Self Help Groups through Coastal Aquaculture Technologies. ...

This book has been produced by a group of nine international development agencies, including some of the biggest welfare NGOs. It distills their experiences from their efforts to promote gender equality and working with women smallholders and rural women over many decades. The report is organized around the following main lessons, and also includes case agricultural studies (none from the fish sector, however), conclusions and recommendations. The key chapters, that reflect their summary of successes, are: ...

In many coastal communities in Southeast Asia and the Western Indian Ocean, aquaculture is an alternative income-generating activity, aimed at improving local economies and enhancing food security. While aquaculture and fisheries management tend to focus on production, which is male-centric, women are important actors in certain types of small scale aquaculture production (shrimps, mussel, seaweed, crab fattening) and they are major participants along aquaculture value-chains. ...

In coastal communities in India, fisheries and aquaculture can provide women and men with many opportunities for work and livelihood. In Tamil Nadu state, the Central Institute for Brackishwater Aquaculture (CIBA) has long worked on the ground and out in the villages to improve those opportunities with science and people-based projects. Recently, CIBA published two brochures describing two such opportunities. ...

Women Professionals in Fisheries And Aquaculture in Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) B.Meenakumari Presentations 977 KB Comparative Profitability of Women Dominated Fish-Based Livelihood Activities in Southwest, Nigeria Mafimisebi T. E. Presentations 175 KB GENDERED CONCERNS IN COASTAL DISASTERS: AN ANALYSIS OF WOMEN’S POLITICAL SUBORDINATION AND PROSPECTS FOR EMPOWERMENT Mary Barby P Presentations 1 MB The Impact of Financial Assistance to Fisherwoman’s Income Zuzy Anna Presentations 1 MB VULNERABLE WOMEN ROLE IN SECURING HOUSEHOLD INCOME UNDER THE CIRCUMTANCES OF CLIMATE CHANGE ...