The outcomes of “A Call to all the Voices of the Ocean” have just been released. This global consultation gathered civil society organizations’ (CSOs) feedback in preparation of the 3rd United Nations Ocean Conference, to be held in France in 2025.
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More than 125 CSO contributed to the consultation and suggested 4 areas for improvement, such as participation and representation of women, small-scale fishers (SSF), and Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs), more diversity in the topics, and increased accessibility for participants including translation.
Among the priority topics, the role of IPLCs, including SSF was a recurring item. CSOs called for more attention to the role these stakeholders play in the protection of the ocean, and for issues such as a human-rights approach to conservation, co-management of coastal areas and the protection of access and tenure rights, to be included in the agenda of UNOC 3. In this regard, the co-facilitators of this consultation recommend that UNOC 3 includes a dedicated panel on small-scale fisheries which should build on the “Call to Action from small-scale fisheries”. This Call was launched at UNOC 2 by artisanal fishing organisations from all the continents and calls governments to implement Sustainable Development Goal 14b (securing access to resources and markets for small-scale fishers) through 5 key priorities for action.
Tangible results
The previous two UNOC conferences have been criticized for their lack of tangible results, and for the fact that they were more a fora where stakeholders (governments, CSOs and private sector) made declarations of intentions, rather than proving that the pledges were indeed turned into action. In this regard, CSOs demand that UNOC 3 assesses “the progress on commitments made at previous UN Ocean Conferences,” and suggest concrete deliverables that would support the achievement of SDG14, protecting the ocean.
One example of deliverable they propose is to “include SSF and local communities among stakeholders for the co-management of coastal areas, in support of community-led action.” This suggests SSF and local communities would merely have a place among other stakeholders involved in co-management. We think small scale fisheries and local communities should rather be at the center of co-management, based on their key role as guardians of the ocean, as the ocean’s largest group of users, and as essential contributors to livelihoods, food security, and nutrition. In the Call to Action, small-scale fishers in fact ask their governments to “implement co-management systems for 100% of all coastal areas,” these systems clearly defining “the roles and responsibilities of the authorities and fishers and by providing the appropriate support for fishers to engage.”
Photo: Representatives of the “Call to Action from small-scale fisheries” signatory organisations, on the shore of Tejo in Lisbon, June 2022, where the United Nations Ocean Conference II was held.
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