International Fisheries and Aquaculture

Fish and shellfish are an important protein source and economic driver in the developing world, but management is a challenge where resources and capacity are limited. Whether developing management frameworks for community-led fisheries in Kenya, building capacity for marine protected area enforcement in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, or working on global solutions for aquaculture co-management, we work with local groups to support development of effective laws and regulations for responsible fisheries and aquaculture management and development.

Small-scale fisheries (SSF) have great potential to reduce poverty and hunger while contributing to the overall health of the ocean environment. However, the biggest challenges to sustainable SSF are:

  • enforcement limitations due to clandestine nature of IUU fishing, and
  • lack of adequate SSF management policies and rules, which leads to
  • non-compliance and illegal fishing at the local level and by large-scale international commercial fisheries

International instruments such as the FAO Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries list effective policy approaches to achieve fisheries sustainability. However, the guidelines do not provide guidance on how to turn those policy approaches into specific, enforceable regulatory provisions. Most fisheries practitioners have limited exposure to regulatory analysis and legal training, and lack the experience necessary to translate these approaches into legal language. ELI-Ocean works to develop tailored, elaborate sustainable fisheries regulatory toolkits focused on implementing specific institutional, governance, and legal approaches that are supported by fisheries policy research and regulatory practice. In this effort, ELI has partnered with Parliamentarians for Global Action.

See two of our recent publications: