Lars Lindström

Fish Traders as Key Actors in Fisheries: Gender and Adaptive Management

This paper fills an important gap towards adaptive management of small-scale fisheries by analyzing the gender dimension of fish trade in Zanzibar, Tanzania. We hypothesize that gender-based differences are present in the fish value chain and to test the hypothesis interviews were performed to analyze: (i) markets, customers, and mobility, (ii) material and economic resources, (iii) traded fish species, (iv) contacts and organizations, and (v) perceptions and experiences. Additionally, management documents were analyzed to examine the degree to which gender is considered. Results show that women traders had less access to social and economic resources, profitable markets, and high-value fish, which resulted in lower income. These gender inequalities are linked, among others, to women’s reproductive roles such as childcare and household responsibilities. Formal fisheries management was found to be gender insensitive, showing how a crucial feedback element of adaptive management is missing in Zanzibar’s management system, i.e., knowledge about key actors, their needs and challenges.

Promoting Governability in Small-Scale Fisheries in Zanzibar, Tanzania: From Self-Governance to Co-governance

This chapter highlights some governance challenges in small-scale fisheries in the East African region using the case of Chwaka Bay, Zanzibar, Tanzania. In this case, self-governance processes involve strong normative and cultural-cognitive aspects that have underpinned de facto management actions and blocked other options towards sustainability. The conflict level between the villages in the Bay is very high and there is a need to address how the system may move from self-governance and conflict to co-governance and cooperation. The chapter focuses on the governance interactions between the state and the fishing villages as well as the state’s failed attempts to break unsustainable self-governance. It identifies the role that the state has played to promote co-management and participation, as well as highlights changing legislation and conservation in the area. What went wrong with these strategies and why? Who and with what method does the capacity for dynamic, interactive governance develop? Who co-ordinates interactions across different identities, interests, and different spatio-temporal scales, and how? Who establishes a common world view for action, and how? Which institution functions as a court of appeal for disputes arising within and over interactive governance?

Tuna or Tasi? Fishing for Policy Coherence in Zanzibar’s Small-Scale Fisheries Sector

Zanzibar in 1964 merged with Tanganyika to become the United Republic of Tanzania (URT). Zanzibar enjoys autonomy in the governance of marine resources having adverse effects on the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (SSF Guidelines) as Zanzibar is not a member of the FAO as a unit on its own, but only as a part of the URT. While the Guidelines were still unknown to Zanzibar a new fisheries policy was formulated complicating their implementation, as the Guidelines clashes with the new fisheries policy. We examine this clash using the concept policy coherence defined as the coherence between (a) development and other policies, and (b) development policies of different donors. We downscale it to apply to policies within one sector, small-scale fisheries, by comparing the fisheries policy which is grounded in liberal ideas like commercialization and capitalization, with the SSF Guidelines which ideationally are based in human rights and a view of fishing as also culture and not just any economic activity subject to economic laws. We argue that conflicts between the two may result in failure to implement the SSF Guidelines as they do not come with World Bank and other external funding as the new fishery policy does. Choosing between conflicting policy elements the choice will likely be the fishery policy if the implementation of SSF Guidelines comes with a cost.