Small-scale fishers’ human rights

June 2022: UNEP Winter/Summer School on the Environment and Human Rights: A panel on the human rights of small-scale fishers explored the positive outcomes that collaborative and human rights-focused initiatives can bring to various small-scale fishing actors (from small-scale fishers, fishworkers, and their communities to governments and organizations working with them) simultaneously. The panel presented the perspectives of researchers, and of international and regional organizations that have been working closely with human rights initiatives for small-scale fisheries. It provided a discussion to further understand how existing initiatives have contributed to multiple benefits and SDG synergies outlined above. It aimed to:

• Collect evidence and insights of how the recognition, protection and promotion of substantive human rights of small-scale fishers strengthen their capacity to fully realize their fundamental rights and effectively perform all social, economic and environmental aspects of fisheries sustainability; and
• Distil advice on protecting the rights of small-scale artisanal fishers, fishworkers, and their communities in order to contribute to achieving multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to the benefit of all/other sectors of society.

The UNOHCHR has co-developed with the Hub and FAO a joint programme of work to advance understanding of the multiple threats to the rights of small-scale fishers to have a voice in decisions affecting their lives, health, culture and livelihoods, and garner further support for small-scale fishers that act as environmental human rights defenders. In addition, the collaboration will explore good practices in ensuring the direct participation of small-scale fishers in engagements at different levels.

UNEP: The One Ocean Hub and UNEP are co-developing on a variety of e-learning tools on human rights and SDG 14, as well as on ocean defenders as environmental human rights defenders. In 2021, the One Ocean Hub brought together FAO and UNEP and small-scale fishers’ representatives from Ghana and South Africa to discuss the human rights dimensions of small-scale fisheries and their contributions to ocean well-being and sustainable livelihoods at World Oceans Week.

With UNDOALOS we are working with UN-Nippon Fellows and Alumni for mutual capacity building between government officials, representatives of civil society, and researchers in understanding opportunities and challenges to achieve sustainable development in small-scale fisheries. In addition, the One Ocean Hub is part of the ‘Friends of United Nations World Oceans Day’ and has contributed to the virtual components of these worldwide celebrations since 2020.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Environment, Dr David Boyd, is passionate in advocating sustainable environment as a human right, together we are collaborating to highlight that protection of small-scale fishers rights helps to protect the environment.

The work of UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, Ms. Alexandra Xanthaki, stresses the fundamental role of cultural rights for the respect of human dignity, we are collaborating to highlight the contribution of small-scale fishers to sustainable development, while also preserving a diversity of knowledge and ways of life.

The Danish Institute for Human Rights shares the Hub’s passion to protect and provide access for small-scale fishers to marine resources and markets. Together we collaborate to highlight the essential need for a human rights-based approach, which ensures participation, accountability and non-discrimination, to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 14 (Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development).

The IUCN “People and the Ocean” specialist group shares with the Hub a common concern on the lack of recognition for small-scale fishers as environmental human rights defenders. We are exploring together the need to build the capacity of ocean practitioners to contribute to the protection of human rights in their work.

The Hub has collaborated with the Global Network of Human Rights and the Environment since 2021, with a view to raising awareness about the ocean-human rights nexus and the need for environmental and human rights lawyers to engage in ocean governance. After contributing to the inaugural Winter/Summer School, the Hub co-developed with the Network the call for the 2022 Winter/Summer School that was entirely focused on the water cycle and the ocean.

Participation of small-scale fishers in the blue economic sector is poorly defined and managed. This results in injustices, such as lack of access to resources and economic opportunities and impacts livelihoods and increases vulnerability to change. The One Ocean Hub is working with small-scale fishers in three African countries; Ghana, Namibia and South Africa In South Africa, through arts-based methodologies (empatheatre) our research has highlighted that current economic discourse and processes are exclusionary and often results in illegal behaviour and rising conflicts in ocean and coastal governance processes.

In addition, we have found that the recreational fishing sector is generating significantly towards state income, yet this is not filtering through to the most vulnerable. We continue to work in South Africa with the Coastal Justice Network to support small-scale fishers to meaningfully engage with the ocean’s economy plans and tackle environmental and social issues more inclusively – defending their rights to a healthy future. In Ghana, cultural attachment, and the role of women in the artisanal fishery sector has been highlighted.

Work so far has shown that intangible and tangible heritage is revealed in stories and art painted on traditional canoes, with continued work in progress to improve the legal instruments, training and capacity building across scales. Research is beginning in Namibia to explore both artisanal and recreational fisheries and their contributions and access to equitable blue economies.

“Environmental human rights defenders” are defined by the United Nations as individuals and communities that raise awareness about the negative impacts on human rights of unsustainable decisions on the environment, who are increasingly the object of (often lethal) attacks by governments or private companies. They thus exemplify a double flaw of national governments: they do not effectively protect or ensure sustainable use of the environment to the detriment of human rights, and they persecute or allow persecution of those that raise awareness about these problems.

The Hub shared some of these research findings and innovative methodologies for collaborating and supporting small-scale fishers in the context of a UN Global and African consultations on environmental human rights defenders in 2021. This contributed to the recognition of small-scale fishers , indigenous peoples and local communities negatively affected by blue economy initiatives as environmental human rights defenders. This revealed a blind spot in current international initiatives that are land-focused and ignore “ocean defenders.” Hub research was integrated into recommendations to the UN System to better coordinate efforts and fill gaps in supporting ocean defenders (to be published in 2022). Findings and approaches to enhancing participation and inclusion of small-scale fishers from South Africa (notably the Coastal Justice Network approaches) are being considered among good practices to be documented by UNEP.

Inclusive law and policy development (guided by the 2018 UN Framework Principles on Human Rights and the Environment) is essential to support more integrated and equitable decisions on the ocean, to the benefit of the most marginalized communities, such as small-scale fishers. To that end, it is necessary to bring together expertise from the law, arts, history, sociology, anthropology, politics, and different marine sciences to iteratively co-develop inclusive law and policy with research with partners at local, national, regional, and international levels. This inter- and transdisciplinary approach supports authorities in achieving policy coherence and co-benefits, while enabling marginalized actors to voice their demands as legal entitlements.

The Hub’s research and engagement activities on customary law and cultural heritage in Ghana, South Africa, and Namibia are facilitating access for community leaders, small-scale fisheries authorities, and women to decision-making process, and establishing knowledge action networks to strengthen partnerships between researchers, NGOs and communities to effectively participate in ocean-related processes.