PLA Notes CD-ROM 1988-2001 Participation and fishing communities Addressing the challenges of fisheries development

Document begins: PLA Notes CD-ROM 1988­2001 Participation and fishing communities Addressing the challenges of fisheries development Marie-Thérèse Sarch Introduction highly mobile, hidden from view and subject to environmental fluctuations that are often not The community is a relatively recent focus of documented or well understood by outside fisheries development. The central role of experts. The information requirements for small-scale fishers and their livelihoods to development interventions based on fish resources are challenging whatever approach development initiatives emerged from analyses to development is used. of earlier failures (Lawson, 1977; Emmerson, 1980; World Bank., 1984). Fisheries development efforts of the post-war period BOX 1 EVOLUTION OF POLICIES were aimed almost exclusively at increasing production and were focused on industrial The shift in fisheries development policy fishing fleets. Ironically, concerns over the towards greater concern for social issues, very failure of these efforts were soon followed by apparent in wider international development concerns for over fishing and initiatives policy, has been much less visible in fisheries designed to conserve the fish stocks and assist than in other sectors. The past emphasis of with the management of the newly assured policies towards production and conservation, Economic Exclusion Zones (EEZ) of coastal is reflected in ...