Towards Just and Sustainable Blue Futures: Small-Scale Fisher Movements and Food Sovereignty

AbstractOceans and seas have been vital food sources for both coastal and terrestrial communities for thousands of years. Traditionally, the main actors were small-scale fishers adopting more ecologically-benign fishing practices either for their own subsistence or small-scale commercial use and livelihood. Members of small-scale fishing communities frequently combine other socioeconomic activities such as small-scale agriculture and animal husbandry with their fishing activity as well. Thus, they usually have broader and different understandings and narratives regarding their relations and interdependency with the fish and the seas compared with industrial capture fisheries targeting the most profitable commercial fish species using more destructive gears and high technological capacities. In this chapter, we aim to shed light on their past and present—as well as highlight their existence as a rather neglected and marginalized social group, their political agency and their global movement for food sovereignty in order to uncover their social, political and ecological roles for the future of oceans, coastal communities, and the society in general. Our research methodology relies on participant observation and action methods based on 3 years of continuous work with small-scale fishing cooperatives in Turkey, Spain and Europe, as well as following and collaborating with the WFFP (World Forum of Fisher People) members both in Europe and globally. We conducted more than 80 interviews with key actors from fisheries sector including policy makers, NGOs, members of fishing cooperatives, and fisheries and marine scientists that inform this investigation. We claim that even though small-scale fishing communities are usually neglected actors of the ‘present’ in most mainstream marine policies, narratives and agendas such as the Blue Economy, their ‘presence’ in ocean governance is of utmost importance and their future existence needs to be ensured for an ecologically, socially and economically just ocean governance.