In October 2018, IOI-SA attended the 3rd World Small-Scale Fisheries Congress in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The Congress is an international gathering of approximately 350 researchers, practitioners, academics, fisher organisations, CSOs, international development agencies and policy makers to share information about all aspects of small-scale fisheries and to formulate action plans and capacity development programmes to support the implementation of the UNFAO SSF Guidelines. The main theme for the 3rd World Congress was ‘Transdisciplinarity and Transformation for the Future of Small-Scale Fisheries’ with the aim of facilitating interaction, information sharing, cross-fertilization of ideas and networking opportunities for participants.
IOI-SA presented its Small-scale Responsible Fisheries Training Project at the dynamic Science Cafe session on Day 1 of the Congress, themed ‘Science Day’. The presentation focused on building partnerships for enhancing sustainable fishing practices in South African coastal communities and showcased the Projects innovative methods in communicating messages on sustainable fishing practices.
The session was well attended by a group of participants from countries such as Madagascar, Palau, Peru, the US, Laos, China, Indonesia and South Africa. Discussions centered around effective way of communicating and exchanging knowledge with local communities, lack of information on market processes, communities high dependence of fishing activities, supplementary livelihoods, compliance and enforcement, amongst others.
