Stewardship
Welcome to a website that highlights the initiatives of small-scale fishers and fishing organizations in caring for the natural environment and fishery resources, supporting fishing livelihoods around the world. Click below to read the SSF Stewardship Handbook.
In small-scale fisheries around the world, fishing communities and organizations are actively involved in a wide range of environmental conservation and stewardship activities. This key role of small-scale fisheries can be essential to the health and livelihoods of fishing communities, and the environment and economy broadly, but it is not always widely known and appreciated.
To improve this situation, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Saint Mary’s University (Canada), in cooperation with global fisher organizations, are engaging with small-scale fisher organizations and fishing communities to document their experiences with environmental conservation and stewardship. Environmental conservation and stewardship comes in many different forms. This includes activities within fisheries, such as management measures to ensure sustainable use of resources and ecosystems, as well as those with other goals, such as maintaining or restoring local environments.
Small-scale fisheries communities and organizations are invited to share their experiences. Please click the button below for more information and, if you wish, to make a contribution:
Watch SSF Webinar
This 90-minute webinar (available in English, French and Spanish) highlights the efforts of small-scale fishing communities and organizations around the world to protect and restore their local environments and fishery resources and to safeguard livelihoods and food security.
Further Reading
This work will produce a better understanding of how small-scale fisheries protect and care for the environment, and what leads to success in environmental stewardship and in supporting sustainable livelihoods. The work will assist small-scale fishers to build stewardship capacity and networking opportunities, as well as providing guidance on how government legislation and policy can better support environmental stewardship in small-scale fisheries. The results will be widely publicized, including through a new guidebook for fishing communities, organizations and policymakers. The outcomes will support the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (SSF Guidelines), and contribute to the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
