An ELI Webinar
Over the last couple of decades, ocean stewardship efforts have started focusing more on such ocean governance approaches as the creation and enforcement of marine protected areas (MPAs) and the implementation of sustainable fisheries practices, including small-scale fisheries (SSF) co-management. The implementation of these approaches always requires the enactment of a legal mechanism.
The Environmental Law Institute recently published the Law and Governance Toolkit for Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries: Best Regulatory Practices. This Toolkit presents a methodology for assessing the reforms needed to strengthen SSF governance and offers examples of model regulatory language for the core governance elements. The Toolkit particularly focuses on creating and implementing co-management mechanisms, and also addresses related elements, including exclusive fishing rights for SSF communities, creation of exclusive zones for SSF, effective monitoring and enforcement, long-term conservation and sustainable use, and regulatory implementation of area-based management. Bridging legal research and country implementation, the Toolkit was developed in close cooperation with Parliamentarians for Global Action, an international network of democratically elected lawmakers promoting human rights and security.
Our webinar brings together drafters of the Toolkit, representatives from Parliamentarians for Global Action, and other experts to discuss how legal reforms can strengthen small-scale fisheries governance, as well as the role the new SSF Toolkit can play. Presentations will be followed by a discussion with the webinar’s participants.
Panelists:
Xiao Recio-Blanco, Director of the Ocean Program, Environmental Law Institute
Leyla Nikjou, Policy Consultant and Senior Advisor, Oceans Campaign, Parliamentarians for Global Action
Hon. Marcela Aguiñaga, MP, former Minister of the Environment, Ecuador
Rocío Parra Cortés, Researcher, Center for the Law of the Sea, and PhD candidate at the University of Alcalá (Spain) and Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso (Chile)
Rocky Sanchez Tirona, Vice-President, Rare Philippines