| October
5th, 2001
An international meeting of fishers and organisations of fishers held
in Havana August 31, 1 and 2 September 2001 on the theme “artisanal
fishing and food sovereignty”, just before the world Forum on
the food sovereignty. The declaration and agreements of this workshop
are present here.
> Former
editorials of Equipo
> Fisherfolks |
Meeting
on small-scale fishing and food sovereignty
by Juliette Decoster
In the setting of the World Forum on
the food Sovereignty, more than 30 fisherfolks representatives of communities
and organisations of fishermen coming from Africa, Europe, North America
and Latin America as well as the Cuban Ministry of the fishing, met
in Havana. The objective was:
- to create a space of discussion between small-scale
fisherfolks and all the fisherfolks organisations of the world
- to debate on proposals pertaining to the challenges
of fishing for food sovereignty,
- to present and to put in common their experiences
- to sensibilize public opinion, political decision-makers
and actors of development on the necessity to consider fishing as
a priority for food sovereignty
- to facilitate the meeting, the dialogue, the development
of actions and common strategies between the fishing world and other
social actors that participated in the World Forum on the Food Sovereignty.
All these objectives have been fulfilled beyond expectations.
The workshop often allowed isolated fisherfolks in their practices to
be able to make alliance and to show the central place that the small-scale
fishing should play in all future discussions on commercial policies
and nutrition, on systems of production... It also allowed to prepare
the World Forum on Food Sovereignty, where was underlined for the first
time the principle of an alliance between the fishing and the agriculture
sectors. Challenges and proposals debated during the workshop have been
translated in requirements and strategies developed in the declaration,
of which here are the main themes:
- Food sovereignty
- Access to fishing resources, establishment and
protection of the reserve zone
- Ancestral or historic right recognition on the
inshore zone and the interior waters
- International engagement respect
- Involvement of women in all activities of small-scale
fishing
- Opposition to the privatisation of fishing resources,
refusal of private commercial patent concession on fishing resources
.
- Possibility of a sustainable aquaculture and refusal
of the introduction and the production of genetically modified organisms.
- Alliance with the other sectors of civil society
- Development of new patterns of relationships between
science, scientists and communities of fisherfolks, while putting
the accent on social studies.
- Joint implementation of policies for education
and training in order to valorise the knowledge and the cultural,
economic and social identity of small-scale fisherfolks.
- Campaign of diffusion and national and international
public policy denunciation that reaches out to communities of fisherfolks;
promotion of products of small-scale fishing as food of first quality
- Trade and markets, immediate change of subsidy
policies,
- Strategy and common actions of the sector of the
artisanal fishing and agriculture
To read the declaration of the meeting: 
Contact: Juliette Decoster juliette@allliance21.org
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