I am from Chile. I did work for five years in Canada, because that is where the headquarters of the world forum on fish harvesters and fish workers is located. Now what we’re going to do is move from the analysis we’ve heard of land and agriculture to the sea. I’d like to say a little bit about how the neo-liberal model is affecting fisher folk and fishing communities. The world forum of fish harvesters and fish workers is an organization that was formed by small communities precisely to resist the neo-liberal model and its affect on our fishing communities. Small fisher folk communities are perfectly clear that the privatization of life and the privatization of the ocean in particular, destroys the community and destroys the ocean…. (tape turn-over)…

Because we must recover the control our natural resources, we organized a workshop and visit to fishing communities around Lake Victoria. Fishing folk from Kenya, Uganda, Mozambique, Chad, Congo, and Chile participated in this workshop, which provided us with the opportunity to exchange experiences and we focus on the impact on affected communities of the fishing industry and the lack of access to our natural resources, the control of multinational companies of fishing in Africa, but specifically around Lake Victoria.

There are about a hundred million fisher people in the world, and there are about three hundred and fifty million arsenal (?) fishing people in the world. Even in the face of liberalism, these small fishing communities are feeding a billion people in the world. Small scale fishing has always fed the people of the world. Furthermore, 60% of the animal protein consumed by humanity comes directly from small fishing communities. The arsenal fishing communities, like small scale farmers, are not able to eat what they produce, because of the export model that is imposed, so there is hunger in the fishing communities despite the fact that we are feeding others. The north is fishing less, but consuming more fish. And the south is fishing more but eating less. So those of us that have access to the resources are going hungry. What we are seeing is that fishing is becoming big business. 75% of the fish caught is for the international market. This means that the local, national, and regional markets are no longer getting the fish that they used to receive. There is a shift to sending all of the fish to the international market.

Some of the problems we are facing:

1. There is a loss of fishing natural resources
2. A concentration of the control of those (resources) into fewer and fewer hands
3. There is a change in the legal framework, which is disadvantageous for small fishing folks
4. There is a loss of the natural sovereignty of those countries with access to the sea
5. There are four huge economic groups that control 65% of the distribution of fish in the world; one of those four is in Europe and its called PescaNova

What are we going to do?

We are promoting the democratization of the fishing system. We are strengthening the organizational capacity of fishing communities and all communities who live on the shores and the coast. And we are promoting co-management of fishing resources. We have struggled tirelessly to ensure that the WTO does not negotiate on fisheries. We’re not just talking about fish here, were not just talking about fisheries or natural resources, we are talking about a way of life. We’re talking about the men and women who go to sea each day without knowing whether they will return. We’re talking about a whole culture, a fishing community, that humanity as a whole needs to mobilize to help preserve. It’s not that we don’t want to do business, but we don’t want to do it in neo-liberal terms. What we are most committed to, and most interested in, is that the children of the fishing communities tomorrow have the option also to be fisher folk, and to participate in the taking care of the resources of the ocean and of the future of the world.

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The speeches from Regaining Control of the Commons: WSF 2007 are provided for information and educational purposes. The transcription has been undertaken on a volunteer basis. Due to resource limitations we are unable to provide a complete transcription. We apologise for the breaks in the text.

Disclaimer: The view in this and the other articles do not (neccessarily) represent the position or views of Friends of the Earth Australia nor Friends of the Earth International.