(Q) To Maria Carmen:
I want to know how movements demonstrate that women can control resources within their co-organizing groups.  This is important as reclaiming spaces outside cannot be done without sharing leadership and decision-making authority within the movement. 

(A) The experience of my organization, the National Association of Small Farmers:  women have the same rights in terms of having the land titles, control of the products and the commercialization of our agricultural products.  We recognize that Cuba has a history of discrimination against women.  Since 1959 the federation of Cuban women has played a very important role to develop women’s participation in society.  That really has not been done in terms of legislative measures.  We have transformed our society by giving women access to education, not by imposing quotas of participation that say if there are 7 men, there have to be 7 women.  There is a very important percentage of Cuban women who are leaders, especially in health care and education.  Almost 75% of the leadership in those sectors is female.  In decision-making women also participate actively and on an equal footing.  There are women who are ministers and national leaders.  We don’t look at whether you are a man or a woman. We look at whether you are capable of the job.  With time, Cuban women have won the respect and equality, thanks to the revolution.  In the case of small scale farmer women, traditionally our role was limited to taking care of the household.  There has been a radical change in that.  Now 35% of small scale farmer women are the leaders of our agricultural cooperatives and grassroots organizations.  Thanks to the development of the capacity of women themselves, we have achieved equality. 

(Q) To Kanyinke Sena: 
About the big flower plantations around Lake Nevasha (?).  Cut flowers all go to foreign countries for export.  I would like to know if these flower plantations are not exploiting the soil a lot.  Also, if the social situation of the women working there is satisfying, as is sometimes claimed.

(A) Flower farming is a little stretch(?) in Kenya, especially among indigenous peoples lands.  Its not only in Lake Nevasha, it is also happening in other parts of Kenya, for example, around Mt. Kenya(?) region, where multinational companies are investing in flower farming, because it tends to be small scale and has huge profits, especially when those flowers reach coffee tables, and bedside tables in Europe.  It is having various effects on our land.  For example, in Nairobi national park, when animals migrate out of the park to graze in the plains during the dry season, when they come back to the park during the rainy season, they cannot because they are scared of the big tents that are used as greenhouses.  Secondly, flower farming involves erecting fences to protect the flowers.  So we find that animals cannot cross those fences.  Even our own animals can also not have access to grazing lands, because they are now fenced. That increases the levels of poverty in our communities.  Around Lake Nevasha, the biggest problem with flower farming is actually pollution of Lake Nevasha, a lot of fish are dying, and a lot of people are complaining, but because of the profits involved, and the big players in the game, nothing has been done. 

The lady wanted to know how much it is affecting women.  Very few Masai women work as labourers in flower farms because by nature Masai women are not agricultural.  They are used to standing and looking after cows.  The ladies who work in the farms are from agricultural communities in Kenya.  We find that there are very many, and work in various quality conditions.  Some ask why it is women who are the labourers.  The understanding is that women can bend for long periods of time because flower farming is just about bending.  When they are paid little, they complain less because they need every coin they can get to feed their families back at home.  One of the other effects on indigenous peoples lands is that its causing a large influx of agricultural communities on agricultural(?) peoples lands to work as labourers on the farms.  There are cases of many accidents involving the women on the farms.  Chemicals interfering with health, being harmed by the machines.  They take a lot of cases to court, but most of the time, they get peanuts as their compensation, not equivalent to what they had been doing.  There also have been reports of rape incidents in those farms.  There are many organizations that have been trying to address that issue, but with very little success.  The only thing I can suggest here is that, instead of targeting the farmers here on the ground, because they have a lot of money and a lot of protection, which you cannot fight, you should target the buyers of the flowers in Europe, to tell them how what they want to put on the table is affecting people in Africa. 

On the issue of Lakes drying up, that is a very depressing issue in Kenya too.  I want to request to the fisher communities that they cannot purely rely on downstream solutions for problems that are caused by upstream communities.  They actually need to sit together, talk, collaborate with upstream and downstream communities, and come up with common strategies that can help protect ecosystems.  Not just particular points, like Lake Chad.  For example, the lake Nakuru in Kenya, which is also on the verge of drying up, the Oki community which lives upstream is not actually consulted and they are not even recognized that they exist.  They find that their land is given out to other communities, to come and start cutting trees and farm.  The cause will definitely be the drying up of rivers.  Like I said before, it’s a case of killing the goose but still wanting the golden egg.  What we should do here is actually to look for ways to start saving the goose, so we can continue to enjoy the golden eggs. 
 
(Q) To Pedro Avendano:
Have you ever faced the problem of biopiracy at sea, and if you are working on this issue, and what you are doing about this if you are faced with it.

(A) It’s very difficult to have a complete panoramic view of what’s transpiring in terms of biopiracy and fishing.  There are some obvious examples of biopiracy in fishing, for example, the question of salmon production in Chile and fake shrimp production in Vietnam.  Right now, as far as fishing goes, it is not so much a question of the expropriation and pattoning of specific genetic resources as far as we know, its more a question of expropriating the ownership of the resources themselves.  But there are international discussions directed to pattoning the 15 principle species of fish that are used commercially in the world.  In response to that the world forum of fisher people have launched an international campaign that strives to defend our control of these resources.  In some cases we’ve been more successful than others. 

(Q) To Pedro Avendano:
What is the position of world fish harvesters regarding the non-agricutural market access of the WTO. What is the position of Pedro’s organization on the current negotiations in the WTO about opening up the fishing sector, about liberalizing the fishing sectors as an industrial product in the WTO.

(A) When neo-liberal free market activity increases it necessarily results in the loss in the rights of fishing communities and a loss in their control of their natural resources.  We want local markets, we want regional markets.  We also want to be sure that the majority of the catch can be used for human consumption.  We’re all for national states recovering their control of natural resources, but we want to be included in the co-management of those resources. 

(Q) To Pedro Avendano:
As it is a job of authorities on the oceans to protect it, what can we do to save the activities of the small fisheries that depend on that but they don’t have the management of the oceans.  How can the government guarantee the livelihood of the small fisheries and what’s their responsibility?

(A) With regard to government subsidies of the fishing industries, there is approx between 15 and 30 million dollars given out in subsidies.  This amount is actually 30 more than the fishing capacity.  So what these subsidies are doing, is financing the boats of industrialized countries, for example, the boats of the EU to be able to afford to go to Africa, and be able to afford to go to fish in the traditional fishing grounds of Latin America, of the developing world, and of artesanal(?) fishing communities.  We are not in favour of the WTO taking any role in stopping these subsidies.  We prefer that the UN system as a whole take charge of doing that, because we do not want to legitimize the illegitimacy of the WTO. 

(Q) To Pedro Avendano:
I am part of an organization regrouping fishermen in Chad, it is part of a national federation of fishermen.  One thing we need to observe is that many lakes in Africa have been drying up, particularly Lake Chad which at one point was 25000 square kilometres and now has been reduced to 5000 square kilometres.  This desertification of the lake, and loss of water resources has a dramatic effect on the whole ecosystem and ecological equilibrium of this territory.  I want to insist on the fact that Lake Chad supports and distributes water on at least four countries, Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Niger and the desertification of this lake will have an influence on these populations.  One of the factors that are the cause of this desertification is global warming.  My question is addressed to the forum of world fishermen.  What can we do about this desertification problem?

(A) It’s the same problem that the whole planet is facing.  The forum and I don’t have an answer for the crisis of the Chad lake.  What we do have is a commitment to strengthen the organizational capacity of the affected communities so they can rise up, resist and propose solutions themselves.  With regard to the democratizing of the fishing system as a whole, I’m not going to answer, I will give the floor to my sister, the president of the world forum, who is a women from Uganda, Margaret Nakato (?):

I would like to contribute on how the world forum of fish harvesters and fish workers intends to address the issue of democratization in fishing communities.  My executive director has informed you that the world forum of fish harvesters and fish workers is an organization which brings together small scale fisher organizations from all over the world. So, how do we intend to democratize the fisheries?  Its by building the capacity of the fisher organizations around the world.  When we get together in our meetings, we try to understand, what’s going on in Lake Victoria.  What are the problems facing the problems facing people on Lake Chad.  When we understand these problems, we initiate ways of overcoming these problems.  At the same time, we tend to create a common voice.  Where we are going to lobby to see that these problems can be changed.  In the Lake Victoria region, the people I work with have immensely been affected by the liberalization of the fisheries.  Incomes have been lost.  Today, we are here with our friends from Lake Victoria in Kenya and Tanzania.  We are intending to create originate (?) work, to see how we are going to tackle these problems.  Some of these problems we have been asked in Chad about deforestation, our colleague, Eddie Truute(?) is already doing a forestation, planting trees in the islands of Carroway(?).  We see that we can conserve the Lake Victoria environment.  We feel when we view the capacity of the people, and they have a choice to make a decision on the price of the fish they are selling.  Because that is one of the problems we are facing with why fishing people have low incomes.  It’s because they cannot make a decision, they don’t decide on the price that the fish is going to be sold.  When you give these people the information they need to make a decision that is democratizing fisheries.  When you give the people the information that the Lake is destroyed in Kenya, is destroyed in Tanzania, then you give them the power to act, to plant trees, to conserve fish.  Isn’t this democratization?  This we are trained to do in the world forum of fish workers and fish harvesters.  With us today, we have fisher people, the people from the communities themselves.  We are sharing with them, we are learning from them, and they are learning a lot from this networking.

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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.