Participation in the 9th World Fisheries Congress in Seattle, Wahington, USA

Department of Fisheries Resources Utilization, Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Sciences, IPB University

Dr. Fedi had an opportunity to attend the 9th World Fisheries Congress 3-7 March 2024 in Seattle, Washington that was organized by with American Fisheries Society and World Council of Fisheries Society. Various topics on the fisheries subjects were presented by participants from many countries, including the fisheries from Himalayan. One of the four plenary speakers, Dr Shakuntula Thilstead emphasized the importance of aquatic foods that come not only from marine environments but also terrestrial or inland waters.  She reminded audiences not to forget the resources that consist of not only proteins but also micro- nutrients that are invaluable to human health. Dr. Fedi thinks that Dr Shakuntula Thilstead speech to some extent will promote strong attention to fish and aquatic resources in lakes, dams, rivers, and swamp areas. In Indonesia, it has started by programs such as development of ecosystem approach to fisheries management for inland waters.

Dr. Fedi give a talk with the title of  “Capacity Building Strategy for Sustainable Global Seafood Supplies and Coastal Community Resilience”.  The talk was grouped under a section on management, governance, scientific and socio-economic attributes driving success or failures in meeting fishery objectives. Dr. Fedi brought up an issue on the misinterpretation of fish resource conservation and sustainable utilization as conflicting objectives. This issue can be regarded as a society failure in bringing up the literacy on sustainable fisheries concept, e.g., ecosystem approach to fisheries management. This reflects that fisheries stakeholders are not prepared to engage with fisheries management process by which discussions, dialogue and arguments are expected to emerge in the consultation process. This failure can be traced back to ineffectiveness or insufficiency of the efforts made by stakeholders who are responsible for stakeholder capacity building. The low participation of the stakeholders was most likely due to sparse distribution of fishing bases where fishers and business players commonly reside, various types of fisheries, dynamics in the fisheries policies with focus more on the short-term objectives and other factors.

Some of the most recent efforts that emphasize stakeholder engagement were activities to win fish global markets. These efforts strongly indicated seafood product certification or recognition of compliance to a certain standard of conducting responsible fisheries. If such an approach continues focusing on seafood-export oriented fisheries, many other fisheries for non-exportable and more diverse species can be neglected. Therefore, future capacity building programs must also address the issue of the lack awareness of the stakeholders of non-exportable species on the sustainability issue of fish resources.  These stakeholders are mainly characterized by fishing units with artisanal features and important roles of business players at the grass root levels.  Therefore, capacity building programs must be designed to achieve the objectives of improved coastal community resiliency supported by local sustainable fisheries resources.

Acknowledgement: The registration was fully supported by the Marine Stewardship Council – Indonesia Program whereas part of the funding for the travels and accommodation was the IPB staff mobility grant 2023 from the Directorate of Global Connectivity.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]