Speaker: Ayman Mabrouk
Topic: “Artisanal Fisheries between Compliance and Non-compliance. Nabq Protected Area Case Study, Red Sea – Egypt”
Date: Thursday, September 5th, 2013
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 p.m.
Place: Room 201 International Center
Ayman Mabrouk is a PhD student in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife and Center for System Integrations and Sustainability (CSIS) at MSU. He is also an Environmental Researcher for the Nature Conservations Sector, Ministry of State for Environmental Affairs, Egypt and works on management of marine protected areas and fisheries in Egypt’s Red Sea.
About the talk:
“According to FAO’s Glossary: Artisanal, or small-scale fisheries, are traditional fisheries involving fishing households, using relatively small amount of capital and energy, relatively small fishing vessels (if any), making short fishing trips, close to shore, and mainly for local consumption. Artisanal fisheries is important as source of nutrition, employment and income (Béné et al, 2007). Fish is a primary source of protein for 17 percent of the world’s population and nearly a quarter in low-income food-deficit countries (FAO,2012). It is estimated that 90% of the world’s fishers are small-scale fishers, with most residing in developing countries (FAO, 2005), Globally artisanal fisheries catch approximately 30 million tons of fish annually for human consumption (the same amount as commercial fisheries). However, despite its importance in providing food security and livelihoods in coastal communities, small-scale fisheries are largely ignored and marginalized throughout the world (Berkes et al., 2001). Artisanal fisheries although they are based on low level of technology they had the capacity to significantly alter marine ecosystems through overfishing and habitat damage. The Marine protected Areas (MPAs) considered one of the successful management approaches to face this threat, MPAs that restrict fishing and other human activities conserve fish habitats and populations and, exporting biomass, may sustain or increase yields of nearby fisheries (Pauly et al., 2002), MPAs are a central strategy of management approaches that aim to protect biodiversity, as well as support the social and economic well-being of human societies (Mascia 2003, IUCN-WCPA 2008), they try to reach this balance between protecting natural resource and sustainable use of these resources using legal regulations, and the key issue for their success is to ensure compliance to these regulations. However, it has been widely recognized that non-compliance in fisheries is widespread, and researchers and management authorities continue to grapple with the factors that lead to non-compliance and seek strategies to enhance compliance, (Nielsen, 2003). In this presentation I am taking Nabq Managed Resource Protected Area as a case study for artisanal fisheries, explaining reasons of compliance for the MPA’s fisheries regulation when start to be implemented in 1995, reasons of non-compliance 10 years later, how artisanal fisheries was affected and what need to be done to return back compliance to the MPAs regulations.”