The proposed side event will explore the crucial role of small-scale fisheries and aquaculture in sustainably managing, restoring and conserving critical coastal ecosystems and marine biodiversity vital to the food security and livelihoods of millions of people in coastal communities.

It will provide compelling cases to ground Strategic Goal E, targets 18, 19, 20 – recognizing, protecting and securing legitimate tenure rights to marine and aquatic resources as well as ensuring that indigenous and local knowledge is incorporated into decision making requires sustained engagement with decision makers at local, regional, national and global scales. It also makes direct contributions to delivering CBD post-2020 framework targets, 2, 5, 6, 9, 8, 10 and 14 by showcasing key community-led solutions to address and minimise threats and challenges such as poverty eradication, coastal restoration, sustainable use and climate change, with a particular focus on critical coastal habitats such as coral reefs, kelp forests, seagrasses and mangroves. It will also echo the recommendation contained in the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication, by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), to recognize the contribution of small-scale fisheries to food security and nutrition.

Description:

Even before historical records began to be kept, research reveals that, in many places, prehistoric coastal communities and small-scale fishers served as highly effective traditional stewards of coastal ecosystems. Their survival was inextricably linked to the health of these ecosystems. Small-scale fisheries, which mainly operate in inshore coastal and inland freshwater ecosystems, today account for more than 90% of the world’s commercial fishers, processors, and other employees along the value chain – roughly 108 million people. And almost 50% of those employed are women (Illuminating Hidden Harvests – FAO, 2018; Hidden Harvest report – WB, 2012). Small-scale aquaculture has grown in both volume and value over the last 20 years, along the way helping to restore marine biodiversity, improve water quality, generate sustainable livelihoods, and introduce innovations that benefit humanity and the planet. However, despite their importance to food security, nutrition and employment the contributions of coastal communities and small-scale fishers and aquafarmers are still undervalued, underreported, and consequently overlooked in fisheries and nutrition policies. In many parts of the world, the sustainable management of coastal ecosystems, essential to the food and livelihood security of some of the world’s most vulnerable people, is severely lacking.

This event, fittingly scheduled during the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture, will paint a vivid portrait (using stories from the field, traditional and indigenous knowledge and cutting-edge research), of how well-managed small-scale fisheries and aquaculture can be:

1. Highly biodiverse, providing critical food sources that are varied and seasonally diverse and naturally adapted to local conditions
2. Highly nutritious -- more so than was previously known (as demonstrated by newly-published research from the Blue Food Assessment)
3. Disproportionately feeding and employing a significant number of the world's most vulnerable people, as documented by newly gathered Illuminating Hidden Harvests research;
4. Untapped sources of innovations that are critical to addressing multiple SDGs;
5. Threatened by climate change, particularly if steps are not taken to manage them using climate resilient approaches that have been developed to protect them; and
6. Grossly underfunded, as documented by the OECD and others. 

The panel will highlight the importance of SDG 14 to SDG2, bring participants the latest news about efforts undertaken to protect the food supply and biodiversity along with protecting the interests and concerns of small-scale fishers, using inclusive conservation approaches that respect and protect fishing rights of Indigenous People and Local Communities (IPLCs) through locally-led conservation and biodiversity/food security initiatives. It will also touch upon efforts to bring aquatic foods fully into food system transformation plans as countries re-write their food system roadmaps, balancing tradeoffs for, among other things, fisheries and renewable energy, as well as the importance of aquatic foods as part of a healthy sustainable diet.

We will feature examples of highly effective aquatic food production that enhances biodiversity, such as Canada's Pacific Coast clam gardens that use Indigenous practices to generate food, protect the coastline and restore degraded habitats; the clams themselves are high in calcium and provide filtration ecosystem services, as well as tasting delicious. Speakers will be geographically diverse - some will participate virtually. Interpretation will be provided.