SEED Madagascar

Around the globe, coastal communities are facing a marine fisheries crisis. Fishery stocks are being depleted at an alarming rate with over 90% of the world's fisheries either fully exploited or over-exploited. For the 492 million people who depend on small-scale fisheries for their livelihoods, this depletion poses a significant threat to economic and food security. It is a challenge faced disproportionately by the Global South, where more than 97% of the world’s fishers reside, 90% of whom work in small-scale fisheries. For the fishers of Saint Luce and Elodrato in southeast Madagascar, this is a reality reflected by decreasing lobster stock across a region where small-scale lobster fishing remains the primary source of income for households.

SEED’s Project Oratsimba works with communities to strengthen the sustainable management of the lobster fishery and secure rural livelihoods. The project aims to facilitate a locally led adaptive approach to fishery management. This can be thought of as a ‘learning by doing’ participatory process which emphasises the role of resource users as decision-makers and can be traced back to indigenous customary resource management practices. It has proved an effective tool in addressing the inherent complexities and uncertainties of managing small-scale fisheries. As the climate crisis increasingly impacts fisheries worldwide, approaches which can mitigate uncertainty are more valuable than ever before, especially in the context of Madagascar.

To understand these complexities and enable evidence-based decision making, access to accurate, long-term fishery data is essential. Despite this, the small-scale fishing industry remains one of the least digitised sectors of the global economy. In what’s been termed the ‘data deficiency challenge’, little reliable data exists on the condition of small-scale fisheries, impeding efforts to sustainably manage marine resources worldwide. 

Since 2015, Project Oratsimba has been working to address this challenge through our Participatory Monitoring Programme (PMP). In which SEED works with local community members to monitor the lobster fishery, tracking daily catches, species composition and fishing activity. In the last five years alone our data collectors have completed nearly 4,000 surveys and sampled over 45,000 lobsters. Such a monumental effort in data collection gives important insights into fishery health to inform management. Our recent analysis of the full 2021 and 2022 datasets can be found here.

Working with community members to collect, share, and use data, SEED aims to empower fishers to manage their local fisheries sustainably and independently. Excitingly, this past month has marked an important step in this journey with the commencement of community data feedback sessions in Elodrato and Sainte Luce. These sessions were attended by over 300 community members and held in seven villages across the two communities. 

Key findings and contextually-appropriate data visualisations from the PMP were presented and discussed with each community. Analysis of seasonal and interannual trends in lobster catch, fishing activity, and fisher incomes were presented, alongside data relating to compliance with national and local marine management measures. Happily, data concerning the No-Take Zone (NTZ), an area of the fishery which is periodically closed every year, was able to show the positive impacts of increasing lobster catches after opening. Trends in overall lobster catch also showed promising increases in our target communities since 2018, pointing to the effectiveness of current management interventions. 

Importantly, through open community discussions we were able to validate the accuracy of data based on the fishers’ own observations and experiences. The sessions also enabled our data collectors to share their own experiences with monitoring and explain the objectives of the PMP to a wider audience, strengthening transparency in the data collection process. Community discussions also revealed insight into several emerging challenges impacting the fishery, including the increasing unpredictability of climate and fishing conditions, and the presence of short-term migratory fishers who have come to the area after hearing of the success of the NTZ.

Recognising that inclusive engagement is essential for successful resource management the sessions aimed to reach a wide audience within the fishing communities and those community members less involved in the formal fishery management process. Providing a platform for all of the community to share their views aims to not only empower more fishers to provide decision-making inputs, but also to strengthen relationships between those directly engaged with fishery management and the wider community.

Maybe most encouragingly, the sessions were attended by a number of women who were partners or relations of the fishers. Cultural and social norms have customarily excluded women from fishery management on a global scale, despite accounting for 40% of all small-scale fishery employment. In Madagascar, conservative gender roles dictate that women have little to no engagement in the management of local fisheries. Sainte Luce and Elodrato are sadly no exception, despite women playing an active role in numerous fishery activities and managing the day-to-day expenditure of fisher households. 

Data feedback sessions provide a key opportunity for women to express their own experiences and thoughts on the fishery. In turn, providing an opportunity for women to gain a sense of empowerment within the management process. As data feedback sessions focus the decision-making process on data and observations, rather than traditional power structures, they can hopefully kick-start opportunities for women to influence monitoring and management decision-making in the future. 

As these sessions were the first of their kind conducted with the communities, they have been a key source of learnings going forward. Important insights into which data is most useful to the fishers will enable us to present more targeted sessions in future. The sessions also highlighted a few challenges, such as the inclusion of average metrics which were more difficult to explain and are to be adapted. Alongside the addition of Visual Learning Aids (VLAs), this will aim to increase inclusivity and make sessions more accessible to those who are illiterate. 

Overall, the sessions elicited strong positive feedback from the community with fishers expressing a desire for additional sessions. Consequently, Project Oratsimba now plans to conduct several community data feedback events at regular intervals throughout the year. This will not only increase access to accurate and up-to-date fisheries data but will also enhance the opportunities for communities to provide decision-making inputs, thus strengthening local empowerment and ownership of the fishery management process.