Introduction

The current crisis in world fisheries is regarded by many to be the result of the persistent failure of fisheries management and policy to significantly abate the problems of overfishing (Pauly et al 2002, Clark 2007). Some have even predicted the collapse of all commercial fish stocks within the next 50 years (Worm et al 2006), and yet millions of people are directly dependent upon fishing for a livelihood and as a source of protein rich food security (FAO 2006, Allison and Ellis 2001). This crisis arises from the fact that many policies which promote environmental sustainability often conflict with human development considerations. In South Asia, which has the world's fastest growing population of coastal poor (Indian Census 2001), this conflict has the potential to be at its most destructive.

Existing policy and management regimes in fisheries have, as yet, been unable to resolve such conflicts between the environmental and human development agendas. The purpose of the Building Sustainable Governance project, is to advance deliberative policy networks in which key stakeholders in fisheries are able to bring together their distinctive expertise and knowledge to build new approaches to governance that directly address this clash.

Members of existing networks recognize that competing claims to fisheries exist, and are committed to finding new ways of identifying policy options that accommodate diverse values, needs and goals. The BSG project therefore is about building capacity in an unconventional sense. It involves creating a forum in which natural and social scientists can contribute effectively to the grass-roots, democratic construction of sustainable policy for threatened eco-systems and the wellbeing of local communities dependent thereon in South Asia.

The BSG project draws from two emergent bodies of research experience: work on Wellbeing in Developing Countries (McGregor 2004, Gough and McGregor 2007) and Interactive Governance in fisheries (Kooiman et al 2005). The project involved three workshops to explore the feasibility of establishing deliberative policy networks in Sri Lanka and South India.

Briefing Papers

• Coulthard, S. (2009) Ecosystem Services and Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) and the Social Wellbeing of Fishers
• Bavinck, M (2009) Interactive Governance and the Wellbeing of the Coastal Poor
• McGregor, A. (2009) Human Wellbeing in Fishing Communities

Workshops

Three workshops brought together members of fishing communities, civil society, scientists, politicians, and regional fisheries policy makers to build capacity to work with a wellbeing approach in the context of poverty and fisheries governance in South Asia. Each workshop produced a series of working papers, which addressed key concerns of ecosystem health and poverty alleviation in the regional contexts, and highlighted specific fisheries-conservation conflicts.

• Workshop 1 - Institute for Ocean Management, Chennai, India 4th - 8th April 2009
• Workshop 2 - University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka 18th - 22nd July 2009
• Workshop 3 - Madras Institute for Development Studies, Chennai, India October 28th - 1st November 2009

BSG Policy Days

• INDIA - Securing fisher wellbeing in a changing coastal zone: a route to sustainable coastal development
• SRI LANKA - Building Governance for Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries: Bridging Human and Ecosystem Wellbeing

References

- McGregor, J.A. (2004). Researching Wellbeing: Communicating between the Needs of Policy Makers and the Needs of People. Global Social Policy 4(3): 337-358.

- Gough, I. and McGregor, J.A. (2007). Eds. Wellbeing in Developing Countries: from theory to research. Cambridge University Press.

- Kooiman, J, Bavinck, M, Jentoft, S, and Pullin, R. Eds. (2005) Fish for Life: Interactive Governance for Fisheries. Amsterdam University Press: Amsterdam

- Worm, B., Barbier, E.B., Beaumont, N. et al. (2006). Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services. Science 314(5800): 787-790.

- Pauly D et al. (2002). Towards sustainability in world fisheries. Nature 418: 689–95.