Regional Inception Workshop for JTF-6 Program on the Promotion of Sustainable Fisheries Resources Enhancement Measures in Critical Habitats/Fishing Grounds in Southeast Asia

Date: 31 July 2015

Venue: Pattaya, Chonburi, Thailand

Objectives

1. To share the updated information and experiences on the Sustainable Fisheries Resources Enhancement Measures in Critical Habitats/Fishing Grounds in Southeast Asia,

2. To identify appropriate and effective resources enhancement project site, tools, measures and rehabilitation plan for various critical habitats/fishing grounds,

3. To strengthen the collaboration and cooperation among SEAFDEC member countries on promotion of sustainable fisheries resources enhancement in Southeast Asia.

Conclusion

The Regional Inception Workshop for JTF-6 Program on the Promotion of Sustainable Fisheries Resources Enhancement Measures in Critical Habitats/Fishing Grounds in Southeast Asia was organized by the SEAFDEC Training Department on 31 July 2015 in Pattaya, Thailand. Funded by the Japanese Trust Fund, the Workshop was attended by representatives from Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Viet Nam. The SEAFDEC Secretary-General, Deputy Secretary-General, senior officials and staff of the SEAFDEC Secretariat, Training Department (TD), Marine Fishery Resources Development and Management Department (MFRDMD), the Inland Fishery Resources Development and Management Department (IFRDMD), and Members of the Regional Fisheries Policy Network (RFPN) also attended the Workshop.

The Workshop was review of the activities on rehabilitation of fisheries resources and habitat/fishing grounds for resources enhancement. The outputs of the activities undertaken during the implementation of the preceding JTF-5 Project on the “Promotion of Sustainable Fisheries Resources Enhancement Measures in Critical Habitats/Fishing Grounds in Southeast Asia” implemented from 2010 to 2014 were summarized. Three activities had been carried out under this project. These are: (1) Environmental Survey Studies on Artificial Reefs in Rayong Province, Thailand; (2) Resources Conservation and Enhancement in Nam Houm Reservoir, Lao PDR; and (3) Habitat Conservation and Resources Enhancement in Seagrass Beds in Sriboya Island, Krabi Province, Thailand. Furthermore, the lessons learned (successes and failures) from the JTF-5 Project as well as relevant experiences of the Member Countries presented during the SEAFDEC Symposium on Strategy for Fisheries Resources Enhancement in the Southeast Asian Region convened on 27-30 July 2015 also in Pattaya, Thailand should be taken into consideration in planning the enhanced activities of the new JTF-6 Project.

In addition, the Workshop was identified of the appropriate and effective resources enhancement project sites, tools, measures and rehabilitation plan for various critical habitats/fishing grounds. The input provided by SEAFDEC Member Countries. For example, the need for the Project to identify and develop the most suitable tool for effective resources enhancement and rehabilitation based on specific models proven to be successful elsewhere in the region. Moreover, the fisheries refugia is a crucial activity that should be undertaken in order to identify the spawning season of all important species. Furthermore, the Workshop got a value recommendations from the participants such as

- Compilation of information and development of database that could be referred to by Member Countries,

- Mapping of important critical fishing grounds and habitats and associated fish species should be conducted taking into consideration various sources of information,

- Monitoring and evaluation of successes and failures of resources enhancement initiatives should be carried out based on intended objectives,

- SEAFDEC should consider the possibility of allocating some funds for development of Regional Guidelines for Installation of the Artificial Reefs (ARs) based on the best practices undertaken by the Member Countries.

The information and cooperation of the Member Countries, the project would be able to come up with guaranteed results that are beneficial to the Southeast Asian countries.

Regional Workshop on Promotion of Alternative Livelihoods Business through the Establishment of Autonomous Fisheries Community-based Resource Co-management System

Date: 25-27 March 2013

Venue: Bangkok, Thailand

Objective:

1. Lesson-learned the alternative livelihood business creation through autonomous community-based resource management systems;

2. To find out the key factor and the successful way of the effectiveness of financial and economic business operation in fishing community.

Background of the Regional Workshop

Establishment of the system of Autonomous Community-based Resource Management (ACBRM) is also useful to improve local livelihoods and alleviate poverty in fishing communities through finding the way of alternative livelihoods business, financial and economic activities such as micro-finance system, bulk purchase and auction system. Therefore, the Regional Workshop was organized to improve the knowledge of ASEAN fisheries officers for the concepts, principles and practice of promotion of alternative livelihoods business and financial and economic activities for alleviation poverty, and its additional function in autonomous community-based resource management.

Conclusion of the Regional Workshop

The SEAFDEC Member Countries presented their activities concerned alternative livelihoods business through fisheries community-based resource management. Besides, the role and future plan for promoting alternative livelihoods business, financial and economic activities also was clarified in the meeting. Moreover, the resource persons presented on the lesson-learned and experiences related to alternative livelihoods and promoting micro-finance services and activities. The lesson-learns were emphasized in various projects such as Integrated Coastal Resources Management in Pathew District project, Thailand (ICRM-PD) and Sihanoukville, Cambodia (ICRM-SV), as well as the Regional Fisheries Livelihoods Programme for South and Southeast Asia (RFLP). Furthermore, the Regional Workshop found out the key factors of success of alternative livelihoods business including the way forward for promoting of alternative livelihoods and the financial and economic creation. The key factors that lead to successful alternative livelihood initiatives are divided into 11 factors;

1) Cohesiveness at work,

·         fostering a spirit of working together or camaraderie.
·         Motivating the spirit of community solidarity.

2) Sustainability,

·         Shifting of project operational obligations to be defined during planning.
·         Ensuring that business or alternative livelihood initiatives can be handled by communities.

3) planning,

·         Minimizing too ambitious and unrealistic original plans in many cases.
·         Participatory planning with communities must be observed.

4) Selection of target business or livelihood alternatives,

·         Determining the readiness of stakeholders to undertake a new challenge.
·         Considering the unique characteristic of communities in planning livelihood alternatives.
·         Evaluating market demand for alternative livelihood products.
·         Considering the risks of undertaking new business options comprising technically unknown factors.

5) Accounting and bookkeeping,

·         Establishing transparency in handling money.
·         Improving financial management capacity of concerned stakeholders.
·         Maintaining accurate records of raw materials, production, sales, etc.

6) Initial funds,

·         Creating initial fund (seed money) to start new livelihood initiatives.
·         Obtaining government or donors support which is necessary to create initial fund.

7) Revolving funds and micro-credit scheme,

·          Establishing an internal micro-credit facility or community savings scheme for small scale initiatives might be a practical option.
·         Maintaining revolving funds.

8) Government support,

·         Fostering government’s ability to provide technical and financial support when required.

9) Institutional support,

·         Ensuring that all local livelihoods or business initiatives take place under the umbrella of local institutions, e.g. fisheries cooperatives.

10) Leadership,

·         Having dynamic and competent leadership of the group is essential.
·         Having smart officers and smart fishers (experienced and knowledgeable, skillful, good attitude, practicing good governance, strongly committed) is necessary.

11) Fisheries management organizations.

·         Establishing fisheries co-management organizations such as fisheries cooperatives as basis for developing livelihood initiatives/alternatives.

Moreover, the recommendations was clarified from the participants such as 1) Conducting local training programs to start livelihood alternatives, 2) Dissemination of the livelihood programs to village levels, 3) Development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) for fisheries products.

The Regional Workshop on Improvement of Fisheries Information Collection in Coastal Small-scale and Inland Fisheries of the Southeast Asian Region

Date: 28-30 January 2013

Venue: Bangkok, Thailand

Objective:

1. Reviewing the problems of fisheries data collection in coastal small-scale and inland fisheries at national; and 

2. Identifying the key issues of fisheries data collection that should be addressed in order to improve the countries’ efforts in fisheries data collection; and

3. Sharing the lessons learned from effective ways of data collection among the SEAFDEC Member Countries.

Background of the Workshop

The Regional Workshop aimed to review and identify the difficulty of fisheries data collection in coastal small-scale and inland fisheries as well as find out the effective ways of data collection from SEAFDEC Member Countries. This could be achieved by fostering the lessons learned in terms of the methodologies and exchanging experiences in effective fisheries data collection. It was also envisaged that such effort could be adapted in the setting up of fisheries census with a future goal of improving fisheries data collection.

In addition, SEAFDEC has fourth stages to support the SEAFDEC Member Countries during 5 years. The first stage is this Regional Workshop. The Second stage is the Regional Training course, which will be organized after this Regional Workshop, on building up the applicable cost effective fisheries information collection scheme for improvement of monitoring to fisheries activities on February, 26 to March, 3 at SEAFDEC-Training Department. The Regional Training course are providing the methodology and knowledge to the participants, then, they will making the idea for future national activities for improvement data collection. After the Regional Training course, SEAFDEC expected that the representatives from SEAFDEC Member Countries in this Regional Training course will making the National Workshop for improvement of fisheries information collection and fisheries statistic for sustainable fisheries management in their own country with supporting by SEAFDEC. The last state, After the National Workshop, SEAFDEC's staff will collaborate with the National's staff to providing the on-site training course to facilitate fisheries information gathering through introduction of community-based fisheries management. SEAFDEC expected that each SEAFDEC member countries will making a plan and take an action in the countries.

Conclusion of the Workshop

The SEAFDEC Member Countries presented their current data collection methods and fisheries information. There are different types of data and information that should be collected and could be used to support management for sustainable fisheries, e.g. census, statistics, survey data, research studies, etc. There are also various tools that could be used to collect data and information such as logbook, questionnaire, survey forms, RRA, PRA. The planning for data collection should consider clear objectives on how the data would be used; and what kind of data is necessary. The data should be able to clarify the fisheries structure, production, species, resources status, and socio-economic status.

The problems and constraints were divided into technical and non-technical problems. For example 1) lack of supervision and training on basic data collection, 2) lack of standardization of fisheries data collection concept, 3) small-scale fishing gears are highly diverse complexity of ecosystem , 4) difficult to get participation from fishermen, and high cost and manpower for data collection. In addition, the countries use top-down (obligation) and bottom-up (voluntary) for data collection method. The top-down (obligation) data collection, which may include official statistics survey form, licensing, registration, documentation, etc. However, the exercise could be much costly than bottom-up approach. The Bottom-up (voluntary) data collection by autonomous community (involving fishers, middlemen, etc.) is considered cost-effective approach. However, efforts need to be undertaken to ensure cooperation and reliability of information, e.g. through enhancing the understanding of the community on fisheries management and importance of data collection to support management. It was also suggested that at the beginning, the bottom-up data collection by autonomous community should be undertaken as pilot project in order to test the effectiveness/reliability of data, before applying the approach nation-wide.

In addition, the questionnaires are one of the tools for data collection that should be focused, simple and clear in order to enable enumerators, autonomous community or fishers to provide information, while also reduce unclear/confusion, e.g. equipped with photographs of fishing grounds (map), fish species identification, etc. Well-designed forms would facilitate the compilation and analysis of the data in order to come up with reliable and meaningful results. Appropriate sample size (extraction number) should be considered to ensure that the collected data could represent the targeted group (population).

Regional Workshop on Promotion of Strategic Implementation of Fisheries Co-management and Rights-based Fisheries for Enhancing Good Governance in Coastal and Inland Fisheries Management

Date: 2-3 February 2012

Venue: Jasmine Executive Suites Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand

Objectives

The overall objectives of the project

To promote practices of rights-based fisheries and co-management to improve small-scale fisheries management to get better condition in ASEAN region.

The objectives of the regional workshop

1. To review applicable practice and application of co-management and rights-based fisheries to secure means of livelihood and sustainable coastal and inland fisheries.

2. To conduct SWOT analysis so as to identify competency of applicable practice and lesson-learned on co-management fisheries and rights-based fisheries brought a proper and effective fisheries management for sustainability.

3. To formulate strategy of promoting co-management and rights-based fisheries by applying the results of SWOT analysis to achieve good governance in coastal and inland fisheries management.

Expectation

The strategy will be published and distributed as a guidebook to fisheries officials and local management organizations for considering criteria and selecting proper practice of co-management and rights-based fisheries to sustain coastal and inland fisheries resources management in ASEAN region.

Activities implemented

The Secretary-General of SEAFDEC, Dr. Chumnarn Pongsri, welcomed the participants and observers to the Regional Workshop. He emphasized that the concepts of co-management and rights-based fisheries are still needed enabling environment to promote in Southeast Asian Region. After that, Dr. Supaporn Anuchiracheeva kindly presented on the concepts of co-management and rights-based fisheries management. Including the important of these approaches as well as the experience and lesson-learned in Bang Saphan District, Thailand. And the next agenda, the member countries would presented on the activities/practices initiated by local community or national government relevant to co-management and rights-based fisheries in their own country.

After that, the workshop was carry out a SWOT analysis by the resources person, Dr. Kungwan Juntarashote. The participants were actively participating to practice the strategic planning in co-management by using SWOT analysis. Then, the participants used the result of SWOT analysis to make the strategy for promoting co-management to achieve good governance in coastal and inland fisheries management. During discussion, the participant was propose the strategy on “Efficient enhancement of co-management practices in Southeast Asia” which composed of three objectives; 1) enhance fisheries resources for sustainable use, 2) improve livelihoods in communities, 3) promote responsible fisheries practices. Under this strategy, it has 17 measures for example, the measure to solve the degraded coastal resources and poverty in communities. Moreover, the future activities on co-management were clarified in the meeting. At the end of the workshop, the Deputy Secretary-General of SEAFDEC, Mr. Kenji Matsumoto, would kindly declare the workshop closed and thanked all the participants and staff for their participation and cooperation during the workshop.