Following the fish inland: understanding fish distribution networks for rural development and nutrition security

© 2019, International Society for Plant Pathology and Springer Nature B.V. In developing countries, small-scale fisheries are both a pivotal source of livelihood and essential for the nutritional intake of larger food insecure populations. Distribution networks that move fish from landing sites to coastal and inland consumers offer entry points to address livelihood enhancement and food security objectives of rural development initiatives. To be able to utilize fish distribution networks to address national development targets, a sound understanding of how local systems function and are organized is imperative. Here we present an in-depth examination of a domestic market chain in Timor-Leste that supplies small-pelagic fish to coastal and inland communities. We present the market chain’s different commodity flows and its distributive reach, and show how social organization strongly influences people’s access to fish, by determining availability and affordability. We suggest there is potential to advance Timor-Leste’s food and nutrition security targets by engaging with local influential actors and existing social relations across fish distribution networks. We argue that in addition to developing improvements to fish distribution infrastructure, utilizing existing or locally familiar practices, organization and social capital offers opportunity for long term self-sufficiency. Livelihood and food security improvement initiatives involving natural resource-dependent communities are more likely to succeed if they incorporate rural development perspectives, which frame directly targeted interventions (‘intentional’ development) within broader structural contexts (‘immanent’ development)

Following the fish inland: understanding fish distribution networks for rural development and nutrition security

In developing countries, small-scale fisheries are both a pivotal source of livelihood and essential for the nutritional intake of larger food insecure populations. Distribution networks that move fish from landing sites to coastal and inland consumers offer entry points to address livelihood enhancement and food security objectives of rural development initiatives. To be able to utilize fish distribution networks to address national development targets, a sound understanding of how local systems function and are organized is imperative. Here we present an in-depth examination of a domestic market chain in Timor-Leste that supplies smallpelagic fish to coastal and inland communities. We present the market chain’s different commodity flows and its distributive reach, and show how social organization strongly influences people’s access to fish, by determining availability and affordability. We suggest there is potential to advance Timor-Leste’s food and nutrition security targets by engaging with local influential actors and existing social relations across fish distribution networks. We argue that in addition to developing improvements to fish distribution infrastructure, utilizing existing or locally familiar practices, organization and social capital offers opportunity for long term self-sufficiency. Livelihood and food security improvement initiatives involving natural resource-dependent communities are more likely to succeed if they incorporate rural development perspectives, which frame directly targeted interventions (‘intentional’ development) within broader structural contexts (‘immanent’ development).The authors acknowledge support from staff from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MAF) in the district of Maliana and the aldeia administrative staff in Beacou. Assistance of WorldFish Timor-Leste staff was critical in setting up the fieldwork, particularly Mario Pereira. We are grateful for the time and information provided by respondents in the village of Beacou, as well as those interviewed intransit, at markets and in consumer households in and around Maliana. Fieldwork was made possible with funding from a Charles Darwin University (CDU) post doctoral fellowship co-funded through the North Australian Marine Research Alliance (NAMRA) in partnership with the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), the Australian National University (ANU) and the Northern Territory Government [NAMRA-02- 2014]. Further support was provided by SwedBio (a programme at Stockholm Resilience Centre), Australian National Centre for Agriculture Research (ACIAR – FIS/2010/097) and the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Research Program on Fish in Agri-food Systems (‘FISH’). Finally, the authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and Neil Andrew for his review of draft

Untangling Tales of Tropical Sardines: Local Knowledge From Fisheries in Timor-Leste

Tropical sardines (Family Clupeidae) are an important component of many marine fisheries in the Indo-West Pacific region. In Timor-Leste, a small, less-developed country within this region, ‘sardiña’ are some of the more commonly caught and consumed fish. Yet there is little published information from Timor-Leste about the species composition of these fisheries, nor their biology or ecology. We document the knowledge of Timorese fishers on nine locally distinguished sardine types that contribute to fisheries, and relate these to at least nine species: four species of ‘Flat-bodied Sardinellas’ (Sardinella subg. Clupeonia spp.), one species of ‘Round-bodied Sardinella’ (Sardinella subg. Sardinella lemuru), two species of ‘Tropical Pilchards’ (Amblygaster spp.) and a ‘Tropical Herring’ species (Herklotsichthys quadrimaculatus), all from the Clupeidae family; and one Dussumieria species from the Dussumieriidae family. We record variations in local sardine names across the country and document aspects of fishers’ knowledge relevant to understanding and managing the fisheries, including local sardine species’ seasonality, habitat, movements, interannual variation, as well as post-harvest characteristics in relation to perishability. In general, local names relate more closely with groups of species than individual species, although some names also distinguish fish size within species-groups. The local knowledge identified in this study has immediate application to inform fisheries monitoring and management, and to identify areas for future research. Notably, Timorese fishers recognize and make use of the strong association between some sardine species-groups and seasonally turbid river plumes. While further research is required to understand the underlying mechanisms of this association, this emphasizes the need to consider coastal fisheries and fisher livelihood impacts when assessing any plans or proposals that may alter river flow or water quality. Fishers also recognize migratory behavior of some sardine species, in particular the Flat bodied Sardinellas (S. gibbosa and others) along the north-west coast of Timor-Leste and across the border into Indonesian West Timor. Such insights complicate and need to be accounted for in initiatives for co-management or community-based management of Timor-Leste’s coastal waters and their fisheries

Evaluating the Fit of Co-management for Small-Scale Fisheries Governance in Timor-Leste

Fisheries co-management is an increasingly globalized concept, and a cornerstone of the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication, adopted by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization member states in 2014. Timor-Leste is a politically young country in the relatively rare position of having underexploited fisheries in some areas that can be leveraged to improve coastal livelihood outcomes and food and nutrition security. The collaborative and decentralized characteristics of co-management appeal to policymakers in Timor-Leste with provisions for co-management and customary laws applied to resource use were incorporated into state law in 2004 and again reinforced in 2012 revisions. The first fisheries co-management pilots have commenced where management arrangements have been codified through tara bandu, a process of setting local laws built around ritual practice that prohibits nominated activities under threat of spiritual and material sanctions. To date, however, there has been little critical evaluation of the suitability or potential effectiveness of co-management or tara bandu in the Timor- Leste fisheries context. To address this gap, we adapted the interactive governance framework to review the ecological, social and governance characteristics of Timor- Leste\u27s fisheries to explore whether co-management offers a valid and viable resource governance model. We present two co-management case studies and examine how they were established, who was involved, the local institutional structures, and the fisheries governance challenges they sought to address