Reforms in Small-Scale Fishing in Senegal by Crisis or New Forms of Dialogue?

Abstract

For decades, fishing was considered an area warranting public support policies, particularly its industrial segment. The sector continues to enjoy the support of international donors in addition to significant private overinvestment. Globally, catches of artisanal fisheries continue to grow while industrial fisheries decline since the mid 1990s. The latter are important for local food security, but are also increasingly export-oriented. Attempts to reform the sector are slow to make progress. Our case study in Senegal helps to understand better the opportunities for reforms securing local livelihoods and food security. It is based on more than350 interviews with fisherfolk, local public administrators and fish mongers in major artisanal fishing centres. We note that the efforts of the public administration since 2000 to reign in the expansion of the artisanal fleet have met with strong social resistance. At the same time, the artisanal fleet has increased in numbers, size and horsepower of outboard engines of new pirogues. Mobile phones and use of scientific data, particularly weather forecasts, have helped with risk management and keep otherwise increasing transaction costs engendered, e.g. by avoidance or conflict with the navy's surveillance of licence holders, under control. Using the interviews, we explore options for a more fruitful meeting of rather effective traditional social organisation with public policy to move forward in the reform attempts, including through better use of research by all parties.Proceedings of the Eighteenth Biennial Conference of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade, held July 11-15, 2016 at Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Center (AECC), Aberdeen, Scotland, UK