Fishing for Life 2022
The South and South-East Asian Conference on Small Scale Fisheries and Aquaculture (SACSFA), 19 and 20 September 2022, Ocean University of Sri Lanka.
When the United Nations declared 2022 the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture, the forum organised a regional conference to draw policy makers’ attention to the issues threatening small-scale fishing communities.
The name was chosen deliberately. Fishing is not simply catching fish, selling fish and earning an income. It is a way of life, with values, beliefs, culture and rules deeply rooted in fishing communities. The issues facing those communities are shared across South and South-East Asia, so the conference invited every country in the region to present its case.
SACSFA gave equal weight to academic papers and to video presentations by civil society organisations, the “voice of the people”, so that research could be heard alongside what fishing people say about their own lives.
Programme
Keynotes
Maarten Bavinck (University of Amsterdam), Svein Jentoft (UiT The Arctic University of Norway), Anthony Charles (Saint Mary’s University), Meryl J. Williams (Asian Fisheries Society), Nicole Franz (FAO), Premachandra Wattage (Sabaragamuwa University) and Oscar Amarasinghe (University of Ruhuna).
Themes
Sustainable use of resources. Impact of policy, technology, trade and development. Poverty, rights and rural aquaculture. Gender. Governance, management and the SSF Guidelines.
Sessions
About 40 scientific papers and 10 video presentations by civil society organisations over two days.
Declaration
A closing panel with ICSF, FAO, the Bay of Bengal Programme and the National Fisheries Solidarity movement drafted the SACSFA 2022 Declaration.
Organisers
- Conference chair
- Prof. M. G. Kularatne
- Conference secretary
- Ms. Kaumi Piyasiri
- Scientific committee chair and editor
- Prof. D. A. M. De Silva
- Sponsors
- FAO and SSF Hub
The next conference
SACSFA was planned as a biennial meeting. To hear about the next call for papers, write to info@slfssf.lk.