Case study: fisheries co-management in Mozambique - the Artisanal Fisheries and Climate Change (FishCC) Project

Background

While fisheries co-management in Mozambique has existed for around thirty years in the form of Community Fisheries Councils (Conselhos Comunitários de Pesca or CCPs), these entities only gained adequate legal recognition in 2020. International organisations have made attempts to strengthen the country’s fisheries co-management infrastructure, such as through the World Bank’s Artisanal Fisheries and Climate Change (FishCC) Project. However, projects such as FishCC have only seen limited success. In order for successful co-management, Mozambique’s government must strengthen CCP funding.

Since the mid-1990s, the co-management of fisheries in Mozambique has centred around the creation of CCPs, which allow local fishing communities to play a wider role in the governance of fisheries. While historically loosely defined in legislation, the role of these CCPs in fisheries co-management in the country was set out in a template for CCP statutes published by the former Ministry of Fisheries in 2006 which consolidated their objectives into four categories:

Table 1: The objectives of CCPs in the 2006 template for CCP statutes

Fundamental objective	Contribute to the preservation of marine and coastal ecosystems
Fisheries management	Encourage and recommend fisheries licensing Alert Fisheries Administration authorities to changes to fisheries resources or the environmental in their area
Complementing management measures	Undertake surveillance and licensing Collaborate in controlling marine & coastal pollution Participate in implementation of mechanisms to restrict fishing
Harmonisation of interest	Establish conflict resolution mechanisms between artisanal, semi-industrial and industrial fishers, through mediation Promote adequate marking of fishing gear
Fisheries extension	Promote community education and awareness on the need for protection of the marine environment Participate in collection information on fisheries activities, in training and in recycling

Since 2010, the role and legal status of CCPs has been further refined and strengthened, including through the Maritime Fisheries Regulation 2020 (REPMAR) and the updated CCP statutes template produced by the Ministry of the Sea, Inland Waters and Fisheries (MIMAIP) in 2022 (see Table 2).

The Mozambican government has pursued co-management as a fisheries management strategy in recent decades in order to deal with overfishing, resolve local conflicts between fisheries resource users, defend local communities’ preferential rights of access to resources, and eliminate harmful fishing practices and environmental degradation. The recent legislative updates show the ongoing importance of co-management in the country’s overarching fisheries management strategy.

Project scope: The Artisanal Fisheries and Climate Change (FishCC) Project

Between April 2015 and April 2019, the FishCC Project was implemented in Mozambique by Ministério do Mar, Águas Interiores e Pescas (MIMAIP), with support from Rare, an international NGO, as well as various provincial and district authorities. Funding for the FishCC project was provided by the Nordic Development Fund, and was administered by the World Bank.

The FishCC Project aimed to build on the work completed by previous government-led artisanal fisheries projects such as the Artisanal Fishing and Co-Management Project (PPACG) and the Artisanal Fishermen's Resource Rights Project (ProDIRPA), in order to “improve community management of selected priority fisheries”. The project’s core objective was to transform the management of coastal artisanal fisheries in Mozambique through the adaptation and piloting of “Fish Forever”, a community rights-based fisheries management model developed by Rare (see Box 1). By increasing the sustainability of these fisheries, the FishCC Project sought to improve the resilience and adaptive capacity of coastal community livelihoods in the country in the face of the impact of climate change.

Six sites already possessing at least one functioning CCP across the provinces of Cabo Delgado, Nampula, Inhambane and Maputo were selected for the implementation of FishCC. Two sites - Mefunvo, located in Cabo Delgado, and Machangulo, in Maputo - were located in protected areas designated under the Mozambican Conservation Law of 2013.

Figure 1: Map of CCPs included in the FishCC project

Source: World Bank, 2019

Achievements and challenges

The FishCC Project consisted of three components across its six project areas:

Improvement of community rights-based fisheries management
Improvement of livelihoods
Support of capacity-building and community engagement necessary for the development and implementation of a social marketing approach to fisheries co-management

While the project was hindered by a number of factors - most notably the reorganisation of the Ministry of Fisheries shortly after the beginning of the project in 2015 and the lack of a legal framework for creating community management areas in the country - some significant outcomes were achieved. At all six FishCC sites, CCPs were able to define and map management area boundaries. Fisheries no-take reserves were agreed in principle, but were crucially not fully designated and demarcated in any site. Alongside these proposed reserves, a number of other priority fisheries management measures were agreed, as displayed in Table 2:

Table 2: Agreed priority management measures across the six FishCC CCPs

	Mefunvo	Memba	Fequete	Pomenae	Zavora	Macangulo
Priority management measures	All beachseine fishers to switch to gillnets or handlines	Implement fisheries no-take reserve & reduce use of mosquito nets	Beachseine fishers to observe two closed seasons totalling 5 months	Eliminate spear-fishing and implement fisheries no-take reserve	Reduce or eliminate spear-fishing and implement 3 no-take reserves	Implement fisheries no-take reserve in Bembi estuary

However, the project’s key achievement was that the experience gained through the development of CCPs in FishCC sites aided decision-making in MIMAIP’s revision of the legal framework for the designation of community fisheries management areas. This led to the adoption of the new Marine Fisheries Regulation (REPMAR) legislation in 2020, which not only clarifies the path to official recognition for CCPs, but also mandates these organisations as the main bodies responsible for the management of local fisheries. The legislation also contains a provision which explicitly allows for the creation of “co-management agreements with [...] Community Fishing Councils [CCPs] or other community-based organisations, to share responsibilities within the framework of participatory management of fishing resources”.

Next steps

Looking forward, the formal government recognition of CCPs under this new legislation has enabled the growth of further co-management arrangements across the country. This includes, for example, the CCP founded in Cabaceira Pequena in 2022, which through the education of community members on sustainable fisheries management, has successfully adopted new temporary fishery closures that have led to increased catch during the open fishing season. However, interviews with CCP members carried out near the port city of Beira in January 2024 revealed severely limited funding for such organisations from the central government. Going forward, it is essential that the Mozambican government provides adequate funding to CCPs and other fisheries management organisations. In particular, it must make sure to use revenue from industrial fishing licences for this purpose, meeting its obligations outlined in Article 46 of the 2017 Regulation for the Concession of Fishing Rights and Fishing Licensing.