What are National Fishers Associations (NFAs)?
NFAs are the groups and organisations that represent fishers (be they artisanal, semi-industrial or industrial), and others involved in the fishing industry such as fish traders and processors at a national level. The primary purpose of NFAs is to advocate for the rights of the individuals and communities they represent, and to act to promote and uphold their interests nationwide.
NFAs play a key role in supporting and protecting the rights of artisanal fishers. This gives small-scale fishers and coastal communities more of a say in how fisheries are governed at a national level, facilitating large-scale change.
What types of issues can NFAs advocate on?
Small-scale fishing communities have historically suffered from political, economic and social marginalisation, often finding themselves voiceless compared to more powerful actors. To compound this, fishing communities are facing multiple and interacting stressors that are fundamentally and sometimes irreversibly changing and degrading the environments they rely upon, including global heating, overfishing, IUU fishing and land-use change driven by tourism and power infrastructure.
NFAs can play a pivotal role in advocating for improved fisheries management, reducing IUU fishing, and sustainable coastal livelihoods, serving as a common voice that can highlight the plights of their constituents. They are well-placed to access national and international decision-makers, and can address the legal, structural and technical or equity-based issues that affect fishing communities in a country collectively, such as overcapacity in the industrial fleet, illegal fishing and/or declining fish populations. They can also address insufficient or absent fisheries laws to protect the tenure of coastal fishers, and advocate for small-scale fishers when they are experiencing limited or uneven access to the goods and services they require.
NFAs are often uniquely placed to be key actors in the fight against IUU fishing, being both well connected to communities and as such having eyes on the sea, and being large and credible enough to have a seat at the table for key discussions alongside powerful national and international actors that can shape fisheries management.
