Collective Impact: Fisheries and Inter-Sectoral Collaboration

By bringing together social, environmental and economic topics for the trainings and not focusing solely on resource management related workshops, we have been able to increase collective impact and sustain it over time. Strengthening the three key aspects to sustainability has been fundamental. We’ve learned that our best strategy is that which provides leadership skills, human development, personal and organizational administration, business plans for fishing cooperatives or fair trade. Fishermen need to be asked and coached to find out their own weaknesses and strengths. Time and resources must be invested to include customers into the fishermen’s projects.

The local-ecological knowledge that fishermen provide about natural resources, fishing grounds and climate conditions, are fundamental elements to be considered in the design of a fish refuge. When combining local-ecological knowledge with scientific knowledge it is important that a transparent negotiation begins that will enable to have the best science-based conditions with social acceptance.

Then, a community monitoring program is led by organizations members of the Kanan Kay Alliance. Fishermen and women are trained and actively participate in collecting data. Hence, they see results with their own eyes and can then share the information with other members of the community. Once monitoring results have been delivered, during the renewal process, the goals of the fish refuges are reviewed to understand if they meet biophysical criteria for no-take zones and hence, if changes need to be done.

This “bottom-up” approach must be complemented with “top-down” elements to ensure that decision-making reflects the complexity of this process.

Working together as a collective impact platform doesn’t mean that we do everything all together at all times. It is about how to boost the best of every organization, while respecting and understanding the strengths and opportunity areas. Communities must have a clear role in the decision-making, which brings us back to building block #1 about empowering fishermen and building capacities.

Having leadership and ownership of the fishermen in the Alliance strengthens and helps the initiative. The institutional actors, academics and civil society organizations support collective action based on community empowerment in a way they did not do before, because they respect one basic premise: if the fishermen do not agree to and support the actions, the implementation would not be possible. This approach additionally allows for a more direct communication, an implementation of basic principles of collaboration and a growing trust between the participants.

Using fishing tools in protected areas was an important challenge in the Mexican Caribbean, and not always well received by the authorities in charge of the protected areas. Nevertheless, due to the technical and legal arguments, the first fish refuges zones were legally established in two biosphere reserves in 2012. This was supported by the intensive work together with the fishermen, several years before the Alliance existed. But when talking about legal and institutional framework, it is not enough to have a bottom-up participatory approach. Some legal changes require high-level work within the public administration. Efforts must be made in balancing both approaches. The Kanan Kay Alliance allowed to combine the bottom-up style with the more top-down approach from the public institutions, providing the arena for the discussion and building on a common goal.