Progress 10/01/99 to 09/30/04
Outputs
This research has demonstrated that international aid is of fundamental importance in the present and future status of living marine resources in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean regions, through (a) direct funding of fisheries related development and conservation projects and programs, and (b)promotion of largely unregulated foreign direct investment. Analysis of fisheries aid by 32 international aid agencies in the Western Indian Ocean region over a 25 year period indicates an overwhelming emphasis (85% of total fisheries funding) on the exploitation, rather than conservation of fisheries resources. Data are significant for future international policies as well as for govermental and community-based fishery and policies.
Impacts
Our research details the pressing need for reformulation of international aid fisheries policies to include a more precautionary and sustainable approach. We recommend establishment of an effective regulatory regime in EEZ fisheries and related capacity-building within the governments involved.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 01/01/03 to 12/31/03
Outputs
This research has demonstrated that international aid is of fundamental importance in the present and future status of living marine resources in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean regions, through (a) direct funding of fisheries related development and conservation projects and programs, and (b) promotion of largely unregulated foreign direct investment. Analysis of fisheries aid by 32 international aid agencies in the Western Indian Ocean region over a 25 year period indicates an overwhelming emphasis (85% of total fisheries funding) on the exploitation, rather than conservation, of fisheries resources. Support of shrimp trawling, shrimp farming and tuna fleet operations has been the major foci of aid projects; 26% of funding goes to physical infrastructure construction (e.g., ports and harbors), 28% for vessel upgrades, and 17% for training, extension services, or research. Regulation of fisheries activities and coastal/estuarine (nursery/hatchery) habitat
protection constituted only 1% of aid funding. Of this, Danish and Swedish bilateral funding was dominant, and U.S. funding was nil. My field-based surveys, intensive interviewing of fishers and local officials, as well as research in specific development project locales (Watamu, Malindi, Lamu and Ungwana Bay) in Kenya indicate a sharp decline of locally based fish catch. This problem is exacerbated by the spiraling migration to coastal areas by interior dwelling populations and economic/environmental stress induced by (aid funded) tourism and extractive industries (particularly titanium and natural gas) along the coast. A `systems model' for incorporating these concerns into an alternative, precautionary oriented fisheries aid approach was constructed and presented at the Western Regional AAAS meeting in 2003. Of 32 international aid-sponsored fisheries development projects in the South Pacific designated as 'sustainable development', 29 were found to be entirely production focused
without provision for living resource conservation or protection of local economies. A detailed study of several (Fijian) fisheries projects supported this conclusion; local ecological and socioeconomic dynamics involved in these systems were integrated into the formulation of an alternative, 'precautionary' approach to fisheries aid.
Impacts
Our research details the pressing need for reformulation of international aid fisheries policies to include a more precautionary and sustainable approach. We recommend establishment of an effective regulatory regime in EEZ fisheries and related capacity-building within the governments involved.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 01/01/02 to 12/31/02
Outputs
Investigation of the relationship between international aid policies for fisheries and coastal-based development in East Africa and the western Indian Ocean suggests that aid policies have likely been a strong contributing factor to the precipitous decline of living marine resources in the region (described by the FAO as having the world's most rapidly dwindling marine fisheries). Several consistent patterns of aid were identified for a thirty year period (1972-2002) through: (1) the construction of `aid profiles' for 12 countries (Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Madagascar, Seychelles, Mauritius, Bangladesh), including bilateral and multilateral assistance for 13 types of fisheries related development; (2) analysis of available government, corporate and professional literature, and (3) preliminary field research in northeastern Kenya, southern Somalia and Bangladesh. Two of the aid patterns identified are as follows. First,
more than 90% of aid funding was directed to increasing marine fisheries and seafood production for export; an additional, roughly equivalent, amount ($1 billion) of aid support was directed to expanding tuna industry facilities in the region. By contrast, less than 1% of aid was in support of prevention or mitigation of overexploitation of resources, despite the mandates of four recent international conventions and commissions for the implementation of a `precautionary principle'. Second, aid support of energy development (primarily oil and natural gas) in offshore and coastal areas generally omit environmental safeguards typically imposed in the U.S. and other developed countries. Aid funded and coordinated activities of 170 international energy corporations were traced throughout the region. An increasing occurrence of political conflict and economic instability is occurring throughout the region where aid support for industrialized fisheries, large-scale coastal based energy
development, and associated infrastructure have occurred. These associations were identified for Somalia, where oil concessions to 40 billion barrels of oil reserves coincide and unregulated industrial fishing coincide with sharp decline in longstanding abundant fish stocks; Kenya, where aid-supported titanium mining and industrial trawling parallel exponential decrease in artisinal catch rates; Madagascar, where the impacts of industrial tuna fishing are compounded by new offshore gas fields, and Bangladesh, where (aid-funded) industries releasing heavy metals and natural gas development in the Bay of Bengal are linked to increased problems for subsistence economies and mangrove reproduction. Evidence of the problematic roles of aid programs in the region, along with possible alternative approaches, were presented at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature during the World Summit in Johannesburg ('02), the International Institute for the Bengal Basin('02), and the
Association of Geographers Annual Regional Meeting in Missoula ('02). Cooperation for continued research and preparation of research results was established with a North American based commission of the IUCN.
Impacts
Data are significant for future international aid policies as well as for governmental and community-based fishery and policies.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 01/01/01 to 12/31/01
Outputs
Analysis of international aid for fisheries and coastal development from 1973 to 1997 indicates clear U.S. dominance amongst aid institutions (bilateral and multilateral). Quantitative data for aid activities in nine regions of developing countries indicate that 75% of U.S. assistance is directed to increasing seafood exports, primarily through promotion of new technologies, large-scale aquaculture, fish stock assessment, exploratory fishing and infrastructure construction. By comparison, U.S. financial support for surveillance of fishing vessels, establishment of regulatory structures and enforcement, coastal and marine conservation, and integrated coastal development with participation by coastal inhabitants is less than 4%. In the western Indian Ocean region (which statistics reveal is experiencing the most rapid growth in fisheries exploitation), analysis of aid patterns over 20 years indicates clear emphasis on expanding fishing fleets and aquaculture for global
markets, coral sand mining and shell extraction for export, port/harbor construction, and coastal oil and gas development (over 150 international corporations were identified and traced for this region over a 40 year). Village studies of local fishers indicate a 70% average catch decline during the past 15 years and precipitous loss of income; local fishery data for inshore stocks support this trend. Recorded traditional experience in fisheries management and economic diversification suggests possible changes for future U.S. aid approaches. Investigation of aid patterns in the northern the Indian Ocean (Bangladesh - delta region) revealed $600 million in finance for emerging export-oriented shrimp aquaculture and over $19 billion of $31 billion total aid in Bangladesh directed to six industries known to release serious quantities of heavy metals into the river systems. Data from local interviews, field observation and comparative aid agency funding patterns suggest an urgent need for
reconsidering U.S. aid approaches in the future; a specific comprehensive investigation is proposed.
Impacts
Data are significant for future international aid policies as well as for governmental and community-based fishery and policies.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 01/01/00 to 12/31/00
Outputs
Project concerning international aid in coastal zones: the toxins crisis in the Bengal Basin, and coastal resource overexploitation in the western Indian Ocean. In the Bangladeshi portion of the Bengal Basin, international aid (more than eight billion dollars) in support of industries associated with pollution by heavy metals (including arsenic, lead, mercury, chromium, cadmium, copper, nickel) and other major toxins, including cyanide and dioxin, for the period from 1972 to 1999. These industries include metal mining and plating, cement, leather tanning, paper and pulp, textiles and garment production, natural gas, and fertilizer and pesticide production industries. Direct and indirect support for these industries by six U.S. and other international aid agencies were analyzed for this time period, along with selective project study that revealed negligible inclusion of pollution prevention or mitigation measures and acquisition of records of heavy metal occurrence in
riverine and coastal environments of the Bengal region. Based on the results from this investigation, along with account of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data linking heavy metals to specific industrial processes, international (primarily World Health Organization) data regarding common toxicological and epidemiological effects of heavy metals (e.g. skin lesions, organ damage, certain cancers), the growing economic dependence of the region on particular industries (garment manufacture and natural gas production are key exports from Bangladesh, for instance, two tentative conclusions have been presented at a recent international Congress. First, the standing assumption on the part of international organizations and governments that the toxins crisis within the Bengal Basin is the result of naturally occurring arsenic should be questioned. Second, a comprehensive and systematic investigation of heavy metal and other industrial pollution sources, along with the occurrence of these
toxins within the biota of river, delta and coastal systems involved, should be immediately implemented. Elsewhere in the Indian Ocean Basin, international aid patterns of support for increased fishing productivity and extraction of coastal resources, again without significant precautionary measures, have been investigated along the East African coast. Effects of this development on renewable resources and local coastal communities were detailed through field work in northeastern Kenya: local and regional fish stock estimates and small boat catch levels were recorded, as were general ecological change data. Indications are that coastal (onshore and nearshore) habitat decline (in mangrove, reef and estuarine environments) is accelerating and that a precipitous drop in subsistence product within local fisheries is underway. International aid for intensified local fishing and for the incursion of large-scale foreign fishing fleets is called into question, particularly in light of
promising new 'precautionary' approaches to coastal zone management within the western U.S. and elsewhere.
Impacts
The possible impacts of research concerning the roles of international aid in transforming the integrated river/coastal and marine fisheries systems in south Asia, the Indian Ocean and the southern Pacific regions include (1) a reassessment of the major causes of the pervasive ecological and socioeconomic decline known to be occurring, (2) identification of specific aid policies in development and conservation that are associated with this decline, and (3) formulation of approaches to local and regional level assistance that may contribute to a 'precautionary' approach to marine fisheries and coastal development, an approach recently mandated by the FAO of the United Nations but to date, little understood. These advances in information and perspective are significant for future international aid, governmental and community-based fisheries and coastal-based policies.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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