The United Nations Oceans Conference held in Nice, France, in June did not include a delegation from the U.S., the only developed nation to opt out of the global gathering. But the Canadian delegation included a a small-scale fisheries proponent, Dr. Rashid Samalia.
Dr. Samalia, an economist at the University of British Columbia, participated in several panels, including one titled "Small but Powerful: Harnessing the diversity of small-scale fisheries to solve the sustainability challenges at the food-climate-diversity nexus."
While the title is a mouthful, Samaila says the panel simply looked at the often unrecognized values inherent in small-scale fisheries. “One of the case studies we looked at was indigenous fisheries here in British Columbia and what we can learn from indigenous management compared to the dominant management systems.”
As an exercise, Samalia and his colleagues were asked to try to assign dollar values to the non-monetary benefits of small-scale fisheries. “This was between the Provincial and Federal governments and our team. They wanted it for the sake of argument,” says Samaila. “They don’t take us seriously unless we have those dollar numbers. We had to put dollar values on things like food security, cultural importance, community knowledge, and the higher health value of eating locally caught fish.”
When adding these other values to the dock price of fish, Samaila and his colleagues found a significant increase in value. “You take the price of halibut at the dock and add these dollar figures, and we found it increases the value of the fish sometimes by 9.5 percent!”
Using the principle of ecological economics pioneered by economist Herman Daly and others, Samaila argues that because the dominant system does not recognize non-monetary values, it does not provide an accurate picture to regulators and fisheries developers. Ecological economics often compares long term benefits of sustainable resource use with short term profit-oriented perspectives.
“But you have to pile up the evidence to get them to listen to you,” he says. To gather some of that evidence, Samaila and others are looking at the experiences of the Tla’amin Tribe in British Columbia as it works to increase access to traditional and nutritious foods and improve food security skills among its people and families.
“Our panel at the Oceans Conference was one of the best attended,” says Samaila. “And there was lots of excitement.” He notes, however, that the Oceans Conference is not an event that in and of itself creates change.
“It’s pretty much about networking,” he says. “There were 18,000 people there. It was almost too much. So many different discussions, arguments. But there was a push to get all nations to sign on to the four big agreements: getting rid of harmful subsidies, common governance of the high seas, dealing with climate change, and plastic pollution.”
While no binding changes will come out of the conference, for Samaila and others, the point is to get new ideas about the value of small-scale fisheries into the discussions of fisheries management and ocean health.
“We work with small scale fishers from all over the world,” he says. “We help give them a platform and let them tell their stories.”
