5 November 2015
Joint Press Statement by the World Forum of Fisher Peoples’ (WFFP) and the World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fish Workers (WFF)
With the Coastal Fisheries Initiative (CFI) the FAO, the World Bank, Conservation International and others have launched a wide reaching program aiming at the reform of fisheries policy across the world. Through a period of 4 years, 235 million USD will be distributed through a number of projects in countries spanning Latin America, Africa and South-East Asia. The program is funded jointly by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) and a few governments, NGOs, foundations and private sector actors. The CFI will have devastating impacts for small-scale fisher folk in the targeted countries and regions and the actors behind the CFI furthermore want their reforms to inform global fisheries policy. With this statement we, as representatives of over 20 million fisher people, wish to express our firm opposition to the CFI, which directly contradict the implementation of the recently endorsed Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries.
Read the full statement here.