Article Index

Transitioning to Blue Justice with Too Big To Ignore

As a member of the global research community gathered on the "Too Big To Ignore" platform, Mundus maris contributed to the event focused on Blue Justice organised already on Monday, 7 June 2021.

 

The introduction by Svein Jentoft set the scene and placed the cases presented in the context of three orders of governance that are crucial to ensure justice to small-scale fisheries around the globe.

The individual examples were all taken from chapters of a forthcoming book "Blue Justice: Small-Scale Fisheries in a Sustainable Ocean Economy"  to appear before the end of the year (see the facsimile to the right).

Sadly, many of these document unjustices slapped on small-scale fishers in many different parts of the world that cast doubt on the merry discourses about a Blue Economy.

Mundus maris was therefore particularly happy to contribute a chapter focused on how transitions to justice might look like and what the empowering methods deployed through the small-scale fisheries academy can contribute to meet this challenge.

In their chapter, Cornelia E Nauen and Maria Fernanda Arraes Treffner explain the inclusive methodological approach. Its underlying principles are people-focused and support the realisation of their vision of positive change. They showed some concrete results women and men in Yoff, Senegal, have achieved as a result of using the methods.

For the online event, a short video offered a succinct example of some early achievements. During the panel discussion, Cornelia and Maria Fernanda insisted on the central role of being people-centred and starting with their vision of change that mattered to them as the compass guiding all implementation steps.

Mundus maris is interested in collaboration with other groups, organisations or projects in other countries to test the approach elsewhere, for example. in an English speaking country, in order to explore the scalability beyond the local context in Senegal. Further collaboration within Senegal is also most welcome to extend the positive effects for all partners.

What a nice way to start World Ocean Week.