Abstract

Fishery resources in developing countries are under pressure mainly caused by overexploitation, environmental degra-dation and insufficient management. Thus, the management practices for the sustainable utilization of fishery resources need to be developed and implemented. Today, co-management is recognized as one of the effective management tools for the small-scale fishery engaged by the majority of fishers in the Caribbean island states. Caribbean Fisheries Co-management (CARIFICO) Project (2013 – 2018) under the technical cooperation of Japan International Cooperation Agen-cy (JICA) has been implemented in collaboration with local fishers, Fisheries Division, Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mech-anism (CRFM) Secretariat and JICA in six OECS countries. The purpose of this project is to develop a fisheries co-management approach suitable for each target country and to share its good practices in the Caribbean region. CARIFICO consists of three pilot projects, 1) FAD fishery co-management in six OECS countries, 2) conch resources co-management in St. Lucia, and 3) fish pot co-management in Antigua and Barbuda. The purpose of this presentation is to provide infor-mation about the achievement and future plan of CARIFICO. Specifically, the approaches of FAD fishery co-management produced fruitful outcomes such as, the improvement of fisher’s livelihood, the establishment of collaborative relationship between fishers and government, the formulation of FAD fisher cooperatives, the registration of FAD user rules and the collection of FAD user fees. Those outcomes will serve to secure the sustainability of FAD fishery co-management as well as to apply for the establishment of new co-management approaches in the different fishing industries and/or fishing com-munities.

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