Abstract

The GCFI Board of Directors approved the creation of the Gladding Memorial Award (GMA) program in 2004 to recognize fishers in the region who have demonstrated exemplary conservation leadership and to honor Peter Gladding, a commercial fisher who became a profoundly influential conservationist. The objective of this work is to offer background on Peter Gladding, a summary of the winners by location and year, and a plan of action. The formal inclusion of artisanal and small-scale fisher folks into fishery management conferences is overdue. Despite the increasing awareness of the important role that fisherfolk can play in improving science and management (FAO 2015) there have been relatively few efforts to explicitly recognize, celebrate and incentivize conservation leadership among small-scale fishers (Cowie et al. 2020; FAO 2022). As of 2022, 24 individuals from 16 countries or territories in the Central Western Atlantic have received the GMA award (Table 1).