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Gender Mainstreaming
in Coastal and Marine
Ecosystems Management
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
Gender Mainstreaming
in Coastal and Marine
Ecosystems Management
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
ii
Gender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
© 2022 United Nations Environment Programme
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© Maps, photos and illustrations as specied
Cover image credit: Blue Gold Program, Bangladesh
Suggested citation: United Nations Environment Programme and Gender and Water Alliance (2022). Gender Mainstreaming in
Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management: Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned. Nairobi.
Lead authors
Anamika Amani (GWA, India)
Anne-Marie Hanson (GWA, United States of America)
Case study contributors
Sangeeta Mangubhai (Wildlife Conservation Society, Fiji Country Program), Berna Gorong, Meg Bresnahan, Robyn James (The
Nature Conservancy, Asia-Pacic), Peggy J. Turk Boyer, Paloma A. Valdivia Jiménez, Elia I. Polanco Mizquez, Hem Nalini Morzaria-
Luna, Angeles Sánchez Cruz, Nelida Barajas Acosta (Intercultural Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans), Kitty Bentvelsen
(GWA), George Maina, Giulia Besana, Peter Limbu, Tiffany Waters, Mondy Muhando, Robert Jones, Lucy Magembe (The Nature
Conservancy, United Republic of Tanzania), Joan Kawaka, Lenice Ojwang’ (CORDIO Kenya), Arie Kurniawaty, Gita Ayu Atikah
(Solidaritas Perempuan), Cassia Patel (Oceanic Global), Pallavi Sobti Rajpal, Nasa Barot (Utthan, Gujarat), Fatou Janha Mboob
(TRY Oyster Women’s Association), Karen Kent (University of Rhode Island, Coastal Resources Center).
From UNEP
Gabriel Grimsditch
Peer reviewers
Joke Muylwijk (GWA), Maeve Nightingale (International Union for Conservation of Nature, Bangkok), Linda Jonsson (UNEP), S. M.
Faridul Haque (WorldFish, Bangladesh)
Editors
Patricia Kinyolo (UNEP); English Language Unit (United Nations Ofce at Nairobi)
Design/layout
United Nations Ofce at Nairobi
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
iii
Table of Contents
Executive summary.................................................................................................................................vi
Chapter I. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1
Chapter II. Denitions and key concepts ............................................................................................. 4
Chapter III. Principles for mainstreaming gender in coastal and marine management ........................ 6
Chapter IV: Case studies ..................................................................................................................... 12
Gender principle 1:
Data that reveals the invisible work of unrecognized stakeholders
Wildlife Conservation Society
Fiji .............................................................................................................................. 12
Gender principle 2:
Creating spaces for the unheard to speak and be listened to
The Nature Conservancy
Federated States of Micronesia ............................................................................................... 18
Gender principle 3:
Validating and utilizing different capacities and knowledge of women and men
CEDO
Mexico .............................................................................................................................. 24
Gender principle 4:
Ensuring that project-generated resources and innovations benet all
Blue Gold Program
Bangladesh .............................................................................................................................. 30
Gender principle 5:
Using a gender-responsive approach to develop skills and knowledge for sustainable livelihoods
The Nature Conservancy
Zanzibar .............................................................................................................................. 36
Gender principle 6:
Enhancing inclusive decision-making in community-based organizations
CORDIO
Kenya .............................................................................................................................. 42
Gender principle 7:
Political mobilization of excluded groups to advocate for their rights
Solidaritas Perempuan
Indonesia .............................................................................................................................. 48
iv
Gender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
Gender principle 8:
Multi-stakeholder collaboration for gender-equitable sustainable development
Oceanic Global
Barbados .............................................................................................................................. 53
Gender principle 9:
Leveraging diversity, equity and inclusion in building local resilience to crises
Utthan
India. .............................................................................................................................. 58
Gender principle 10:
Sustaining empowerment and ecosystem benets in the long term
TRY Oyster Women’s Association
The Gambia .............................................................................................................................. 64
Chapter V. Coping with crises: coastal communities and the COVID-19 pandemic ............................... 71
Chapter VI. Key ndings and recommendations ................................................................................... 76
Chapter VII. Resources and tools .......................................................................................................... 86
References ... ...................................................................................................................................... 90
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
v
Abbreviations
CEDO: Intercultural Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans
CORDIO: Coastal Oceans Research and Development – Indian Ocean
COVID-19: coronavirus disease
DOPA: Densu Oyster Pickers’ Association
FAO: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
GWA: Gender and Water Alliance
IOM: International Ofce for Migration
TNC: The Nature Conservancy
UNDP: United Nations Development Programme
UNEP: United Nations Environment Programme
UNICEF: United Nations Children’s Fund
WHO: World Health Organization
vi
Gender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
Executive summary
As oceans, seas and coastal areas all over the world are facing increasing pressures owing to climate change,
pollution and globalization, women and men feel the impacts of degraded coastal and marine ecosystems in
different ways. Across societies, women and men use and manage marine and coastal ecosystems differently
and have specic knowledge, capabilities and needs related to coastal and marine resources. Historically, the
work and contributions of women, informal workers and indigenous groups have been routinely ignored or
underestimated in coastal and marine research, management and policy, including, but not limited to, their
important work in sheries and aquaculture, in the processing and trading of marine products,in managing
plastic and other waste from urban and tourist growth, and in conservation and disaster risk reduction
initiatives.
Increasingly, collective calls for participative, integrated and sustainable approaches to marine and coastal
science and management are met with calls for gender inclusiveness, mainstreaming and sensitivity across
the environment and development agendas. Yet, even as policymakers, environmental managers and
development practitioners are made aware of why gender mainstreaming is important in the integrated
management of marine and coastal ecosystems, they lack the practical guidance and tools on how to do it.
This report brings together gender experts and experts from other elds in coastal and marine research to
bridge this gender-technical divide.
The report is centred on 10 gender mainstreaming principles developed to offer structure and guide the
practice of gender mainstreaming into the integrated management of coastal and marine ecosystems.
These principles can be considered “tried and tested” strategies for promoting socially just, environmentally
sustainable and economically efcient development in coastal and marine contexts.
The 10 gender mainstreaming principles are also illustrated in action through 10 case studies from different
countries with distinct geographical and social contexts. The case studies cover a wide set of themes in coastal
and marine ecosystem management and highlight the work of diverse stakeholders, including conservation
organizations, researchers, government ministries, civil society, the private sector and community-based
groups. Each of the 10 case studies aims to explain the rationale behind the use of a particular gender
mainstreaming principle (why), illustrate the practical aspects of implementing it in a specic context of
coastal and marine ecosystem management (how), and offer lessons learned and recommendations. The
cases are vivid examples of the potential broader social and environmental impacts of integrating gender
principles into marine and coastal management projects.
The report also offers insights into how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting coastal people, livelihoods and
ecosystems, based on information gathered from individual case studies, in terms of disaster preparedness,
COVID-19 impacts, mitigation measures and lessons learned. Importantly, many coastal communities are
confronting COVID-19 while also facing other overlapping climate-induced, health and environmental crises,
such as dengue and cholera, flooding, monsoons, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes and wildres. The
pandemic also led to drastic increases in gender-based discrimination and violence across communities and
livelihood sectors in coastal and marine contexts. Coping with multifaceted crises in coastal regions often
involves a heavy reliance on women and their paid and unpaid care work within households and communities.
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
vii
Especially in coastal areas where the ofcial disaster protocol is not gender- responsive or sensitive, successful
COVID-19 relief and recovery has depended on the effectiveness of local social networks and collective action
coalitions, often built by women and youth, who have maintained assistance to vulnerable groups throughout
the past 18 or more months.
The report concludes with a set of overarching ndings and recommendations to assist those working towards
mainstreaming gender into projects for the integrated management of coastal and marine ecosystems.
The ndings and recommendations offer concrete ways to ensure that projects do not exacerbate existing
gender-based inequalities, and instead provide tangible paths to include all stakeholders, especially women,
in promoting equitable, efcient and truly sustainable development within coastal and marine environments.
1
Oceans, seas and coastal areas all over the world are
facing increasing pressure from human activities,
climate change and extreme climate events, which
are negatively affecting the resilience of coastal
and marine ecosystems and the people that depend
on them (Anfuso et al. 2021; Halpern et al. 2017).
Overshing, destructive shing, ocean and seabed
mining and drilling, coastal pollution, marine litter
and warming sea temperatures are examples of
anthropogenic threats that are undermining the
delivery of ecosystem goods and services such
as food, coastal protection, clean water, fuel,
construction material, transport and recreation for
hundreds of millions of women and men living in
coastal areas. Across societies, women and men
feel the impacts of degraded coastal and marine
ecosystems in different ways, with a disproportionate
burden on women being very likely in some
contexts owing to social norms and institutional
structures that marginalize them socially, politically
and economically (Aguilar et al. 2015, p. 17).
The same structures also prevent women from
being active participants in decision-making and
management processes that address coastal and
marine degradation. Historically, the contributions
of women in onshore fisheries, aquaculture,
processing and trading of marine products and
managing plastic and other waste from urban and
tourist growth, as well as their important role in
conservation and disaster-risk reduction initiatives
in marine and coastal areas, have been routinely
ignored or underestimated in research, management
and policy (United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) and Gender and Water Alliance (GWA)
2019). Sustainable development and management
of marine and coastal ecosystems can only be
possible if all women and men whose livelihoods
depend on coastal and marine resources are able to
access, manage and benet from them equally. For
this reason, it is essential that projects, programmes
and policies in integrated or ecosystem-based
coastal and marine management incorporate a
gender approach in their formulation, planning and
implementation.
Yet, within the realm of fisheries and coastal
resources, gender and social equality issues are
still largely sidelined, while concerns with highly
technical, ecological and economic aspects remain
the sector’s primary endeavour (Mangroves for
the Future et al. 2018). Even as policymakers,
environmental managers and development
practitioners are increasingly made aware of why
gender mainstreaming is important in the integrated
management of marine and coastal ecosystems,
they lack practical guidance and tools on how to
do it (UNEP and GWA 2019). Aiming to address this
gap, UNEP and GWA published a baseline study
(UNEP and GWA 2019) documenting examples of
how marine and coastal management initiatives at
community, project and policy levels from various
countries had integrated a gender perspective in
their design, implementation and evaluation. One
of the main recommendations from the study was
to build a larger compendium of case studies,
from a wider set of geographies and coastal and
marine ecosystem settings and covering a larger
set of themes in coastal and marine ecosystem
management. Another recommendation was to
utilize the resources, tools and knowledge networks
of past projects in coastal and marine development
to produce context-specic gender mainstreaming
guidance in a more structured form.
Chapter I. Introduction
© Artisanal shermen at work
Credit: CEDO
2
Gender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
Figure 1: Demonstration of the scope of information used for the selection of case studies
Building on both those recommendations, this
report presents a list of principles to guide the
practice of gender mainstreaming in integrated
coastal and marine development and covers a wide
variety of marine and coastal themes and of regions
and geographies. Figure 1 represents the increased
scope of information used for the selection of case
studies in the report.
Recognizing that there are many technical and
subject-specic terms in the literature on gender
mainstreaming and on coastal and marine
management, chapter II briefly claries terms that
are commonly used in those subject areas and
which are also used in the present report.
To make the report more useful to its targeted
readership of policymakers, programme officers,
managers and technical staff who work in coastal
and marine projects, chapter III identies and briefly
explains 10 principles, that is, gender-sensitive
and gender-responsive actions, which should be
easy to identify and integrate into interventions at
community, project and programme levels.
Chapter IV of the report consists of 10 case studies
that illustrate the gender principles. Each case
study explains, from a specific coastal, marine
and geographical context, how a gender action
responded to particular problems, how it was
implemented, what results it delivered and key
lessons learned from the intervention. Each case
study concludes with a section directing the reader
to documents and resources that give more detail
on the project or intervention highlighted in the case
study.
Coastal and marine environments and their
populations are doubly vulnerable to crises caused
by extreme climate events and human activity. They
are not only the rst points to be hit by cyclones,
storm surges, tsunamis, sea level rise, pollution from
oil spills and marine litter, but also the last collection
point of land-based water pollution and plastic waste.
The remoteness of many coastal regions, especially
in small island States and in marine protected areas,
also means that their inhabitants, who are often the
poorest and most dependent on natural resources
for their livelihoods, are the hardest to reach by relief
efforts during emergencies. Chapter V of the report
gives a brief account of how coastal and marine
environments and their inhabitants have been
affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and discusses
if or how focusing on gender, empowerment and
equity can help women and men in coastal areas
cope better with the abrupt shifts in environmental,
economic and social processes due to the pandemic.
Chapter VI of the report presents some overarching
lessons learned from the compilation of the report
and its case studies, as well as some cross-
cutting recommendations for the effective use
of gender mainstreaming in coastal and marine
ecosystem management. The report ends with
Case
studies
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
3
chapter VII, comprising a small compilation of
practical resources and reports related to gender
mainstreaming in coastal and marine development,
which are different from the ones listed in the 2019
UNEP-GWA report.
Finally, it is important to add that the present report
is intended as a living document, to be improved
and built upon by the wider network of practitioners
and researchers working for sustainable, inclusive
and equitable coastal and marine management.
In particular, UNEP welcomes feedback on the
principles, case studies, recommendations and
resources.
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
4
Gender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
Chapter II. Denitions and key concepts
Gender-related concepts1
Empowerment refers to the expansion of people’s
capacity to make and act upon decisions (agency)
and to transform those decisions into desired
outcomes. Empowerment can affect any and all
aspects of people’s lives – social, economic, political
and physical. It entails overcoming socioeconomic
and other power inequalities in a context where this
ability was previously denied.
Gender refers to the economic, social, political and
cultural attributes and opportunities associated
with being a woman or a man. It is different from
sex (male/female) in that it is socially rather than
biologically determined, is context-specic rather
than universal and changes over time. Gender is not
about women only, but rather the (unequal) power
relations between men and women. Efforts towards
gender equality must therefore engage with men
as well as women. Gender also interacts with other
variables such as age, ethnicity, class, race, sexual
orientation, religion, location, ability/disability and
other factors, creating differences in power not only
between women and men, but also among women
and among men.
Gender analysis organizes and interprets information
about gender relations in a systematic way so as
1 Adapted from Gender Analysis Toolkit for Health Systems,
Jhpiego, 2016; Gender Equality: Glossary of Terms and
Concepts, UNICEF, 2017; Women 2030 Master Manual for
Training of Trainers: Module 1, Concepts and Approaches to
Mainstreaming Gender into the 2030 Agenda, GWA, 2018; and
European Institute for Gender Equality Thesaurus, available at
https://eige.europa.eu/thesaurus.
to make clear the importance of gender differences
for achieving development objectives. It involves
collecting and analysing data disaggregated by sex
and other qualitative and quantitative information.
Gender-disaggregated data goes a step further
than sex-disaggregated data, that is, presenting
information separately for men and women and
boys and girls, by collecting the necessary data
with gender as a primary subcategory, relying on
women’s agency in the data analysis. This does not
mean gender-disaggregated data is focused only on
women. Rather, this data can be used to show how
certain issues affect men, women and all gender-
diverse people differently. In addition, gender-
disaggregated data must reflect other intersecting
identities such as race, ethnicity, religion, age and
mental or physical disability.
Gender mainstreaming is the process of assessing
the gender implications of any planned action,
including legislation, policies and programmes, to
ensure that girls, boys, women and men benefit
equally and that inequality is not perpetuated. The
goal of this process is equal rights, responsibilities
and opportunities for women and men and girls and
boys (gender equality).
Gender-blind is a failure to recognize the roles and
responsibilities ascribed to or imposed on women/
girls and men/boys in specific social, cultural,
economic and political contexts.
Gender-sensitive programmes and policies are
those that consider gender norms, roles and
Credit_Joan Kawaka
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
5
inequalities and raise awareness of these issues,
although appropriate actions may not necessarily
be taken.
Gender-responsive programmes and policies
are those that consider gender norms, roles and
inequalities and take measures to actively address
them. Such programmes go beyond raising
sensitivity and awareness and actually do something
about gender inequalities.
Gender-based violence is violence derived from
gender norms and roles as well as from unequal
power relations between women and men.
Violence is specically targeted against a person
because of his or her gender and it affects women
disproportionately. It includes, but is not limited to,
physical, sexual and psychological harm. It includes
violence perpetuated by a State.
Inclusion is about giving a seat at the table to those
who are currently excluded and supporting them to
engage in wider processes of decision-making to
ensure that their rights and needs are recognized.
An inclusive approach recognizes that people are
different and need different support and resources
to ensure that their rights are realized.
Coastal and marine management-
related terms2
Co-management3 (marine and coastal) describes
management processes by which governments
(especially local governments) share responsibility
and work together in dynamic partnerships with
all groups that have a stake in the management of
natural resources in a particular coastal or marine
area, combining scientic and technical knowledge
with local and traditional knowledge of coastal men
and women. Government retains responsibility
for overall policy and coordination, while the
local community plays a large role in day-to-day
management.
2 Terms specic to individual case studies in this report are
explained in the respective case study itself.
3 Adapted from the Philippine Coastal Management Guidebook
No. 4, Involving Communities in Coastal Management, 2001;
and International Union for Conservation of Nature, Managing
Marine Protected Areas: a Toolkit for the Western Indian
Ocean.
Blue economy is defined by the World Bank
as the sustainable use of ocean resources for
economic growth, improved livelihoods and jobs,
while preserving the health of marine and coastal
ecosystems. The concept encourages better
management of ocean or “blue” resources.
Disaster risk resilience is a component of building
climate resilience and refers to the practice of
reducing exposure to hazards and reducing
vulnerability of people and property through
environmental stewardship and preparedness for
adverse events.
Ecosystem-based management,4 also called
“ecosystem management” in this report, is a strategy
for the integrated management of land, water and
living resources that protects biodiversity and
provides sustainable delivery of ecosystem services
such as food, coastal protection, carbon capture and
storage, clean water, fuel, transport and recreation
for human populations in an equitable way.
Integrated water resources management refers to
the coordinated management of water, land and
related resources in order to maximize economic
and social welfare in an equitable manner without
compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems
and the environment.5
Integrated coastal zone management6 refers to
the process to plan for, coordinate between and
balance environmental, economic, social, cultural
and recreational objectives for use in coastal areas.
Locally managed marine area refers to an area of
nearshore waters and its associated coastal and
marine resources that is largely or wholly managed
at a local level by the coastal communities, land-
owning groups, partner organizations and/or
collaborative government representatives who
reside or are based in the immediate area.7
4 Adapted from Jupiter and others (2013).
5 See website of Global Water Partnership.
6 Adapted from Jupiter and others (2013).
7 See website of LLMA Network International.
6
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons LearnedGender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
A growing number of case studies, research papers
and policy recommendations, as well as some
toolkits, have been written on good practices for
integrating an inclusive and/or gender approach
in coastal and marine resources management.
For this report, a list of 10 guiding principles for
mainstreaming gender, specically in the context of
sustainable coastal and marine development, was
compiled from:
• A literature review of relevant articles and reports
from targeted online searches8
• A systematic review of responses and published
and unpublished documents shared by resource
persons from GWA, UNEP and other networks,
through an initial questionnaire survey circulated
from March to April 2021
• Discussions with gender experts and practitioners
from coastal and marine projects
• A webinar event in October 20219 presenting
and soliciting feedback on the 10 principles from
practitioners working in gender and/or coastal
and marine development
The 10 guiding gender principles can be seen as
tried and tested strategies or actions for promoting
more socially just, environmentally sustainable
and economically efcient development in coastal
8 The documents and literature used for compiling the principles
proposed in this report can be found under the section on
further reading of each case study, as well as in the references.
9 Details on the webinar event can be found at www.unep.org/
events/webinar/gender-mainstreaming-coastal-and-marine-
ecosystem-management-facilitated-unep-and.
Credit: Roshini, TNC
Chapter III. Principles for mainstreaming gender in coastal
and marine management
and marine areas. Each of the 10 principles are
illustrated by a case study that explains the rationale
behind the use of the principle (why), the practical
aspects of implementing it in a particular context
(how), the results from it and key challenges and
lessons learned from its implementation, monitoring
and evaluation.
It should be mentioned that:
• The principles identied in this report are founded
on gender-responsive strategies that take a
human rights-based and intersectional approach
to gender and power.
• The principles do not form an exhaustive or
complete list. Additional gender principles can
and should be identied in the future as the
understanding of sustainable and socially just
development evolves.
• The gender principles are interconnected. Most
of the case studies featured in this report include
the use of more than one of the listed principles
in the project or programme, underlining their
strength in combination, rather than as isolated
actions.
• The principles are listed in an order which
somewhat, though not rigidly, reflects the logical
process for developing and implementing
projects. As such, gender-responsive actions
should be mainstreamed throughout all stages
of the project cycle, the starting point of which is
a gender analysis. Gender and social dimensions
should be revisited and analysed periodically
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
7
throughout a project or programme to track and
measure progress and to ensure any unintended
consequences or risks are being managed and
adequately addressed.
• Applying the gender principles does not guarantee
perfect results. For gender equality to be achieved
at all levels it should be mainstreamed into
organizational and institutional policies,
strategies and culture. However, if they are taken
into account, these principles can lead to more
sustainable and socially equitable outcomes.
• There may be alternative ways of selecting,
dening and ordering the principles.
Principle 1
Data that reveals the invisible work of
unrecognized stakeholders
Coastal women and men often have specific
responsibilities and work related to natural resources
management, from which they acquire different
knowledge and skills and contribute differently to
commercial and subsistence economies. They
also have differentiated access to resources and
face particular constraints in coping with stress
from human activity (such as overexploitation of
resources and pollution), climate change and natural
disasters.
It is important to collect, enumerate, analyse and
document gender-disaggregated data on the above
gendered domains for effective, equitable and
efficient formulation and adaptation of projects
and policies in sustainable coastal and marine
ecosystem management.
Good practices: Disaggregate data by sex; use
gender indicators (such as access to boats,
equipment for fishing, time spent on household
work, access to credit); recruit women and men
eld staff to gather data and train them in gender-
sensitive data gathering that ensures the most
disadvantaged groups are not left out (for example,
elderly women and men, youth, landless labourers
and ethnic minorities).
Case study: Research on indigenous women shers
in small-scale sheries in Fiji.
Figure 2 : Case study locations
Source: Geographic Information Systems Laboratory, University of Illinois, Springeld.
8
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons LearnedGender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
Principle 2
Creating spaces for the unheard to speak and
be listened to
The intersection of gender with other variables such
as class, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, education,
religion and geography deepen inequalities of
power and make it very difcult for certain groups
of coastal women and men to be involved in public
consultations and forums on development planning.
Often, even when present in meetings, some groups
are less likely to speak freely owing to unequal
power dynamics, as a result of which their concerns
and needs are often left out when designing and
implementing projects and interventions. In addition,
unconscious biases of policymakers, technical
staff and managers of projects can unintentionally
exacerbate gender inequalities in a particular
community.
For coastal and marine development and
management that “leaves no one behind”, it is very
important to create safe and inclusive spaces for
different groups of women and men to voice their
concerns, access relevant information and build
their capacity.
Good practices: In contexts where men dominate
discussions, arrange discussions separately for
women; organize workshops so that there is equal
representation of women and men and make sure
the agenda caters to both their interests and needs;
ensure that workshop moderators and facilitators
are gender-sensitive; plan events so they suit the
availability of women and other groups who are
often left out.
Case study: Workshops on climate action with
local women’s groups in Yap, Federated States of
Micronesia.
Principle 3
Validating and utilizing different capacities
and knowledge of women and men
Stemming from their different household, community
and work responsibilities, local women and men
possess specic knowledge and capacities in how
they use and manage natural resources for their
livelihoods. As a result of persistent discriminatory
social norms and practices, in many countries
women still do not have full legal rights to land, water
bodies and property, or they are unable to exercise
their tenure rights, which makes them particularly
vulnerable to livelihood loss and loss of access to
coastal and marine resources.
When coastal and marine projects and policies
take this into account, it can reduce conflicts over
different uses of the shared seascape and lead to
more effective, efcient, equitable and sustainable
solutions for integrated coastal and marine
management.
Good practices: Engage local women and shers
in participatory project planning, implementation
and monitoring; include their knowledge of marine
and coastal resources in stock assessment; assess
their traditional practices in natural resource
management.
Case study: Encouraging participation of small-
scale sher men and women in a coastal and marine
spatial planning programme in Sonora, Mexico.
Principle 4
Ensuring that project-generated resources and
innovations benet all
Innovative technology, equipment, inputs and new
information and management approaches that
are brought into coastal and marine areas through
projects and policies in integrated coastal and
marine development are never gender neutral. They
change the social relations of production, access to
resources and power dynamics within households
and villages. These changes affect women and
men differently, often creating unintended negative
outcomes for particular groups and undermining the
sustainability and equity goals of the interventions.
To counter this, projects must ensure that the
most socioeconomically disadvantaged groups of
women and men also benet or gain from improved
technology and innovations for better production (of
crops, sh, livestock).
Good practices: Ensure that resource-poor groups
gain from alternative livelihood options; facilitate
collective action of these groups to improve market
access and protability.
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
9
Case study: Improving livelihoods of women and
landless households through integrated water
resources management in coastal Bangladesh (Blue
Gold Program).
Principle 5
Using a gender-responsive approach to
develop skills and knowledge for sustainable
livelihoods
A majority of poor coastal women and men depend
on their natural environment for their household
food, income, water and sanitation and energy
requirements. With the increasing degradation
of coastal and marine ecosystems such as
mangroves, seagrasses and corals, these groups
face rising insecurity and risks in fulfilling their
livelihood needs and often have no choice but to
resort to unsustainable shing and seafood and fuel
collection. Furthermore, women’s insecure access
to land and lack of recognition of their legal rights
are factors that exacerbate inequalities and hardship
for women, affecting their ability to participate in
marine conservation activities.
To be effective, coastal conservation and
ecosystem regeneration projects must rst identify
the local groups that are the most dependent
on natural resources for their livelihoods. In
developing knowledge and skills training curricula
for sustainable use and management of sheries,
seafood and other natural resources locally, project
teams must consult with these groups about their
gender-specific needs, interests and constraints
so as to ensure that the interventions benet and
engage local women and men user groups equitably
and do not create negative consequences for the
most marginalized.
Good practices: Ensure that the training curriculum
for sustainable aquaculture, sheries and farming
addresses the needs and constraints of those most
dependent on these resources for their livelihood;
develop risk-reducing options throughout the value
chain of a product (for example, fish, shellfish,
seaweed) by enhancing product quality and
developing secure tie-ups between producers and
buyers.
Case study: Prioritizing women farmers for training
in sustainable seaweed production in Zanzibar,
United Republic of Tanzania.
Principle 6
Enhancing inclusive decision-making in
community-based organizations
Coastal women and men are increasingly being called
upon by their regional and national governments
to participate in co-management of local coastal
and marine resources through formally recognized
community-based organizations such as village
shery committees and beach management units.
These local management bodies have the potential to
generate important wins for a resilient environment,
livelihood security and resource stability in coastal
and marine contexts if they are managed properly
and monitored for inclusive representation.
Good practices: Quotas that mandate a certain
minimum percentage of women and other minority
groups for leadership positions in an organization;
developing the capacity of women and other
disadvantaged groups for effective organizational
management, advocacy and leadership.
Case study: Enhancing effective participation of
women in beach management units in coral reef
dependent communities in Kenya.
Principle 7
Political mobilization of excluded groups to
advocate for their rights
As countries with maritime areas are rapidly
expanding their coastal and marine infrastructure
and shipping routes and using their oceans and
seas for commercial and economic growth, there
has been an increased involvement of international
actors and a rise in conflicts over the use of coastal
and marine spaces. Within this scenario, women
and men who are dependent on small-scale sheries
and other coastal resources for their livelihoods
are nding themselves increasingly marginalized.
Women, especially, are left out of most consultations
on coastal development as their work is not formally
recognized and is undervalued, drawing them into
a vicious circle of poverty and violence. In certain
contexts, legal dimensions and customary laws
relating to inequitable ownership and control of
resources further contribute to gender-based
violence.
10
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons LearnedGender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
Creating rights awareness within these groups and
building their capacity for political mobilization and
advocacy is an important means to counter their
marginalization and the unsustainable development
of the coastal and marine ecosystem they depend
upon.
Good practices: Build critical awareness among
women and disadvantaged groups on their rights
as women and shers; dene common goals and
develop strategic alliances between women’s groups
and other human rights networks and groups for
more effective advocacy for policy change.
Case study: Fisherwomen advocating against
unsustainable coastal reclamation in Indonesia.
Principle 8
Multi-stakeholder collaboration for gender-
equitable sustainable development
As more governments all over the world are adopting
the blue economy approach to create greater value
for the economy, people and the environment
through sustainable utilization of ocean resources,
there is an urgent call for collaboration between
multiple sectors and stakeholders to generate a
shared understanding of problems and an alignment
around the aims, focus, resources and commitment.
Yet in reality the establishment and management
of multi-stakeholder partnerships involving
governments, multilateral organizations, research
organizations, civil society and the private sector
are very complex tasks, and gender equality therein
often remains merely an add-on or afterthought.
Strong representation of women and minority
groups in such collaborations is essential to ensure
that outcomes are gender-equitable and address the
needs and priorities of underrepresented groups.
Good practices: Pay attention to gender balance
when forming stakeholder groups; include female
and minority leaders and managers in the group to
encourage participation of these groups; and budget
for capacity-building of these groups.
Case study: Women’s leadership in multi-stakeholder
collaboration for sustainable tourism in Barbados.
Principle 9
Leveraging diversity, equity and inclusion in
building local resilience to crises
Crises in the form of climate-related emergencies,
global economic recession and pandemics hit
coastal populations hard and suddenly, leaving
the poorest and most vulnerable groups, such
as women, the elderly and children worst off and
even more vulnerable to poverty and exploitation.
With the increasing frequency of extreme climate
events and disasters in island nations and coastal
areas, it is crucial to build the resilience of coastal
communities, and especially the most vulnerable
people within those communities, to better cope and
recover from them. In doing this, it is important to
utilize the diversity of local resources and capacities
and plan interventions in participation with local
women’s and men’s groups.
Good practices: Targeting food and livelihood
support to the most vulnerable during a crisis;
strengthening women’s leadership in collective and
participatory planning and monitoring of relief.
Case study: Building on social solidarity and
women’s empowerment in the response to the
COVID-19 pandemic in Gujarat, India.
Principle 10
Sustaining empowerment and ecosystem
benets in the long term
Sustaining coastal and marine ecosystem
management activities after the phase out of
projects and funding support is a challenge faced by
governments and user groups that are dependent
on natural resources all over the world. In this
context, rights-based, co-management approaches
have the potential to empower poor women, men
and youth in coastal areas to sustain benets for
their households, the larger community and the
environment, so long as they are accompanied
by gender-responsive strategies that build social,
human and natural capital.
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
11
As such, it is important to revisit and learn
what components and practices of policies and
programmes build social, economic, political and
physical empowerment of marginal user groups to
continue and even amplify ecosystem management
practices for the benet of people, as well as the
environment, in the long term.
Good practices: Granting ofcially recognized user
rights to marginal women harvesters of specific
fisheries; integrating peer-to-peer learning and
networking as part of community-level capacity-
building efforts during interventions; creating
opportunities for unemployed youth to join in
coastal co-management through skills building and
compensation arrangements.
Case study: Sustaining rights-based shell sheries
co-management in The Gambia and Ghana.
12
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons LearnedGender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
Gender principle 1:
Data that reveals the invisible work of
unrecognized stakeholders
Wildlife Conservation Society, Fiji
Revealing the contributions of indigenous
sherwomen to food security and livelihoods
in Fiji
Contributor: Sangeeta Mangubhai, Wildlife
Conservation Society, Fiji Country Program,
https://fiji.wcs.org/ Contact: sangeeta@talanoa-
consulting-ji.com
Objective: Understanding and quantifying the work
and contributions of indigenous (iTaukei) women
fishers in small-scale fisheries in Fiji to enable
informed and effective decision-making and to
provide evidence to call for greater support and
investment in them by their government and other
stakeholders.
Key outputs and outcomes
Over 1,200 iTaukei women shers in 113 villages
and 11 provinces across Fiji were interviewed
between 2017 and 2018, individually and as a
group, using interview questionnaires and focus
group discussions. A 2020 study lled in important
knowledge gaps in sheries at the national level with
recent, accurate and accessible data on indigenous
women shers’ changing shing patterns and habits,
their contributions to household food security and
nutrition, their livelihood-dependency on small-scale
sheries and the challenges they face in shing and
seafood10 trade (Thomas et al. 2021).
A summary for decision-makers highlighted
important ndings from the study and made key
recommendations to fill gaps in national and
international sheries policies (Thomas et al. 2020).
Researchers provided scarce gender-disaggregated
data for an ongoing global study on small-scale
fisheries (FAO and others, 2020), which aims to
provide global and local-level evidence of key
10 The term “seafood” is used to include edible freshwater and
saltwater sh, invertebrates and seaweed.
Women and men in coastal areas and island
states have specic needs, responsibilities and
work related to natural resource management
and face different constraints in resource
access. However, the work and contributions
of women have been undervalued and
unrecognised in projects and policies related to
sheries, aquaculture, conservation and climate
change adaptation and mitigation.
It is important to collect, enumerate, analyse
and document gender disaggregated data for
effective, equitable and efcient formulation and
adaptation of projects and policies in the above
sectors.
Chapter IV. Case studies
© Artisanal shermen at work
Credit: Blue Gold Program
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
13
social, nutritional, environmental, economic and
governance contributions of small-scale sheries.
The study has a strong gender focus and builds on a
2012 FAO/WorldFish report, including case studies
on regions such as the Pacic Islands that were
absent in the earlier publication (Harper and Kleiber,
2019).
Stakeholders and agencies involved
iTaukei women shers, the Wildlife Conservation
Society, Conservation International, the Fiji locally
managed marine area network, the Ministry
of Fisheries of Fiji, the University of the South
Pacific, the Vatuvara Foundation, the Women in
Fisheries Network – Fiji and the World Wide Fund
for Nature. The study was funded by the Flora
Family Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard
Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation, Pacific Community, the Moccasin
Lake Foundation, the United States Department of
State Bureau of East Asia Pacic Affairs Regional
Environment Ofce, the Vatuvara Foundation and
the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and
Development of Germany.
Context of the intervention: geographic,
socioeconomic, gender and governance
aspects
Fiji is one of most developed island country
economies in the South Pacic, comprising over
300 islands and 500 islets, with a total land area of
18,270k2and anexclusive economic zone11 of 1.29
million km2.
More than half of Fiji’s population live in coastal
cities and towns because of the rough inland terrain
and are highly reliant on coastal sheries for their
subsistence and livelihoods. While tourism and
agriculture are the biggest contributors to Fiji’s
gross domestic product, the sheries sector is the
third largest natural resources sector and a major
source of employment for women and men.
Fiji’s coast comprises unique mangrove forests,
coral reefs and seagrass beds, which are all key
habitats in terms of their rich biodiversity,carbon
11 An exclusive economic zone is an area of the sea in which a
sovereign State has special rights regarding the exploration
and use of marine resources. It stretches from the baseline out
to 200 nautical miles from the coast of the State in question
(United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea).
Figure 3: Fiji survey sites
Source: Wildlife Conservation Society, Fiji.
14
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons LearnedGender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
storageability and provision of ecosystem services
such as coastal protection and food security.
These are increasingly deteriorating under pressure
from human activities such as overharvesting and
overexploitation of land and sea resources, mining,
tourism, pollution and sedimentation, as well as the
impacts of climate change and natural disasters
such as tropical cyclones. Coupled with decades of
poor or neglected management, this has resulted
in a near collapse of the reproductive stocks of a
number of marine species and has altered food web
relationships, affecting ecosystem productivity and
food security (Kinch et al. 2010).
With a 20.7 kg national annual per capita
consumption rate, seafood is crucial to Fiji’s food
security and nutrition (Bell et al. 2009). Despite
this, subsistence sheries are grossly undervalued
in national accounting and development planning,
in comparison with commercial offshore sheries,
which receive higher levels of resources for
monitoring, surveillance and management.
Fiji is a largely patriarchal society with existing
cultural traditions and practices favouring male
decision-making at the village, district and provincial
levels. As a result, women are often not included in
decision-making on natural resources management
and do not receive equal benets from commercial
sheries in their customary shing areas.
Indigenous iTaukei women, as well as Indo-Fijian
women, play important roles in small-scale sheries
in Fiji. Stemming from customary rights to shing
grounds and cultural norms, the iTaukei women
are predominantly involved in fishing, harvesting
and selling of seafood, whereas Indo-Fijian women
are more involved in the sh trade and businesses.
Although these women play an important part
in securing the food, nutritional and income
needs of their households and communities, their
contributions are largely invisible, unreported and
unrecognized by sheries institutions, which favour
offshore, commercial sheries.
The inshore waters of Fiji, extending from the
foreshore to the outer edge of the reef, are managed
through both customary and statutory laws
(Clarke and Jupiter 2010). There are 411 registered
traditional shing grounds (qoliqoli) in Fiji, within
which iTaukeimaintain traditional shing access
and use rights but the State retains the power
to legislate or regulate resources use. A licence
and user fee is required for all commercial shing
withinqoliqoliwaters. Although Fiji does not have
specic protected area legislation, protected areas
have been declared through formal and informal
channels with varying designations and nancing
mechanisms (Vukikomoala and others, 2012). As
of 2014, more than three quarters of Fiji’s inshore
waters within qoliqoli were considered managed
within locally managed marine areas (Mangubhai et
al. 2019).
The importance of counting the contributions
of women shers in Fiji
The work and contribution of women shers to small-
scale sheries in Fiji is largely invisible, unreported
and unrecognized, illustrated by their poor
participation in sheries planning and management
at the local and national levels and gender-blind
policies, which translates into insufcient funding
for women in the sector (Thomas et al. 2021).
Although there have been an increasing number
of individual case studies on women in sheries in
past decades, these are narrow in their geographic
focus and do not give a comprehensive national
dataset of information on women’s contributions
to subsistence and commercial small-scale
shery sectors.
To address this gap, a number of key stakeholders
in sheries and conservation research, development
and management in Fiji collaborated from 2017
to 2018 in an extensive baseline study targeting
indigenous iTaukei fisherwomen. The study
objective was to document and quantify the
changing shing patterns and habits of the women
fishers, their contributions to household food
security and nutrition, their livelihood-dependency
on small scale sheries and the barriers they face in
shing and selling marine and freshwater catches.
Setting up and implementing the research
The study aimed to cover as many coastal provinces
in Fiji as possible, focusing on where there were
existing relationships between partner organizations
and local communities. The sample of villages was
selected to ensure representation of saltwater and
freshwater habitats, commercial and subsistence
shing and larger and smaller islands.
The questionnaire was designed through a review
of existing socioeconomic, fishery and gender
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
15
surveys and reviewed by small-scale shery experts
and organizational partners. It was subsequently
pilot tested at a rural shing village, adapted from
suggestions made by interviewers and translated
into iTaukei.
Trained women and men interviewers, including
staff and volunteers from the partner organizations
involved in the study, conducted both the household
surveys and focus group discussions in the iTaukei
language. Household interviews of rural women
shers made up the main part of the study. The
women selected the location, usually their house or
the village hall, with the aim of ensuring privacy and
the respondent’s comfort.
Traditional consent at the village level, and individually
with the women, was taken prior to beginning the
survey. Within each village, a convenience sample
was used to survey as many women as possible,
that is, all women shers who were available and
willing to participate within a time window of ve to
six hours were interviewed. The household survey
was designed to gather information on general
fishing practices, species targeted in different
habitats, shing gear use and access, post-harvest
processing, sheries consumption and sales, and
fisheries dependence. Focus group discussions
(composed solely of women fishers) were
conducted to complement and verify information
gathered from the household questionnaire. These
discussions also gave the women a chance to
respond to questions that were better answered at
the village level, such as the challenges they face.
Results from the study
The study provided vital insight into the diversity
of shing habitats used by women shers and the
variety of species harvested by them, which can
help with improved planning and implementation
of coastal ecosystem interventions. For example,
it revealed that women are fishing in multiple
habitats from mangroves and mud flats to coral
reefs and the open ocean. Women are the main
fishers in mangrove forests and seagrass beds,
which are key nursery areas for many fish and
invertebrate species, so it is important to consider
and involve the women shers in conservation and
monitoring efforts.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Freshwater Mangroves and
mudflats
Soft bottom Coral reefs Open ocean
Percent age of women
Habitat
Figure 4: Percentage of total surveyed women shing in each habitat
Note: In this study, “open ocean” in the context of women shers refers to the outer edge of the coral reefs and out to deeper, State waters.
Source: Wildlife Conservation Society, Fiji.
16
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons LearnedGender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
Importantly, the study revealed the changing
scope of women shers’ work and generated new
knowledge that corrected an earlier understanding
of their work. For example, it showed that women are
shing further out to sea, in areas typically thought
to be male shing zones (the open sea and past coral
reefs). They are harvesting more than 100 species
of sh and at least 10 species of invertebrates and
seaweed, which goes against the conventional view
that women shers mainly harvest invertebrates and
seaweed. The study also documented the main sh
species targeted by the women, on which there had
previously been very limited information. One of the
sh families favoured by women shers is groupers
(Epinephelus spp.), for which some species are
subject to seasonal bans. An increasing number of
women shers are selling more than quarter of their
catch to pay for household expenses and school. All
this information is important to include in reporting
of sheries landings, stakeholder consultations on
seasonal shing bans, setting minimum size limits
and plans for locally managed marine areas.
seaweed, which provide supplementary protein
and micronutrients. This validates the importance
of valuing and including subsistence fisheries in
national and global statistics for the vital contribution
they make to food security and nutrition and to
achieving Sustainable Development Goal 2 (zero
hunger) and Goal 3 (good health).
The study also lists the main barriers faced by
women fishers, such as in accessing time- and
effort-saving fishing gear and boats, due to the
insecurity of fishing in extreme weather and in
damaged habitats, because of difculties faced in
marketing their catch and in actively participating in
village meetings on sheries. Moreover, women are
increasingly suffering from time poverty12 and health
problems owing to their increasing participation
in income-generation activities in addition to their
household and caregiving tasks. Identifying these
challenges provides easier entry points for sheries
institutions, policymakers and other stakeholders
to address them and to integrate gender-sensitive
strategies in project planning.
Lessons learned
Recent studies assessing reef fish stocks in Fiji
have shown that several inshore sh species that
coastal communities depend upon for food and
income are in crisis in many areas. Studies such
as this can help sheries managers ascertain the
level of dependency of women and men on different
sh and invertebrate species for their livelihoods
and accordingly develop effective and equitable
strategies that protect declining sh stocks without
negatively affecting the short- and medium-term
food security of households.
The ndings from this study fed into a series of
knowledge products for targeted groups, including
decision-makers in sheries and coastal ecosystem
management, the science and academic community
and multilateral fisheries organizations. This
amplied the potential for uptake of the ndings
of the study into policy, research and development
interventions so they integrate gender more
effectively in their programmes.
12 Time poverty refers to the scarcity of time for rest and leisure
and is a key aspect of gender inequality when considering
women’s unpaid work in household tasks and caregiving.
Figure 5: Mud crab shers from Bua Province
Credit: Alyssa Thomas
A crucial component of the study was to quantify
women fishers’ contributions to their household
nutritional status and food security. The study
showed that more than half the fresh sh, which is
the main source of protein for rural households in
Fiji, was harvested by women shers and that they
were also the main harvesters of invertebrates and
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
17
Figure 6: Kai shers selling at a local market
Credit: Alyssa Thomas
Further reading
The following resources give more detail on the
study briefly described in this case study.
Thomas, Alyssa, et al. (2021). Why they must be
counted: signicant contributions of Fijian women
fishers to food security and livelihoods. Ocean
and Coastal Management, vol. 205. https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2021.105571
Thomas, Alyssa, et al. (2020). Valuing the critical
roles and contributions of women shers to food
security and livelihoods in Fiji. Women in Fisheries
Information Bulletin No. 31, pp. 22–29. Nouma:
Pacic Community.
https://coastsh.spc.int/en/publications/bulletins/
women-in-sheries/510
Thomas, Alyssa, et al. (2020). The critical contribution
of women shers to food security and livelihoods in
Fiji, Summary for decision-makers. Suva, Fiji: Wildlife
Conservation Society.
https://ji.wcs.org/Resources/Reports.aspx
18
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons LearnedGender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
Gender principle 2:
Creating spaces for the unheard to
speak and be listened to
The Nature Conservancy, Federated
States of Micronesia
Fostering dialogue and partnership for climate
action with local women’s groups in Yap,
Federated States of Micronesia
Authors:13 Berna Gorong, Meg Bresnahan, Robyn
James
Contact: rjames@tnc.org
Objective: To build local resilience to climate-related
crises and impacts in Yap, Federated States of
Micronesia, through targeted networking, context-
specic capacity-building and peer-to-peer learning
with local women’s groups.
Key outputs and outcomes
Twelve women’s groups from Yap participated in two
women’s learning exchange workshops on building
local resilience to climate change, held in the context
of the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction
(13 and 14 October 2020) and International
Women’s Day (8 and 9 March 2021). The workshops
provided a space for women to connect with each
13 The authors work for The Nature Conservancy, a non-
prot environmental organization working globally to lead
conservation projects. The Nature Conservancy has been
working with local partners across the Pacic region for over
20 years. See https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-
we-work/asia-pacic/
other and key government stakeholders, learn from
peer experiences and benet from capacity-building
training on climate change and climate actions.
Local women’s groups developed 10 workplans,
with budgets, for enterprises and initiatives that
use ecosystem regenerative practices to improve
local food security and increase alternative income
generation. Examples included cultivation of
traditional crops and compost production and sale.
The women’s groups received up to $1,500 worth
of supplies to implement their workplans, such as
gardening equipment, seeds and fees for relevant
training.
Relationships between local women’s groups, state
government ofces and The Nature Conservancy
(TNC) were strengthened as a result of the
partnership on the women’s learning exchange
workshops, creating a foundation for future
partnerships on climate action.
Stakeholders and agencies involved
The learning exchanges were funded through
donations from private individuals interested in
community conservation and gender. Stakeholders
included 12 women’s groups from Yap; government
partners, including the Yap State Ofce of Planning
and Budget, the Yap State Gender Support Ofce,
the Yap Protected Areas Network Coordinator,
the Federated States of Micronesia Ridge to
Reef Programme, the Yap Pacific Resources
for Education and Learning, IOM, the Yap Small
Business Development Center, and two research
and civil-society partners (TNC in Micronesia and
Catholic Relief Services).
Context of the intervention: geographic,
socioeconomic, gender and governance
aspects
Yap is one of four states comprising the Federated
States of Micronesia, which consists of a total
of 134 islands, 22 of which are inhabited, spread
across nearly 1,000 km of the north Pacic Ocean.
The four main islands in Yap are connected by coral
reefs and have shores populated with mangroves
and seagrass beds. The unique biodiversity of these
In many coastal areas and small island states,
deeply embedded patriarchal norms and
biases make it difcult for women and certain
other groups to be seen and/or heard in public
meetings or in consultations for development
planning.
For coastal and marine development and
management that ‘leaves no one behind’ it is very
important to create safe and inclusive spaces
for different groups of women and men to voice
their concerns, access relevant information and
build their capacity.
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
19
areas is, however, undergoing significant decline
and the valuable protection they provide for the
ecosystem is being adversely affected by climate
change and pressures from human activity (Pacic
Community, 2015).
Figure 7: Administrative divisions of the Federated States of Micronesia, with the names of the islands and atolls
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federated_States_of_Micronesia
Like many of the Pacific Islands, Yap is greatly
affected by extreme weather events and climate
change. The state is hit by typhoons every year,
has recorded signicant earthquakes and is highly
susceptible to drought. Sea level rise in the ocean
surrounding Yap is at 10 mm a year, a rate much
higher than the global average of 2.8–3.6 mm per
year. Storm surges, coupled with sea level rise, have
forced the displacement of the islanders from the
coral atolls to the main islands and led to decreased
ability to grow food as near-shore agricultural land
gets salinized. Food sovereignty and food security
are a major concern in the island state as food
imports signicantly exceed local food production
(Pacic Community, 2015).
Traditional local knowledge and customs play an
important role in building climate resiliency in the
island state, as Yap’s constitution recognizes a role
for traditional leaders and customs in governance
and traditional kinship and exchange networks
and food preservation techniques have historically
enabled communities to deal with extreme events
and natural disasters.
Gender roles in Yap are clearly dened and dictate
that women are primarily responsible for household
20
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons LearnedGender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
work, water provisioning, managing food and
tending to home gardens. In Yap, fishing is not
considered an important activity for women, even
though women are involved in many aspects of
sheries from gleaning, to processing and marketing
(Lambeth and Santiago, 2000). Men work in offshore
sheries and construction and maintain and protect
family and community resources. Women suffer
the most from climate change and extreme climate
events that affect the availability of cultivable land
and freshwater sources, as they have to travel
further to fetch water and nd gardening plots. This
exposes them to increased risk of violence and
harassment and leaves them less time for other
work and caregiving responsibilities. Women are
also worst affected during climate and health crises
as nancial hardship, food insecurity and the risk of
gender-based violence increases. As a result of these
distinct gender roles, women and men have different
knowledge and experiences of natural resources,
and different needs and priorities that need to be
taken into account in disaster management and
planning for climate change adaptation.
Women are mostly excluded from local and
regional consultations on climate action despite
their unique perspective, knowledge and potential
for contributing to interventions. Recognizing the
importance of engaging women to improve climate
adaptation policies and projects, TNC organized
a workshop in 2017 bringing together 19 women
from seven Pacic Island nations, including Yap, to
discuss how they are affected by and responding
to climate change (Mcleod et al. 2018). Since
the national gender policy was approved by the
Government of the Federated States of Micronesia
in 2018, the Yap Gender Support Ofce has been
increasingly supporting outreach and engagement
of women’s groups for conservation activities with
relevant partners, including TNC.
Creating spaces for local women to discuss
and learn about climate action effectively
There are many reasons why it is difficult for
women in the Federated States of Micronesia to
influence and be involved with climate action. Male
hierarchy within the traditional Yapese culture, lack
of attention to gender and traditional knowledge in
western science and technological solutions, and
political and economic marginalization of Pacic
Island women has led to their exclusion from local
and regional consultations on climate action.
In many Pacific Island cultures, including Yap,
mixed-gender groups are not conducive to women’s
participation, and social norms dictate that women
remain quiet out of respect for men and elders in
the group. As a result, previous “whole community”
engagements that focused on conservation and
Figure 8: A local conservation planner from The Nature Conservancy works with women from local community groups in Yap during a
women’s learning exchange event held during International Women’s Day
Credit: TNC
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
21
climate solutions largely benefited and engaged
men. This gendered dynamic not only affects how
information flows up (through village chiefs and
elders) but also how it is passed down. Women are
often second- or third-hand recipients of updates
related to conservation measures and other plans
in their community and they often lack the technical
knowledge to fully understand their impact. Policies
and programmes focused on building more resilient
coastlines are typically targeted towards men,
excluding women not only from conservation
activities but also from education on climate change
impacts and solutions for their nearby coasts. This
exclusion leads to an enormous missed opportunity
for women to support these efforts with their
specic knowledge of drought-resistant and hardy
food crops, food preservation and climate smart
cultivation techniques, and their specic skills in
community organization and negotiation.
By effectively engaging local women’s groups
through peer learning, direct engagement with
government offices and capacity-building on
specific concepts related to conservation and
climate action, it is possible to greatly strengthen
women’s agency in climate-smart natural resources
management. At the same time, crucial gaps can
be lled in research and policy on linkages between
indigenous communities, traditional knowledge
and gender and how these components influence
climate vulnerability and adaptation.
Capacity-building through learning exchanges
on climate adaptation strategies
TNC had originally planned to bring women together
from seven Pacific Island nations in 2020 for a
learning exchange in Pohnpei, but cancelled the
event because of the COVID-19 pandemic. However,
Yap’s isolated geography and people’s adherence to
strict quarantine rules resulted in limited community
transmission of the virus, creating an opportunity
for safe gatherings and in-person events. Taking
advantage of these safety conditions, TNC
Micronesia and the Yap state Gender Support Ofce
brought together 10 women’s groups for a two-day
learning exchange in October 2020 on the occasion
of the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction.
Two of these groups were from communities where
TNC had existing relationships and projects, while
the other groups were invited by the Yap Gender
Support Ofce. Most members of women groups
are under- or unemployed and less educated.
Consequently, they are more likely to participate
in voluntary community efforts as they have less
chances of formal employment. The exchange was
held during the week to prioritize attendance and
participation of these women, who have a greater
need for capacity-building and a better insight into
village dynamics. The women-only space allowed
participants to voice ideas and ask questions in
a free and unencumbered way, unlike in village
meetings where their contributions are delivered by
a male messenger.
The Yap women’s learning exchange focused
on sharing ideas around building resilience for
ecosystems and local economies in the face of
climate change. The TNC facilitators guided the
women through workplans and budgets to build
their agency to transform ideas and initiatives into
sustainable enterprises. The workshop agenda
was designed in close consultation with the staff
of the Yap Gender Support Ofce and addressed
knowledge gaps they had observed during previous
engagements with the local women’s groups. The
workshops were conducted in Yapese and English
and used breakout groups to create more intimate
and comfortable settings for the women to ask
questions and express ideas.
Capacity-building of women was a critical goal
of the learning exchange, with a particular focus
on educating participants on climate change
concepts and terms such as ecosystem-based
adaptation and disaster risk reduction, as well as
facilitating discussions on activities that contribute
to coastal degradation. The agenda also included
discussions on how to identify conservation
actions and alternative income options within the
context of climate change. Learning was then built
into project management workplans, the majority
of which focused on food security, a topic of
Figure 9: In small groups, women identied barriers and
opportunities around climate resilience in Yap
Credit: TNC
22
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons LearnedGender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
particular importance for women due to gendered
norms around cooking and caretaking. The women
observed and discussed the many similarities
between modern regenerative agriculture practices
and Yapese traditional ways of caring for the land,
such as mulching, ground cover and composting
of organic waste. Members of the Tamil Women’s
Association discussed how they were cultivating
native banana trees, which have signicant value
in cultural exchanges, thereby reviving traditional
gardening practices and crop rotation systems.
Banana trees are planted rst with heavy mulching
to build topsoil, then after harvesting them, trellised
yams are planted in the healthier soil.
After the learning exchange concluded, the
participants were given two weeks to consult with
community partners on their workplans, many of
which focused on food security, composting/soil
health and nurseries to grow food and coastal buffer
plants, such as mangroves. The nalized plans were
then submitted to TNC for review and each of the
women’s groups received up to $1,500 worth of
supplies to support their work. Budgets included
practical supplies such as garden tools, seeds, PVC
pipes for water supply and buckets, as well as fees
for training, for example on composting practices.
Following the success and positive reception of the
workshop held in October 2020, TNC hosted a second
women’s learning exchange with participants from
the earlier workshop and two additional groups,
invited by IOM, on International Women’s Day in
March 2021. During this second learning exchange,
women presented updates from the implementation
of their project workplans and brainstormed how to
transform readily available, underused and wasted
resources into economic opportunities. Through
TNC partnerships with the Yap State Office of
Planning and Budget and Gender Support Ofce,
the women were able to hear from speakers who
work directly on state-wide plans for disaster risk
reduction. This was a new experience for most of
the women, who are excluded from conversations
about high-level planning efforts. In addition, this
was an opportunity for the women to learn about
what was happening across other areas in the state.
The learning exchanges helped the women’s groups
to understand their sphere of influence as it relates
to ecosystem resilience and climate change. For
example, during verbal feedback sessions, one
woman shared how she felt angry at her local leaders
regarding the lack of management of her nearby
coastal area, which was experiencing great erosion.
Learning more about how decisions are made, and
Figure 10: Women from local community groups in Yap pose for a group photo during the women’s learning exchange, held during the
International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction
Credit: TNC
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
23
what opportunities women have to address climate
challenges, helped her to channel her feelings into
action. In another example, a women’s group that
operates a local nursery opted to focus on coastal
buffer plants that could be purchased by groups, led
by men, who work in coastal conservation.
Feedback from the workshops revealed that most
women felt more motivated and informed as a result
of their participation. It was recommended that TNC
nd ways to include more women and increase the
frequency of workshops. Most participants planned
to share what they had learned with other group
members and their community. Some women,
however, cited potential challenges, such as lack
of confidence in public speaking and resistance
by male community members to see value in the
training. One participant shared: “Some people think
it’s nonsense to have training on garden projects.”
Lessons learned
The success of the Yap women’s learning
exchanges was enabled by the strong partnerships
of TNC with local government ofces. In particular,
the Yap Gender Support Office was crucial in
identifying women’s groups across the state that
could participate in the learning exchange. Hosting
the events on international days of recognition
(disaster risk reduction and women’s rights) helped
to capitalize on existing government mandates
and made it easier to garner support and publicity
for the learning exchanges and to facilitate the
attendance of government speakers. Government
representatives were able to have a more direct
view into how women’s groups are tackling climate
resiliency in their communities and open doors for
greater collaboration between relevant state ofces
and local women.
It is important to recognize that while seeking to
engage women in planning for climate action, careful
planning is needed to prevent exacerbating inequality
or risk of violence at the household level in the short
term. For example, when husbands feel threatened
by women’s participation in learning exchanges and
other events, women may face an increased risk of
gender-based violence at home. To mitigate the risk
of gender-based violence, it is essential to work with
men to increase their awareness and understanding
about the benets that can be realized for the family
and the community by building women’s capacity.
Further reading
The following article provides background on the
initiative briefly described in this case study.
Mcleod, Elizabeth, et al. (2018). Raising the voices of
Pacic Island women to inform climate adaptation
policies. Marine Policy, vol. 93, pp. 178–185.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/
S0308597X18300344
24
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons LearnedGender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
Gender principle 3:
Validating and utilizing different
capacities and knowledge of women
and men
CEDO, Mexico
Participatory coastal-marine spatial planning
in the Puerto Peñasco-Puerto Lobos biological
and sheries corridor, Sonora, Mexico
Authors:14 Peggy J. Turk Boyer, Paloma A. Valdivia
Jiménez, Elia I. Polanco Mizquez, Hem Nalini
Morzaria-Luna, Angeles Sánchez Cruz and Nelida
Barajas Acosta
Contact: nelida@cedo.org
Objective: To achieve sustainable use of shared
seascape and marine resources for the benet of
vulnerable ecosystems and coastal households,
by facilitating engagement of artisanal sher men
and women in the design and implementation of a
comprehensive plan for integrated management of
coastal sheries and other resources in the Puerto
Peñasco-Puerto Lobos corridor in Sonora, Mexico.
14 All authors are afliated with CEDO, a unique collaboration
between Mexican and United States of America non-prot
organizations to offer realistic environmental and community-
based solutions that recognize, respect and leverage the
cultural, socioeconomic and biological interconnections
between the United States and Mexico. See www.cedo.org.
Background
In 2015, CEDO promoted coastal marine spatial
planning as a solution to the declining health of the
marine and coastal ecosystems of the northern Gulf
of California and to the problems faced by small-
scale shermen and sherwomen. CEDO rst applied
the coastal marine spatial planning framework
along Mexico’s Sonora coast in a highly productive
biological and sheries corridor, a unique ecosystem
characterized by its rich and interconnected
biological and socioeconomic diversity. Unlike many
coastal marine spatial planning processes driven by
large development projects and strong economic
interests, in its programme CEDO gave priority to
defining the spatial use and rights of traditional
local users, such as coastal shermen and women
oyster farmers, through a rigorous participatory
consultation and planning process (CEDO 2019).
Key gender-related outputs and outcomes
of the coastal marine spatial planning
programme
• Technically sound proposals for the integrated
management of coastal sheries in the Puerto
Peñasco-Puerto Lobos corridor were developed
with the consensus of 75 per cent of the sher
households and presented to the government for
implementation. These proposals included tools
for mapping and regularizing the shing effort,
establishing a network of shery refuge zones,
dening exclusive local areas for managing
benthic species (blue crab and pink and black
murex snail) and setting catch quotas for
vulnerable species. The proposals were validated
by artisanal sher communities, wetland users,
sport shers, the CEDO technical group and
participating authorities (CEDO 2019; Morzaria-
Luna et al. 2020).
• A total of 2,758 coastal women and men, who
were previously excluded from coastal and
marine planning and permitting processes,
participated in 46 training events and 116
workshops on the coastal marine spatial planning
programme and were elected as representatives
in intercommunity shers groups.
• Formation of intercommunity shers groups
with 45 representatives, including eight women
leaders, to represent the diverse small-scale
sheries in all regional planning processes of
coastal and marine planning.
• Formation of nine cooperatives (with 80 men and
38 women members) from ve coastal wetlands
From their different household, community and
work responsibilities, women, men, elderly and
youth possess specic knowledge, skills and
capacities in how they use and manage their
coastal and marine environment.
Coastal and marine projects and policies
should utilize this local knowledge and agency
to reduce conflicts over different uses of the
shared seascape and nd more effective,
efcient, equitable and sustainable solutions for
integrated coastal and marine management.
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
25
to address the needs of artisanal shers in the
context of oyster aquaculture and wetland
conservation.
• Formation of the rst women-led federation
in Mexico, from the village of Desemboque,
representing seven shing cooperatives. The
members secured shing permits for women
shers and were elected as representatives of
intercommunity sher groups.
• Through the process, both women and men from
small-scale traditional and artisanal sheries
acquired ofcial shing permits, including 16
permits for women shers (the rst-ever permits
for women shers in the area), which strengthened
their shing tenure rights, reduced social-spatial
conflicts and increased local stewardship for 11
small-scale sheries.
Stakeholders and agencies involved
Small-scale fishermen and women from
six fishing communities; research and civil-
society stakeholders, including CEDO, Centro
de Investigaciones Biológicas del Noroeste,
University of Arizona, Universidad Autónoma de
Baja California Sur, Comunidad y Biodiversidad,
Environmental Defense Fund- Fondo Mexicano
para la Conservación de la Naturaleza, Niparajá,
The Nature Conservancy and SuMar Voces por la
Naturaleza; government stakeholders: national and
regional institutions for sheries and aquaculture
(CONAPESCA) and protected areas (CONANP), the
Secretary of the Navy, Sonora State Aquaculture and
Fisheries Institute and municipal governments of
Puerto Peñasco and Caborca, Sonora; donors: David
and Lucile Packard Foundation, MarIsla Foundation,
Resources Legacy Fund, Televisa Foundation,
Walton Family Foundation, Alliance between World
Wildlife Fund and Carlos Slim Foundation; and
German Corporation for International Cooperation
(Blue Solutions Initiative).
Context of the intervention: geographic,
socioeconomic, gender and governance
aspects
The California Gulf region includes a unique corridor
of interconnected habitats ranging from wetlands to
sandy and muddy bottoms, pelagic waters, riparian
zones, intertidal and sub-tidal rocky reefs and the rich
San Jorge Island archipelago. The interconnected
habitats support a high diversity of species, many
exploited by the region’s coastal shers. The corridor
overlaps the upper Gulf of California/Colorado River
Figure 11: Puerto Peñasco-Puerto Lobos biological and sheries corridor, northern Gulf of California,
Sonora, Mexico
26
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons LearnedGender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
Delta Biosphere Reserve, home of the endemic and
endangered vaquita porpoise (Phocoena sinus) and
totoaba fish (Totoaba macdonaldi), two species
that are primary drivers for conservation and marine
management of the California Gulf coastal region.
Extensive commercial relationships, friendships
and kinships create strong ties among the people
of the corridor, but communities are diverse in their
Figure 12: Artisanal shermen at work
Credit: CEDO
socioeconomic character, level of organization and
gendered economic activities. Puerto Peñasco is
the largest town and has the most diverse economy,
with active industrial and recreational shing fleets
and an important tourism industry. In some small
communities, shing livelihoods are supplemented
by terrestrial mining for gold and other minerals,
agriculture, oyster cultivation and growing tourism
services. Some of the smaller towns lack basic
Figure 13: Woman oyster farmer at work
Credit: CEDO
social services, such as schools and medical
facilities. Some of them are also removed from the
coast, requiring travel by car to get to shing landing
sites.
Fishing forms the backbone of the economy of the
corridor, which comprises 60,000 inhabitants, at
least 2,000 of whom are small-scale shers. Men
are the primary offshore shers, but many women
have paid work in post-harvest processes or provide
unpaid labour to their husbands or male family
members. Women from Puerto Peñasco represent
the rst oyster growers in the state of Sonora and are
national leaders in oyster aquaculture. In the smaller
towns of San Jorge and Campodónico, women
are involved in crab processing and sh lleting. In
recent years, women have also become involved in
crab and shrimp shing and in commercial diving. In
several communities, women help with monitoring
the catch at sh landing sites, for which they are
sometimes paid.
Mexico’’ National Fisheries Law (2015) defines a
need to develop advisory councils for fisheries
management in coordination with state agencies,
especially for priority species or areas of international
ecological importance (like the Gulf of California).
Historically, these advisory planning processes
included only (male) leaders of major fisheries
organizations and hence, by design, the majority of
local and traditional users were excluded, including
unorganized groups of women wetlands users and
traditional “un-permitted” fishermen and women.
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
27
Furthermore, continually changing environmental
regulations in the western side of the upper Gulf of
California, in particular to protect the endangered
vaquita porpoise, creates uncertainty and distrust
between different stakeholders involved in planning
processes.
According to the National Fisheries Charter, the
small-scale sheries of commercial interest have
already reached their maximum sustainable yield
or have been overexploited and hence new permits
are not available. This ofcial assessment, however,
was made without actual and current fisheries
data from the region and are based on inaccurate
catch records and an official fishing record that
only included legally permitted activities. Before
the start of coastal marine spatial planning, more
than 50 per cent of artisanal shing in the corridor
was carried out without the required permits, which
made local shers vulnerable and unable to defend
their coastal and marine resources. Without permits,
shermen and sherwomen have no legal rights to
remove poachers from their waters or to defend
their traditional launch sites on local beaches, which
are being acquired by coastal developers.
Organized criminal groups are growing throughout
the region, often requiring payments from shers
and pressuring them into illegal activities, such as
shing during seasonal bans or catching protected
species such as the totoaba. These groups lobby
and influence government actors and fishers at
all levels to oppose integrated coastal and marine
management and use their political connections
to obtain shing permits to the detriment of small-
scale and traditional shers.
An inclusive governance model that
encourages participation of artisanal
shermen and sherwomen
A transparent governance structure and a real
commitment to the process are often cited as
two of the most important enabling conditions for
the successful implementation of coastal marine
spatial planning. In the isolated fishing villages
of the corridor, however, traditional users lacked
the organization and institutional structure to
spur collective action and were presented with
few opportunities for interaction with scientists,
management experts or government authorities
(CEDO 2019).
Therefore, from 2015 to 2019, CEDO implemented
a governance system to guarantee the equitable
participation of all the stakeholders needed to solve
sheries-related problems. The governance model
consists of four interacting management groups:
Figure 14: Governance model implemented in the participatory coastal marine spatial planning project
Source: CEDO.
28
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons LearnedGender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
the intercommunity fishers group, composed of
small-scale, organized and unorganized shermen
and fisherwomen, elected as representatives of
their coastal communities through a transparent
and inclusive voting process; a technical group,
including researchers and specialists in sheries
management, marine conservation and social
participation; a core group, including government
authorities from all levels with jurisdiction over
sheries issues; and a base group, represented by
CEDO staff.
To ensure active and informed participation by
the shing communities in the governance of their
marine and coastal resources, both men and women
received training in leadership, communications
and negotiations to strengthen the capacity of
intercommunity sher groups for collective action, as
well as in technical subjects such as marine ecology
and sheries management tools so they could make
good management decisions. As a result of that
process, women and men members of the shers
groups now take an active role as spokespersons
for the corridor programme and its goals within their
communities and beyond. They give radio interviews
and represent the corridor in forums with shers
throughout Mexico and with authorities. They have
helped to organize beach clean-ups and are sharing
their perspective and knowledge with local students,
becoming role models of environmental stewardship.
What is more, fishermen and fisherwomen have
actively participated in monitoring their resources to
generate the information required for management
(CEDO 2019).
Women catalysing an inclusive bottom-up
planning process to reduce existing social
conflicts
CEDO staff played a vital role in fostering an
inclusive, bottom-up consultation process to reduce
conflicts between various stakeholders in the
shared seascape of the corridor. As part of the initial
consultations and data gathering on shing activities
of coastal households, women staff of CEDO
encouraged and mobilized 150 local sherwomen
from six communities to accompany them in
their door-to-door survey of fisher households.
Fishermen and fisherwomen are distrustful of
external agencies and wary of sharing information
with them, but the local women helped in allaying
their fears and explaining the advantages of sharing
information and participating in the coastal marine
spatial planning process (getting shing permits,
for example). As a result, they were able to access
condential (and often hidden) information about
the fishing activities of men in their community.
Women also played a valuable role as spokespersons
and organizers of community forums to present
management proposals from intercommunity sher
groups to the other stakeholders in the management
group. CEDO created a strategic communication
campaign with strategies that included community
bulletin boards, posters, videos, radio programmes
and other tools aimed at informing and involving
corridor communities. CEDO also held workshops,
often led by local women, to overcome the trust
divide between intercommunity sher groups and
other groups and rebuild condence in the coastal
marine spatial planning process and the benets
of implementing marine conservation measures
such as shery refuges (protected areas for juvenile
and brooding sh). The participatory consultations
integrated valid, rst-hand information from artisanal
shers and other marginal coastal user groups and
women’s and men’s traditional and experiential
knowledge with detailed spatial data to develop
an informed coastal marine spatial planning. The
process built the condence of all groups, especially
intercommunity fisher groups, in the validity of
the data and motivated the implementation of the
coastal marine spatial planning interventions. In this
way, the region´s male and female shers organized
and articulated their vision for the spatial planning
in the corridor and their voices have reached the
highest levels of government with sound proposals
for resources management.
Lessons learned
Strong, women-led organizations such as CEDO
can play an invaluable role in bridging the gender
divide at the local and institutional levels and can
mobilize coastal women to play a more active role in
conservation efforts, for regularizing and monitoring
small-scale shing activities and for better coastal
and marine area management.
Women in coastal communities are often
overburdened with underpaid and voluntary work,
participating in shing activities while also assuming
most household and caregiving duties. The spatial
planning process demonstrated the need for more
official mechanisms that value and compensate
both women’s and men’s roles in small-scale coastal
activities.
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
29
Women and youth can help to promote a culture of
accountability and integrity in their communities and
in certain political contexts where petty corruption is
normalized and transparency is largely missing.
The men and women of the corridor are strengthening
their capacity to influence public policy by legally
incorporating their intercommunity groups and by
voluntarily implementing management actions
within their communities and fisheries groups.
To reap the full benefits of their work, however,
they will require the continued commitment of the
relevant government authorities, which should
remain in place regardless of shifts in government
personnel. The influence of cartels and the lack of
support from government in the community-based
spatial planning process are major challenges to
the sustainability of the project and the people and
ecosystems it is designed to protect.
Further reading
The report below gives more detail on the project
highlighted in this case study.
CEDO report on the coastal marine spatial planning
programme of the Puerto Peñasco– Puerto Lobos
Corridor in Sonora, Mexico, available at:
https://cedo.org/downloads/publications/241908_
CEDO_Intercultural_Booklet_2019_EN_web.pdf
30
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons LearnedGender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
Gender principle 4:
Ensuring that project-generated
resources and innovations benet all
Blue Gold Program, Bangladesh
Boosting income, food security and
empowerment of women and landless
households in coastal Bangladesh
Author: Kitty Bentvelsen, Gender expert, Blue Gold
Program, GWA member
Contact: kitty.bentvelsen@gmail.com
New technology, resources and management
approaches that are introduced into coastal
and marine areas through projects and policies
are never gender-neutral. They change social
relations of production, access to resources,
and power dynamics within households and
villages. These changes affect women and men
differently, often creating unintended negative
outcomes for particular groups.
To counter this, projects must ensure that
the most socio-economically disadvantaged
groups of women and men also benet or gain
from improved technology and innovations for
better production (of crops, sh, livestock).
participatory in-polder water management, improved
agricultural productivity and enhanced market
linkages for buying inputs and selling produce.
Key gender-related outcomes of the Blue Gold
Program16
More effective and equitable water management
groups at the village level and water management
associations at polder level, with active participation
by women and men:
• 43 per cent of all water management group
members are women.
• One third of the executive committee members of
all water management groups and associations
are women. Over time, women leaders have
grown more capable, condent and vocal, taking
more decisions and actions.
• The proportion of women in senior positions (i.e.,
president, secretary and treasurer) doubled from
less than 5 per cent to over 9 per cent during
the existence of the Blue Gold Program. Both
women and men acquire and apply new skills
and improved agricultural technology:
• 62 per cent of the total 88,650 farmer eld school
participants17 were women and 42 per cent of
the homestead farmer eld school participants
belonged to the most marginalized landless
group.
• Increased cropping intensity and yields as
improved agricultural technologies were adopted
by both men and women farmers, for example,
high-yielding variety rice (18 per cent women),
vaccination of cattle and poultry (63 per cent
women) and integrated pest management (24
per cent women).
• Homestead production of vegetables, sh, poultry
and eggs, with maximum participation of women
and the landless, more than doubled, beneting
both home consumption and sales.
From 2017, women and men were increasingly
involved in market linkages and collective actions:
16 The statistics under this section have been compiled, by the
case study author, from current Blue Gold Program monitoring
documents, which are not yet unavailable for public viewing.
17 A farmer eld school brings together a group of farmers,
livestock herders or shers to learn how to shift towards more
sustainable production practices, by better understanding
complex agro-ecosystems and by enhancing ecosystem
services (http://www.fao.org). The Blue Gold Program had
schools for both eld and homestead production (vegetables,
poultry, sh and livestock), with the latter having a much higher
participation of women.
Objective: To reduce poverty, improve food security
and build climate resilience of 185,000 households
in south-west coastal Bangladesh by creating
a healthy and secure living environment and
sustainable socioeconomic development.
Background
Running from 2013 to 2021, the Blue Gold Program
was aimed at reducing risk, increasing incomes and
improving the food security of the predominantly
marginal agricultural households in flood-prone
coastal polders15 of south-west Bangladesh, through
15 A “polder” is an area of low-lying land surrounded by raised
earthen embankments (dikes) to prevent flooding by riverwater
or seawater, provided with associated structures to either drain
excess water from the polder or to admit and store freshwater
for irrigation.
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
31
• 13,600 participants (92 per cent women) were
trained in market linkages through homestead
eld farmer school; women became increasingly
contact traders using mobile phones and able
to negotiate better prices for buying inputs and
selling produce.
• Improved access to inputs, also for women
farmers, through home production of compost
and animal feed, connecting farmers with
qualied input suppliers, collective input purchase
and training community animal health workers
(62 per cent women) to deliver services.
Stakeholders and agencies involved
Women and men from four districts on the south-
west coast of Bangladesh, Bangladesh Water
Development Board, Ministry of Water Resources,
Department of Agricultural Extension, Department
of Livestock Services, Department of Fisheries and
local government institutions. The programme was
funded by the Government of the Netherlands and
the Government of Bangladesh.
Context of the intervention: geographic,
socioeconomic, gender and governance
aspects
Bangladesh, which has the largest river delta in the
world, has an economy largely dependent on the
integrated and sustainable management of its saline
and freshwater resources. Beginning in the 1960s,
low-lying tracts of land in the south-west coastal
zone were enclosed by earthen embankments to
create polders, which protect coastal communities
and their crops from tidal floods and surges. There
are now 139 polders enclosed by embankments,
with an overall length of nearly 6,000 km. The Blue
Gold Program covers 22 selected coastal polders in
this region covering about 120,000 ha in the districts
of Patuakhali, Khulna, Satkhira and Barguna.
In addition to suffering from the effects of tidal
floods and sea surges, people in the coastal polders
are vulnerable to salinity intrusion, shortage of
fresh water in the dry season and the impact of
extreme events such as cyclones. On the south-
western coast, river siltation hinders drainage and
causes prolonged water logging in the polders after
monsoon rains, which can persist for extended
periods of up to six months. This results in loss of
crops and income, reduced food security, ill health
and increased drudgery, especially for women,
owing to flooded tube-wells and latrines and
affecting access to safe drinking water and hygienic
sanitation. Climate change and the accompanying
rising sea level will only increase the threats posed
to these coastal people and their livelihoods.
About 38 per cent of the coastal population of
Bangladesh lives below the national poverty line,
Source: Blue Gold Program, Bangladesh.
Figure 15: Diagram explaining a polder and associated structures for water management
32
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons LearnedGender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
Source: Blue Gold Program, Bangladesh.
which is much higher than the national average of
20.5 per cent,18 and faces insecurity of food, income,
water and health. Of these, women and the landless
are the most disadvantaged groups owing to their
lack of access to productive resources and poor
participation in decision-making, local governance
and planning.
The guidelines for participatory water management
issued by the Government of Bangladesh in 2001
were particularly relevant to the Blue Gold Program.
These guidelines set out provisions incorporated
in the National Water Policy of 1999 and the
Bangladesh Water Development Board Act of 2000
to improve the involvement of stakeholders in all
stages of water management planning, and they
explicitly refer to involving men and women. Water
management groups are designated as the unit of
social organization at the village level and as the
local hydrological basis, with water management
associations at the project and subproject levels,
corresponding to polder level in the Blue Gold
18 See Blue Gold website: http://www.bluegoldbd.org/what-
we-do/about-blue-gold/; and Asian Development Bank
website:https://www.adb.org/countries/bangladesh/poverty.
Program. The guidelines allow membership of
more than one person from a household in a water
management group, which facilitates women’s
membership.19 They mandate that of the 12 elected
members of the executive committees of the water
management groups and associations, at least 30
per cent should be women and that representatives of
landless people, destitute women and shers should
also be included. The guidelines were updated by
the Participatory Water Management Rules of 2014,
but without changing the above provisions.
19 If only one person per household can be a member, it is usually
the husband who enlists.
Figure 16: Blue Gold Program areas of work
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
33
Enhancing access to productive resources and
capacity-building for all
The gender and poverty reduction strategies of the
Blue Gold Program recognized barriers faced by
women and landless households in accessing the
benets of the program and developed interventions
that specically targeted them. The gender strategy
also aimed to change discriminatory gender
norms.20 The poverty reduction strategy focused on
homestead farmer eld schools for poultry rearing,
horticulture, livestock and small-scale aquaculture,
targeting the poorest households (with a high
proportion of women), which lacked access to crop
land but had some homestead land. The category of
poor households without access to homestead land
and without non-farm employment also beneted
from the program because of the increased demand
for wage labour by crop farmers, whose production
increased. Though a wage gap between men and
women remained, the gap proportionally narrowed
and the demand for female labour increased.
Below are examples of key actions implemented
in the Blue Gold Program to increase access and
control of women and landless groups to resources
and skills for their livelihoods:
• Inclusive and women-friendly agricultural
extension. The homestead farmer eld schools
were a key intervention to improve knowledge
and skills about sustainable production practices
and technologies. Their outreach was increased
by encouraging participants in the schools to
20 For example, men were encouraged to share in domestic
household tasks and couples were encouraged to take
decisions on business activities together.
share their learning with neighbours and family
members and by organizing farmer eld days
and other learning exchange events. Rather than
gender stereotyping (e.g., women for poultry
and men for beef fattening), participants were
selected on the basis of who was most likely to
apply the new knowledge and skills. This led to
mixed groups, but with a large majority of women
– 88 per cent of all 29,450 homestead farmer
eld school participants.
• Improved access to inputs. To reduce
dependency on external inputs and better monitor
input quality, farmer eld school participants
were taught how to prepare compost and animal
feed themselves and how to use integrated pest
management21 techniques. For other necessary
inputs, the participants were introduced to trusted
suppliers during sessions. Sharing mobile phone
numbers of local input suppliers, traders and
service providers was standard practice in all
farmer eld schools.
• Increased market orientation and collective
market-related actions. Information was
provided on how local markets and traders work,
how to get price information over the phone and
how to negotiate with traders and buyers. The
benets of jointly buying inputs, selling produce
and acquiring market information (so-called
collective actions) were discussed as part of the
farmer eld schools. This market orientation acted
21 Integrated pest management is an ecosystem-based
strategy that focuses on long-term prevention of pests
or their damage through a combination of eco-friendly
techniques such as biological control, habitat manipulation,
modied cultivation practices and use of resistant varieties
(see http://www.fao.org).
Figure 17: Woman catching sh from her own pond, an
activity traditionally done by men
Credit: Blue Gold Program
Figure 18: Woman farmer eld school participant applying
improved skills and technology for poultry rearing
Credit: Blue Gold Program
34
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons LearnedGender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
as an eye-opener for many women participants,
whose self-condence increased as they learned
how to take control and make decisions on the
marketing of their produce. Collective actions are
now organized by water management groups,
resource farmers and other active farmers. A
total of 33,650 women were reported to have
beneted from such initiatives.
• Enhancing local expertise. The Blue Gold
Program promoted local expertise and resource
persons by selecting and training resource
farmers (nearly 700 in total, of which 71 per cent
were women farmers) and farmer trainers (over
200, of which 44 per cent were women). Resource
farmers maintain networks and lead collective
actions while farmer trainers acted as facilitators
in the farmer eld schools in the last years of the
programme. Furthermore, 100 individuals (62 per
cent women) were trained as community animal
health workers, including as vaccinators. Their
knowledge and skills remained within the polders
after the end of the Blue Gold Program.
• Strengthening linkages to service providers.
Linkages with the Departments of Agricultural
Extension, Livestock Services, and Fisheries
were developed to facilitate seeking advice
and obtaining government services, such as
free or subsidized inputs for marginal farmers.
Contacts with private-sector service providers
– for example, for rental of farm machinery and
equipment – were also promoted.
Results
The Blue Gold Program signicantly reduced the
vulnerability of coastal households constantly
threatened by climate change and extreme climate
events by improved protection from embankment
breaches and flooding. The interventions for
integrated management of water and land
resources, including more efcient and sustainable
land use, combined with strengthening market
linkages, were vital for increasing food security
and economic development, thereby strengthening
climate resilience and local capacity to adapt to and
mitigate the impacts of climate change.
The community-based institutions, water
management groups and water management
associations established and strengthened under
the Blue Gold Program now play an important role in
the operation and maintenance of the infrastructure.
At the time of Cyclone Amphan in 2020, active water
management groups and associations arranged to
share information on the upcoming cyclone and
could quickly mobilize men and women to repair
damaged embankments, thus minimizing losses.
By ensuring that women and other disadvantaged
groups (landless, wage labourers) were able to
participate and benet from training and obtaining
skills for diversified livelihood practices and
improved market linkages, the project contributed
Figure 19: Empowerment process in the Blue Gold Program
Source: Blue Gold Program.
Abbreviations: FFS, farmer eld school; WMG, water management group.
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
35
not only to their economic empowerment but also
to their social, physical and political empowerment.
Their social status within the household and
community as contributing members was raised,
their condence to participate actively in and lead
local resource management and market negotiations
was improved and household and community food
security was enhanced.
Lessons learned
Striving for greater gender equality is an integral
component of poverty reduction, but has to be made
explicit in programme design, implementation and
monitoring. Gender expertise and the commitment
of management are crucial.
Feminization of agriculture, that is, the increased role
of women in agriculture, requires adjusted extension
approaches and women-friendly technologies. The
increased role of women in productive activities,
next to domestic work, increases their workload,
leading to physical and mental stress, and needs
to be addressed at the household and community
levels (better sharing of domestic work with male
household members).
For sustaining gains after project completion, it is
important to build the skills and capacity of local
women and men, as well as to strengthen their
partnerships and networking with local and regional
government and private-sector actors.
Further reading
The websites below give more detail on the Blue
Gold Program and provide several resources on the
programme’s gender mainstreaming strategy.
https://www.bluegoldwiki.com/index.php?title=24_
Gender_Equality_and_Women%E2%80%99s_
Empowerment
http://bluegoldwiki.com/
36
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons LearnedGender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
Gender principle 5:
Using a gender-responsive approach
to develop skills and knowledge for
sustainable livelihoods
The Nature Conservancy, Zanzibar
Advancing restorative seaweed farming for
the benet of farmers and the environment in
Zanzibar
Authors:22 George Maina, Giulia Besana, Peter
Limbu, Tiffany Waters, Mondy Muhando, Robert
Jones and Lucy Magembe, The Nature Conservancy
Contact: gwmaina@tnc.org
Objective: Building local capacity for sustainable
seaweed farming in Zanzibar that addresses
environmental, productivity and quality concerns in
seaweed production and contributes to improved
livelihoods and the empowerment of women
farmers.
22 All authors are afliated with TNC, a non-prot environmental
organization working globally to lead conservation projects.
See www.nature.org.
Background
The Zanzibar Restorative Seaweed Farming
programme, facilitated by TNC, began in 2019 with a
scoping study on seaweed farming and production
practices in the region and an analysis of the related
challenges and opportunities. This was followed by
a pilot phase (currently under way) where selected
women and men seaweed farmers are being trained
in environmentally sustainable seaweed production,
with an analysis of its viability as a sustainable
livelihood option in the social and physical context
of the area. The next phase, planned in 2022, will
involve the roll-out of the intervention to more
villages in the region.
Outputs and outcomes
Key outputs of the ongoing pilot phase implemented
in three villages in Zanzibar so far, include:
• Development and piloting of the rst national
seaweed farming best management practices,
developed in collaboration with the local
government, international conservation experts,
the seaweed industry and local farmers, most
of whom are women. Training modules covered
a variety of topics to improve the productivity
of low- and medium-yielding seaweed farms,
managed by women farmers.
• Training of 183 farmers (114 women and 69 men)
from two villages on Pemba Island and one on
Unguja, on the new seaweed best management
practices curriculum. Training typically includes
a 6 to 12-day combination of classroom and in-
water practical sessions with seaweed farmers.
• Seaweed plots belonging to the trained women
farmers are being used as demonstration farm
sites to model success and build the capacity of
other farmers.
• Development of a draft guide on opportunities
for increased productivity, traceability and
sustainability of seaweed aquaculture in the
United Republic of Tanzania, which provides
information and guidance for seaweed farmers,
conservation practitioners and seaweed buyers
on inclusive and sustainable practices within the
sector.
Stakeholders and agencies involved
Local village leaders and seaweed farmers on Pemba
and Unguja islands, Zanzibar; Nature Conservancy,
A majority of poor coastal women and men
depend on their natural environment for
their household food, income and energy
requirements. With the increasing degradation
of coastal and marine ecosystems, these groups
face rising insecurity and risks in fullling their
livelihood needs and often have no choice but to
resort to unsustainable practices.
To be effective, coastal conservation and
ecosystem regeneration projects should identify
groups most dependent on natural resources
for their livelihoods, and ensure that capacity
building and skills trainings is gender-responsive
i.e. addressing the priorities, interests and
constraints of these groups.
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
37
Cargill (a global food company which is a major
international buyer of red seaweed) and the C-Weed
Corporation (a national buyer of red seaweed, based
in Zanzibar). National partners include the Zanzibar
Institute of Marine Science, the Zanzibar Ministry
of Blue Economy and Fisheries and the Ministry
of Agriculture, Natural Resources, Livestock and
Fisheries.
Context of the intervention: geographic,
socioeconomic, gender and governance
aspects
The Zanzibar archipelago, made up of Unguja and
Pemba islands, is located in the western Indian
Ocean, a global biodiversity hotspot and a region with
diverse sheries, extensive mangrove forests and
the second-highest coral reef diversity in the world
(Wells et al. 2004; UNEP 2009). Over the decades,
habitat degradation, unplanned coastal development
and increasing fishing pressures from illegal,
unreported and unregulated sheries have combined
with climate change and limited governance
capacity for natural resources management, to
threaten the region’s coastal ecosystems and the
invaluable services they provide for people and the
environment. Seaweed aquaculture being practised
as an alternative livelihood to sheries in the United
Republic of Tanzania for over 30 years, on the other
hand, has important regenerative potential for the
Tanzanian coastlines. It provides benefits such
as excess nutrient removal, a habitat for diverse
aquatic organisms and carbon capture and storage
to mitigate climate change.
Community livelihoods in this region are largely
dependent on natural resources, with offshore and
onshore sheries making an important contribution
to food security and income and seaweed
aquaculture providing a vital alternative livelihood
for many women and indigenous people. Seaweed
is the second largest foreign export industry in
Zanzibar after tourism, accounting for 90 per
cent of its marine exports and employing around
25,000 farmers (Msuya 2013). It is mainly used for
carrageenan and agar, which are thickening agents
used in food products and cosmetics. Although
seaweed continues to be in high demand, earnings
from seaweed have been falling for some time
owing to lower yields attributed to climate change
and changing water temperatures.
While offshore fishing in the United Republic of
Tanzania is mainly done by men, women glean
Figure 20: Map of the Zanzibar seaweed project
Credit: TNC, United Republic of Tanzania
38
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons LearnedGender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
intertidal areas for shellsh and sea cucumbers,
seasonally sh octopus without gear and engage
in seaweed aquaculture to supplement household
income. The scope of women’s work is signicantly
limited by their household and caregiving
responsibilities, as well as because of cultural
and religious norms that restrict their mobility and
access to resources and markets. Eighty per cent of
seaweed farmers are women and they work mostly
as smallholder producers (Msuya 2013). They face
ongoing challenges in terms of access to capital,
inputs and markets, knowledge of good cultivation,
processing and storage practices and fair pay.
Seaweed farming does not attract men as the work
is time- and labour-consuming and the income
earned is relatively low.
Zanzibar has several committees responsible
for environmental management at the village
level. The Fisheries Act of 2005 provides for co-
management of coastal land and water areas
through the creation of shehia sheries committees,
formerly known as village fisheries committees.
Furthermore, the Environment Act of 2015 provides
for the establishment of integrated coastal zone
management committees at the local level, drawing
on committee members engaged in fisheries
management, as well as forest and environmental
conservation. This platform facilitates information-
sharing and collaboration across sectors that are
often isolated at the local level.
Although seaweed farmers must comply with
fisheries policies and regulations, there are no
clear policies and laws specically focusing on the
seaweed sector, which disadvantages the women
who constitute the majority of seaweed farmers
in the United Republic of Tanzania. In some areas,
seaweed cluster initiatives have been formed to
address problems related to seaweed production,
profitability and coastal resources management
(Msuya 2011). The clusters provide a platform
through which seaweed farmers, researchers,
government officials and seaweed sellers and
exporters meet to discuss and give solutions to
issues of concern for the industry (Sasakawa Peace
Foundation, n.d.).
Development of context-specic training
and guidelines for sustainable seaweed
aquaculture
A scoping study conducted by TNC and its partners
in 2019 helped to identify current practices and
challenges in seaweed farming in the United Republic
of Tanzania, as well as opportunities for improving
its environmental performance while beneting the
livelihoods of farmers. Importantly, the study also
helped to build relationships and understanding
with key players in the sector, including government
agencies, the seaweed industry and seaweed
farmers.
Three main challenges for seaweed farmers
were identified by the study: inadequate
knowledge of site-appropriate farm methods,
use of environmentally unsustainable cultivation
techniques, and substandard harvest, post-harvest
Figure 21: Farmers preparing rope used in the “peg and line” method of seaweed farming, Zanzibar
Credit: Roshini, TNC
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
39
and storage practices. All these challenges not only
lowered the productivity of individual farms and
the livelihood security of farmers and affected the
economy, but they also delivered negative impacts
for the environment, thereby threatening ecosystem
resilience.
The above challenges, among others, were
considered when developing the guide for best
management practices for seaweed farming. The
guide (currently under review) also seeks to address
some of the constraints faced by women, such as
low capacity for investment and leadership, low
literacy, restricted mobility, the burdens of domestic
work and family care and cultural norms and values
regarding women’s roles and position in society,
all of which limit their time for other work and
employment.
The current farmer training and mentorship pilot
phase therefore focuses on building capacity and
skills for commonly accepted seaweed best farming
practices, while also considering existing gender
inequalities and gaps. Preliminary village level
meetings and training helped to develop, tailor and
rene the best approach of leading the classroom
and in-water practical training sessions, as well
as the mentorship approach, based on the unique
needs of each village.
TNC, government extension staff, C-Weed
Corporation (a national seaweed buyer and
developer) and Cargill (an international seaweed
buyer) worked collaboratively to select farmers for
the pilot training programme. Priority was given to
women farmers from farms with low and medium
productivity so as to build their capacity for effective
Figure 22: Women working in groups for better adoption of best
management practices
Credit: Mondy Muhando, TNC
adoption of best management practices that could
help them achieve higher and more consistent
yields. The high productivity farmers (male and
female) were also supported to ensure that their
high production level is sustained and to serve as
champion or model farmers during the mentorship
period.
The training sessions were conducted in the
villages close to participants’ homes to enhance
farmer participation and understanding of the best
management practices. The training timings and
schedule were flexible to allow women participants to
attend to their domestic household responsibilities.
The combination of tailor-made classroom and
practical in-water training allowed farmers to acquire
first-hand skills while comparing their traditional
methods with the new practices. Written material was
in Swahili and accompanied with plenty of visuals
for understanding by all the farmers. The presence
of multiple partners (TNC, C-Weed, government)
in the training provided a direct opportunity and
platform for farmers to engage with them actively
while giving feedback on the best management
practices and the challenges they faced. A robust
feedback mechanism integrated within the training
programme helped in the continuous adaptation of
the practices based on the discussions. Moreover,
using seaweed plots23 belonging to the trainee
farmers as demonstration farms instilled a sense
of condence and empowerment in women model
farmers and raised their social status in their villages.
23 Seaweed farms can be individually owned or belong to a group
or committee of farmers. Given that the sea is public land,
“ownership” is informally agreed at the village level.Farmers
engaged in the project are using their individually owned plots
and are assessed individually.
Figure 23: Off-bottom cultivation of seaweed in shallow sea,
Zanzibar
Credit: C-Weed
40
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons LearnedGender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
Balancing longer-term ecosystem benets
with short-term individual benets for farmers
The scoping study showed that both women and
men farmers had limited knowledge of how to
identify suitable seaweed farming plots that would
contribute to increased productivity and avoid
competing with other marine users and fragile
ecosystems. The training on best management
practices included recommendations for easy ways
to measure surface water velocity to ensure farms
would be situated in areas with good water flow with
appropriate nutrients for better yields. Information
was provided on important site conditions, such
as proper water depths, water temperature, salinity
(situating away from river mouths), substrate
(avoiding rocky areas), wind and locating farms next
to nearby reefs or inlets that provide protection from
waves. The training also recommended situating
farms away from areas used for shing, navigation
and recreation, to avoid loss and damage to farms.
The training on best management practices
focused on the “off-bottom peg and line” method
of farming in shallow waters, which is preferred
by women farmers as most of them are unable to
swim or handle boats in the deep sea. This method
involves tying seed or propagules of seaweed with
rope lines to wooden stakes embedded into the sea
floor. The use of this method involves cutting down
nearby mangroves for wooden stakes, leading to
deforestation and higher pressure on near-shore
sensitive habitats and sh populations. Sometimes
the farms also cover seagrasses or create plastic
and other marine debris. The training included
information on the benets of mangroves, corals and
seagrass beds for people and the environment and
recommended how to avoid damaging these fragile
ecosystems by placing farms away from them and
not cutting down mangrove trees for wood to use
as stakes for tying seaweed. When advising on
what not to do, the training tried to offer the farmers
feasible alternatives where possible, such as a list of
local shrubs and trees that could be used for durable
wood instead of mangrove trees, including their
relative distances from the seaweed farms.
The training promoted innovations in farm design
that could increase production and income for
farmers in the short term. An example of this was the
double-made loop method of attaching seedlings to
the cultivation line. This method has been shown to
triple production within the same amount of ocean
area and requires less plastic rope, creating a win-
win situation for farmers and the environment. A
signicant amount of time in the training was also
devoted to proper farm maintenance and disease
prevention, so as to minimize crop damage and loss
and reduce livelihood insecurity of women farmers.
Figure 24 Woman farmer harvesting seaweed in Pemba Island
Credit: Roshini, TNC
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
41
Understanding the particular health risks and safety
issues faced by women seaweed farmers, there
was also a training module explaining the risks of
certain practices for farmers such as using plastic
and fibre-glass boats in deep water, where they
are susceptible to strong currents. These boats
are usually provided to farmers by local seaweed
developers and buying agents but should only be
used for transporting the harvested seaweed from
near-shore areas. The module also explained the
advantages of simple safety practices, such as
using boots while farming in near-shore areas to
avoid injuries and allergies from hazardous animals
and sharp shells in the water. Finally, the training
provided recommendations for good post-harvest
practices, as inadequate knowledge of drying,
sorting, treating and packing can compromise
the quality of the seaweed and the price received
for it. The latter advice is provided by the national
buying agent (C-Weed), which procures most of the
seaweed from the farmers for a fair price.
As the training of farmers is ongoing, conclusive
data on yield increases from the modied production
techniques and on product quality, ecosystem health
and increased farmer incomes is not yet available.
What is evident is that men and especially women
farmers feel empowered by the new information,
technology and stakeholder linkages that the
training has provided them. The confidence of
women farmers was boosted by the fact that they
were selected as model farmers to demonstrate
improved cultivation practices to the others in their
community. They now have new knowledge that
they can share with other women and men farmers
alike and they are seen as pioneers in sustainable
seaweed farming. Now that they have engaged with
government, buying agents and researchers as part
of their training, all the participating farmers feel
more condent in approaching them again and are
more condent in their own knowledge and ability.
Lessons learned
Facilitating local mentorship from various local
stakeholders (such as researchers and extension
agents) to trainee farmers and identifying model
farmers to provide peer-to-peer support importantly
helped the adoption of best management
practices in the ecosystem-based approach to
seaweed farming.
Certain best management practices such as the
use of the double-made loop technique have good
potential for boosting farmer and buyer incomes
with a minimal environmental footprint, but they
require more time and skill of the farmers, which
creates a reluctance to change old methods,
especially among the women trainee farmers.
The programme staff is trying to improve this by
providing farmers with pre-knotted lines using the
double-made loop technique, but this may not be
sustainable in the long run after the phasing out of
programme support. It may be necessary to look at
other options such as organizing collective action
among the farmer groups, so that women can help
each other with this technique. Ultimately, collective
producer groups can also strengthen the bargaining
position of farmers vis-à-vis market agents and help
to boost women’s enterprises within the seaweed
value chain.
The programme is pioneering a multi-stakeholder
collaboration in sustainable seaweed farming
in Zanzibar across sectors that involve farmers,
research organizations, government departments
and national and international buyers. Currently this
is providing a wealth of opportunities in capacity-
building not only to the farmers but also to local
and government researchers and extension agents,
and has helped to boost strong mentorship links
between producers and other stakeholders for
continuing improvements in the seaweed industry.
A crucial and challenging role for project partners,
however, will be the scale-up and replication of the
best management practices during the next phase.
Further reading
The websites listed below provide more information
on the Zanzibar restorative seaweed farming
programme.
https://www.aquaculturealliance.org/advocate/
for-seaweed-farmers-in-zanzibar-a-chance-for-real-
growth/
https://www.nature.org/en-us/newsroom/seaweed-
farming-tanzania/
https://thefishsite.com/articles/supporting-
sustainable-seaweed-farming-for-east-africas-
coastal-communities
42
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons LearnedGender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
Gender principle 6:
Enhancing inclusive decision-making
in community-based organizations
CORDIO, Kenya
Enhancing effective participation of women
in beach management units in coral reef
dependent communities in Kenya
Authors:24 Joan Kawaka and Lenice Ojwang’,
CORDIO Kenya
Contact: jkawaka@cordioea.net
Objective: To enable long-term effective, equitable
and inclusive community-based natural resource
management of coral reef areas on the southern
coast of Kenya by strengthening meaningful
participation of women in local governance
institutions.
Background
The interventions described below were
implemented by Coastal Oceans Research and
Development – Indian Ocean (CORDIO), a Kenyan
research and conservation organization, as part of a
24 Both authors are afliated with CORDIO East Africa, a Kenyan
non-prot research and conservation organization focused on
marine and coastal ecosystems in the western Indian Ocean
region. See https://cordioea.net.
project entitled “Innovating and sharing knowledge
for coastal resilience in eastern Africa”. One of the
project objectives was to build community resilience
to climate change through participatory research
and learning on community-based natural resources
management.25 Building on earlier research and
understanding of the challenges faced in locally
managed marine areas in Kenya, CORDIO targeted
specific interventions to enhance the effective
participation of women in coastal governance
institutions and to ensure that women participate in
and benet from initiatives to promote community-
based natural resources management.
Key outcomes and impacts
• In December 2019, a democratic election process
in seven Kenyan beach management units26 in
Mkunguni, Mwaembe, Munje, Mwandamo, Funzi,
Bodo and Gazivillages took place as a response
to concerns among the villagers over the
legitimacy of the earlier leadership of the units.
Women were encouraged to stand for leadership
positions and were elected as vice-secretaries in
two of the units and as treasurers in all seven of
them. At the end of the elections, the 11 women
accounted for almost 30 per cent of the 47
elected leaders.
• After the election, 32 women and 61 men
attended an induction course and leadership
training to form the executive committee of the
seven beach management units. The training
was aimed at strengthening the capacity of
committee members to deliver on their mandates
to enable equitable, efcient and sustainable
sheries management at the grass-roots level. A
key output from the training was the development
of action plans for improved accountability,
transparency and equity in management and
nancial operations.
25 Community-based natural resources management aims to
create the right incentives and conditions for an identied
group of resource users within dened areas to use natural
resources sustainably. It promotes conservation through the
sustainable use of natural resources, enables communities
to generate income that can be used for rural development
and promotes democracy and good governance in local
institutions (USAID, n.d.).
26 Beach management units form the community basis of
sheries co-management in Kenya, bringing together resource
user groups such as shers, sh traders and processors, boat
and gear owners and state actors to share responsibilities in
resource management and conservation, as an imperative
to improve the livelihoods of people dependent on these
resources (Kanyange and others, 2014).
Local stakeholders (shers, seafood processers
and traders, boat owners) are increasingly called
upon by their regional and national governments
to participate in co-management of local
coastal and marine resources through formally
recognized community-based organisations
such as Village Fishery Committees and Beach
Management Units. Often, despite membership
quotas for women, their participation in these
groups is negligible.
These local management bodies have the
potential to generate important wins forresilient
environment, livelihood security and resource
stability in coastal and marine areas, if managed
gender-responsively and monitored for inclusive
representation.
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
43
donor: Norwegian Agency for Development
Cooperation.
Context of the intervention: geographic,
socioeconomic, gender and governance
aspects
The southern coast of Kenya includes coastal and
marine ecosystems such as mangroves, coral reefs
and seagrasses that are critical for their biodiversity
and the services they provide for the ecosystem
and people. The extensive shoreline is also a
turtle nesting area. These fragile ecosystems are
increasingly under threat from natural and human-
based activities, including climate change and
extreme weather conditions, poorly planned coastal
development, increasing population, excessive and
destructive shing, land-based pollution and poor
governance.
The project sites are located in Kwale County on
the south coast of Kenya, which has a much higher
poverty rate of 47.4 per cent when compared with
• Members of the Mkunguni beach management
unit collaborated with scientists from CORDIO
and the Kwale County sheries ofce in the
development of less destructive shing gear that
could benet the coral reef ecosystem without
compromising shers’ income. A basket trap
with an increased mesh size was constructed
to reduce the capture of small immature sh
and allow larger sh to be caught, which fetched
higher market prices. The modied traps were
distributed among 16 shermen on a trial basis,
with four traps allocated specically to women
sh traders so they could be assured of accessing
catch at a fair price from shers using the traps.
Stakeholders and agencies involved
Female and male members of seven beach
management units in coastal Kenya; government
stakeholders: Kenya Fisheries Service, Kwale and
Kilifi County fisheries offices; research and civil-
society stakeholders: CORDIO East Africa, Coastal
and Marine Resource Development (COMRED);
Figure 25: Map showing beach management units that received induction training
Source: CORDIO, East Africa.
44
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons LearnedGender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
the national poverty rate of 36.1 per cent. While
commercial and subsistence fisheries form the
primary source of livelihood of the households, both
women and men also rely on tourism, small-scale
farming and small business activities for income and
livelihood. As overshing, destructive shing and
depletion of mangrove, seagrass and coral areas are
leading to a decline in the quality and quantity of sh
stocks, certain marginal groups, including women
gleaners, mama karangas,27 and foot shers nd
themselves increasingly at risk of losing their main
source of income and food.
Within shing households, men are mainly involved
in capture shing at sea, in boats and by swimming,
while women are mainly involved in the sh trade
and processing. In some areas, women also glean
shells in the intertidal areas during low tide to use
in handicrafts. While both men and women are
involved in sh trading, women tend to have smaller
businesses that need less capital and involve micro-
scale vending and selling of fried sh in local markets.
Women and men engage in multiple occupations for
their livelihoods, but women are much more restricted
in engaging in paid work and employment because of
their household and caregiving responsibilities, their
lack of ownership of land and property, sociocultural
norms restricting certain types of activities and their
unpaid work in subsistence farming. Even though
beach management unit regulations stipulate
27 Women who sell small amounts of fried sh in the local
market.
one third of executive committee members are
to be women, there are not many women in the
general membership of the units and consequently
their interests and needs in sheries and coastal
resources management tend to be neglected and
unrepresented in key decisions and plans.
With the enactment of the Beach Management
Unit Regulations of the Fisheries Act of 2007, the
Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries Development
in Kenya intensied its efforts to promote beach
management units as an institutionalized sheries
co-management organization in inland and marine
sheries. Made up of shers, boat and shing gear
owners, sh traders and processors and government
stakeholders, the units have a host of responsibilities
including regeneration of fisheries and aquatic
environments, alleviating poverty, building the
capacity of their members for sheries and conflict
resolution between different users. While there is a
need for more documentation on the performance
of coastal beach management units, it has generally
been observed that most of these units face many
challenges in carrying out their responsibilities and
are unable to meet their mandates. Undemocratic
governance, poor leadership, lack of administrative
and management capacity, poor communication
with government partners and unsustainable
financing are some of the key problems coastal
beach management units face.
Participatory assessment to identify concerns
and priorities of women and men members of
beach management units
CORDIO implemented a stakeholder needs
assessment at the start of the project to
understand the main challenges faced by women
and men members in the functioning of the beach
management units and the reasons why earlier
initiatives in community-based natural resources
management such as maintaining shing closure
areas had succeeded or failed. The study was
conducted between October 2018 and March 2019,
through questionnaires and focus group discussions
with members of seven beach management units in
Kwale County.
As the women are hesitant to speak in the presence
of men and stay silent during mixed gender
discussions, men and women were interviewed
separately. The focus group discussions were held
with same-sex groups to allow free sharing and
Figure 26: Mama karanga in Mkunguni
Credit: Joan Kawaka, CORDIO, East Africa
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
45
to specifically capture the views of women. The
interviews and discussions with women and men
were conducted in the local dialect and in Swahili
(the national language).
Perceptions, contributions and feedback from
participants were disaggregated by gender through
the use of different coloured sticky notes (pink
for women and yellow for men). This included
perceptions about the resources, how they benet
from them, challenges experienced and proposed
Figure 27: Beach management unit executive members in
induction training
Credit: Lenice Ojwang, CORDIO, East Africa
solutions to those challenges. Feedback on the
effectiveness of the training and other climate-smart
interventions were also gender disaggregated.
Registration forms for participants during training
and seminars and project activities incorporated
sections specifying whether a participant was male
or female. This helped to track gender representation
throughout the project activities and allowed action
to be taken where representation was skewed.
The assessment identified opportunities and
challenges towards implementing gender-sensitive
climate-smart initiatives. For example, an important
issue identified by men and women was their
dissatisfaction and lack of trust in the beach
management unit leadership in Kwale County. In
addition, women members expressed their concern
Table 1: Capture size and weight for dominant species using modied basket traps and traditional basket traps
Species Type of basket trap Number
of sh
Mean total
length (cm)
Mean weight (g) Proportion
of juvenile
retention
(percentage)
S. sutor Modied basket traps 2004 28.7 ± 3.0 312.6 ± 96.8 20.4
Traditional basket traps 6164 27.7 ± 3.4 286.6 ± 98.9 25.3
L. mahsena Modied basket traps 161 27.4 ± 5.9 303.2 ± 138.1 3.1
Traditional basket traps 512 24.9 ± 3.8 274.5 ± 195.5 17.7
L. borbonicus Modied basket traps 90 24.5 ± 4.9 230.8 ± 107.3 20.0
Traditional basket traps 298 20.9 ± 6.1 161.5 ± 115.7 47.7
L. fulviflamma Modied basket traps 38 19.1 ± 3.8 116.8 ±118.3 15.8
Traditional basket traps 286 19.2 ± 2.4 110.5 ± 47.6 11.6
Source: CORDIO, East Africa.
at being left out of many community-based natural
resources management initiatives that were focused
only on shers who were men.
Increasing women’s representation and
decision-making within coastal beach
management units
Members of beach management units were
concerned about the legitimacy of the leadership
of the units in Kwale County as elections had been
delayed by over two years, which they attributed to
the lack of nancial resources to facilitate the election
process. Moreover, representation of women in the
general membership of the seven units was low and
the 30 per cent mandate of women in the executive
committee was unmet. Using this as an opportunity
to promote inclusive and good governance at the
grass-roots level, CORDIO facilitated sensitization
forums, where women who had shown leadership
traits were encouraged to compete for positions
in the executive committees. The potential women
candidates met with peers and mentors who were
active in the marine sector and occupied leadership
positions. Local leaders such as ward and village
administrators spoke to the members of the beach
management units about the problems faced by
communities that restrict the involvement of women
in coastal and marine development and sheries.
As a result of these efforts, women were elected as
executive members in all seven of the units, taking
46
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons LearnedGender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
up positions of responsibility (treasurers and vice-
secretaries), from where they closely monitor all
aspects of nancial management. Women executive
members are perceived by the entire membership
of the units to be more trustworthy and more likely
to uphold good governance practices such as
transparency in accounting.
Ensuring that women benet from community-
based natural resources management
interventions
Women in coastal Kenya are often left out of
interventions related to sustainable sheries as they
do not sh and are mostly involved in the sh trade.
However, community-based natural resources
management interventions that directly affect the
availability of sh, such as no-take zones,28 seasonal
bans on fishing and gear adaptations to reduce
the capture of juvenile sh, have a big impact on
women’s livelihoods, income and food security.
Owing to a lack of investment capital, women sh
traders can often afford to buy only small or juvenile
sh, so they do not necessarily benet when sh
size increases as this leads to increased prices. This
matter was considered by CORDIO and government
stakeholders when discussing increasing the mesh
size of traditional basket traps used by artisanal
shermen in the Mkunguni beach management unit
to prevent the capture of juvenile sh.
28 No-take zones are areas set aside by the government where
no extraction of resources is allowed. See https://www.
nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/no-take-zone/.
Discussions were held jointly with both women
and men members of the beach management unit,
many of whom are related by marriage or blood.
Women were recognized as direct beneciaries who
should benet from sh catch despite not going out
shing, and as a result four shermen volunteered
to regularly sell them the fish they captured. A
total of 16 modied basket traps were constructed
and given to shers. Out of these, four traps were
assigned to mama karangas, who were given rst
priority in purchasing fish from the four basket
traps. During evaluation of the modified basket
trap trials, women reported that they were able to
purchase sh easily from the shermen. Women
were also trained in monitoring the sh catch data
and are now supporting sh catch data collection by
different research organizations, including CORDIO,
for which they are paid.
Lessons learned
Projects that aim to increase the coastal and
marine areas that are under protection cannot do
so effectively or equitably without involving women.
Involving different groups of women and men at the
conceptualization stage of interventions not only
gives a voice to those who were previously sidelined,
but also gives different perspectives that may be
important for designing sustainable interventions.
In this project, historical perspectives of the target
community and traditional management approaches
were provided by elderly men and women. Shifts that
have taken place in resources use and management
were identied by the elderly and youth.
Figure 28: Members of the Mkunguni beach management unit
with modied basket traps
Credit: Joan Kawaka, CORDIO, East Africa
Figure 29: Mama karanga collecting data on sh catch landings
Credit: Joan Kawaka, CORDIO, East Africa
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
47
To build sustainable community institutions like
the beach management units, it is important to
gain support for women’s participation with the
help of men from their kinship relations, family and
community. Support and mentoring by influential
leaders (women and men) at the local level can also
play a big role in encouraging the active participation
of women in decision-making. Showcasing best
practices in gender equity in coastal and marine
conservation through written and visual media can
help in networking for scaling up efforts to other
parts of the region and nancial sustainability.
When building women’s capacity for active
participation in local coastal management
institutions, it is important to recognize that good
governance requires nancial stability. Members of
beach management units, especially women, cannot
be expected to spend time and effort in implementing
and monitoring coastal and sheries conservation
interventions if they have no alternative sources of
income, savings or paid employment. Consequently,
interventions in community-based natural resources
management must address the issue of nancial
sustainability and ensure that solutions benefit
women and other marginalized groups.
Further reading
The resources below give more background and
detail on the project highlighted in the case study.
J.A. Kawaka and others, “Developing locally managed
marine areas: lessons learnt from Kenya”,Ocean
and coastal management,vol. 135, pp. 1–10.
https://www.cordioea.net/wp-content/
uploads/2015/08/Kawaka-et-al-2016-LMMAs-in-
Kenya.pdf
Website article and video on the “Innovating and
sharing knowledge for coastal resilience in eastern
Africa” project training events on participatory
community-based monitoring and evaluation.
https://cordioea.net/participatory-monitoring/
48
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons LearnedGender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
Gender principle 7:
Political mobilization of excluded
groups to advocate for their rights
Solidaritas Perempuan, Indonesia
Mobilizing sherwomen to campaign
against unsustainable coastal reclamation in
Indonesia
Authors:29 Arie Kurniawaty, Gita Ayu Atikah,
Solidaritas Perempuan
Contact:arieska@solidaritasperempuan.org
Objective: To strengthen grass-roots advocacy and
campaigning against a large coastal reclamation
and port development project in South Sulawesi,
Indonesia, by developing fisherwomen’s critical
awareness of their rights through feminist
participatory action research.
29 Both authors are afliated with Solidaritas Perempuan.
Formed in 1990, Solidaritas Perempuan supports women’s
mobilization and provides feminist leadership training across
Indonesia. Its vision is to create a democratic social order,
based on the principles of justice, ecological awareness and
respect for pluralism, with equality in gender relations, in which
women and men fairly share access to and control over all
resources. See https://www.solidaritasperempuan.org.
Key outputs and outcomes
• Over 120 sherwomen in two villages in South
Sulawesi actively participated in a research
project in 2019 to build critical awareness
about their rights as women and shers, and
the associated rights violations they were
experiencing from non-recognition of their work
as shers and increasing marginalization of
their livelihoods by government and commercial
coastal and maritime development projects.
• Two evidence-based reports of rights violations
experienced by the sherwomen as a result of the
Makassar New Port coastal reclamation project
were developed by the research participants,
facilitated by the Indonesian feminist rights
and advocacy-building organization Solidaritas
Perempuan. These reports were shared with
members of parliament to demand policy change
and disseminated through public and social
media campaigns to gather mass support for the
cause.
• Fisherwomen participated in one press
conference, three radio talk shows and seven
public rallies to express their demands to stop the
Makassar New Port coastal reclamation project.
In April 2021 an investigation was ordered by the
national human rights institution in Indonesia into
the rights violations of sher communities due to
the Makassar New Port project as a result of the
sherwomen’s political campaigning.
Stakeholder and agencies involved
Community stakeholders: fisherwomen in the
villages of Tallo and Cambaya in South Sulawesi;
civil-society stakeholder: Solidaritas Perempuan,
Indonesia. The research project had nancial and
networking support from BothENDS, as part of the
Global Alliance for Green and Gender Action project.
Advocacy and campaigning efforts were directed
towards the South Sulawesi Provincial Government
as the local government that is responsible for
the marine spatial planning in the province and
mandated by law to protect the rights of shers,
particularly women; the local parliament of South
Sulawesi Province, which released local regulations
on the marine spatial planning with the provincial
government; PT Pelabuhan Indonesia/Pelindo IV (a
State-owned company) as project implementers in
As maritime countries increasingly use their
oceans and seas for commercial and economic
growth, there is a rise in the involvement of
international actors and in conflicts over
use of coastal and marine spaces. Men and
women dependent on small-scale sheries
and other coastal resources for their livelihood
nd themselves increasingly marginalized.
Women are often left out of consultations on
coastal development as their work is formally
unrecognized and undervalued, pushing them
further into poverty.
In countries where patriarchy is deeply rooted
in customary, family and government structures
and decision-making, a feminist focus in
political mobilisation and advocacy is essential
to encourage gender-just coastal policies and
development.
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
49
Makassar city; and Royal Boskalis, a Dutch dredging
company that was contracted for the reclamation
project.
Context of the intervention: geographic,
socioeconomic, gender and governance
aspects
Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelagic country
with approximately 17,500 islands and a maritime
space of 5.8 million km2, which far surpasses its
terrestrial area of just 1.8 million km2 (Josse et al.
2019). The large proportion of Indonesia’s sovereign
territory that is, in fact, water means that the
country has a high level of economic dependence
on the ocean. The contribution of the coastal- and
marine-related activities to the national economy
is estimated to be one quarter of Indonesia’s gross
domestic product (Josse et al. 2019). South Sulawesi
is an Indonesian province that has abundant marine
and shery potential, with a strategic location in
international transportation routes and trade areas,
including the Australian-Indonesia development
area, the Philippines east growth area and the Asia-
Pacic route (Hardyanti Putri Harsono 2020).
The President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, has made
Indonesia’s seas the centre of his economic policy,
pushing for marine infrastructure investments and
ramping up shipping using Indonesia’s sea lanes (Xue
2015). The “blue revolution” (revolusi biru), launched
in 2010 under his Government, aims to focus the
national ocean policy towards a combination of
development and conservation. Since then, there has
been an emphasis on investment in the development
of maritime infrastructure, particularly ports,
mining and reclamation projects,30 as well as the
conservation of marine areas for the development
of luxury tourism.
This growing agenda of ocean and coastal
development for economic growth has led to an
increased involvement of international actors and
increasing conflicts over the use of coastal and
marine spaces. Within this scenario, the more than 6
million small-scale shers, who generate close to 95
per cent of the total sh catch (Langenheim 2017)
and rely mainly on coastal resources for their lives
and livelihoods, are nding themselves increasingly
30 Reclamation is the process of turning existing ocean space
into new coastland, where sand from the seabed is mined,
shipped and piled up in a different area to make space for
ports, tourist development and real estate, among other uses.
marginalized. Within the small fisher population,
women are the most disadvantaged as they are
not recognized as shers in the legal framework
for sheries, despite the key role they play in pre-
and post-harvest activities and onshore sheries.
Women shers’ contributions to commercial and
subsistence fisheries are uncounted in national
statistics and they are not invited to consultations
on coastal and marine planning as they tend to be
seen as helpers to male shers. Moreover, because
of existing patriarchal norms in Indonesian society,
men who are invited to a consultation process
usually do not let their wives participate as well.
The Makassar New Port in South Sulawesi is a
national strategic project that is managed by the
State-owned port management company, PT
Pelabuhan Indonesia/Pelindo IV, and is set to reclaim
around 1,428 ha to create a hub that will connect to
the eastern areas of Indonesia (Pelindo IV, Makassar
New Port prole). The project began in 2017 and is
part of the national marine spatial plan, which was
approved with little consultation with shermen and
no consultation with fisherwomen. The project’s
reclamation activities have seriously limited men
and women shers’ access to the sea and the coast
and undermined their livelihoods, which rely on
offshore and onshore seafood capture, processing
and selling. The reclamation is destroying shing
grounds as well as shing gear, leading to cycles
of debt when shers attempt to replace gear but
are unable to repay debts owing to falling incomes
from the degraded shery (Josse et al. 2019). The
project also generates pollution on the shoreline
and increases mud and coastal erosion, creating
particular difficulties for women whose fishing
activities take place on the seashore.
50
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons LearnedGender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
Gendered impacts of the Makassar New Port
project
Participatory consultations with women shers in
Makassar revealed that, as nancial managers in
the family, they are bearing the burden of seeking
additional resources as shellsh harvests diminish
owing to the reclamation and port development
activities. Women are forced to borrow money to
replace shing gear that is destroyed and to cover
increased fuel costs of fishing and selling fish
as these activities must take place further away.
As fishermen’s primary sources of income are
decreasing and women’s (often unpaid) workload
in sheries and domestic tasks is increasing, there
is an increase in gender-based violence. There has
also been a rise in child marriage for girls, as a way
to earn a dowry and relieve the family’s nancial
pressure (Josse et al. 2020). Furthermore, while
the corporations involved in the Makassar New
Port project are offering jobs to the men, and the
government is providing them with compensation
for the destruction of their shing grounds, women
are not gaining the same access to alternative
jobs or compensation, increasing the political
marginalization and lack of recognition that they
already face (Josse et al. 2019).
Given their increasing political and socioeconomic
marginalization, there is an urgent need for the
fisherwomen in South Sulawesi to gain critical
awareness of the opportunities and gaps in the
legal environment related to their rights as shers
and women and to devise strategies to advocate
and campaign for changes in policy and the legal
environment. In this context, Solidaritas Perempuan,
an Indonesian women’s rights organization, is
supporting local-level coalition building of the
Figure 30: Makassar New Port development
Source: Makassar New Port, 2022, available at https://mksnewport.
co.id/public/.
Sulawesi fisherwomen to feed into national-level
advocacy campaigns challenging broader neoliberal
political agendas that tend to favour external and
international stakeholders over small-scale sher
communities. Solidaritas Perempuan supports
fisherwomen who play a significant role in the
management of coastal areas, so as to promote
recognition of their work in the sector and for them
to carry out advocacy and campaigning efforts
themselves because they have rst-hand experience
and direct knowledge of their problems and needs.
Using feminist participatory action research
to create awareness and organize collective
action
Feminism and women’s empowerment form the
basis of the feminist participatory action research
methodology, which is deliberately women-
centred and participant-driven in its design and
implementation. Based on their lived experiences, the
research participants discuss problems and propose
solutions, so that the research results become a tool
to organize advocacy actions collectively. Solidaritas
Perempuan used this approach with the Sulawesi
sherwomen to capture their gendered experiences
as women and shers in Indonesia, together with
their perspectives on the development project and
how this was affecting their lives and livelihoods.
The objective was to gather evidence-based data
and documentation to use as building blocks for
organizing collective political action at the local and
eventually the national scale.
Two local and national Solidaritas Perempuan
female staff members and two local female
community organizers facilitated the selection of
120 participants from two villages that were most
Figure 31: Fisherwomen harvesting mussels in the dark at low
tide in Makassar
Credit: Anging Mammiri, Solidaritas Perempuan
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons Learned
51
affected by the Makassar New Port project. Care
was taken to include women of different ages,
marital status, ethnicity and socioeconomic status,
so as to form a representative target group. Over
a period of three months, the facilitators lived with
the communities and gathered social, economic,
cultural and gender data on the women’s villages
and households, using various qualitative data
techniques, including focus group discussions,
in-depth interviews, journal-keeping and personal
histories.
The focus groups provided a good basis for
discussions on gender gaps in coastal and sheries
policies and the problems created for women by
the coastal and marine development projects and
brainstorming on strategies to address them. Visual
information and oral narratives were used with
participants who were less literate. Observations of
facilitators living among the shers and individual
interviews helped to gather information that was
not expressed in group discussions. Specifically
for advocacy purposes, the women fishers were
facilitated in power mapping, a visual tool usedto
identify the best individuals to target to promote
social and political change and to write stories on
the impact of coastal reclamation and the Makassar
New Port project on their lives. The mapping,
discussions and writing raised women’s awareness
of the socioeconomic and political context of the
problems they were facing, created a sense of
solidarity among them and raised their condence
to act collectively to advocate for change. At the end
of the feminist participatory action research, the
facilitators selected nine sherwomen from the two
villages as leaders, organizers and trainers for the
Figure 32: Fisherwomen in Tallo discuss the problems they face
from the Makassar New Port development
Credit: Thibault Josse
advocacy action. The collected data was analysed
by the Solidaritas Perempuan research team and
presented in a research report together with an
analysis of the government policies.
Results
The feminist participatory action research
resulted in increased critical awareness among
the sherwomen in Tallo and Cambaya about the
gendered impacts of the reclamation. Whereas
they previously normalized their political and
socioeconomic marginalization and accepted their
increasing work burden as “God imposed duties”,
they can now identify the injustice of their situation
and see it as something that needs to be changed.
Initially, the women were shy to speak up in public,
but they are now able to discuss their problems
in large groups with men and women and even in
public media. They are able to explain that their
situation is a violation of human rights, as well as
gender discrimination. A sherwoman in Tallo spoke
“We were not invited to the public consultation.
They thought that we can just be represented by
our husbands. That was a mistake. As a person,
even women, might have an own opinion and
perception. Currently, when our families are
struggling with declining income because of the
projects, wives are the most affected. We are
trapped in the debt bondage.” (Translation by
Solidaritas Perempuan staff)
Figure 33: Fisherwomen in a public rally in Sulawesi
Credit: Anging Mammiri, Solidaritas Perempuan
52
Principles, Case Studies and Lessons LearnedGender Mainstreaming in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management
on the radio about women being left out of public
consultations on coastal development:
The feminist participatory action research
techniques helped the women to identify the best
individuals to target with their advocacy and how to
develop collective actions. By identifying common
goals, they were able to strategically link up with
global and national human rights organizations
as well as environmental research and advocacy
networks, including Transnational Institute, Save the
Coast Alliance and Friends of the Earth. The women
have presented written and visual documentation of
their experiences to policymakers to demand policy
change and to the public to get support. They have
engaged in dialogue with the local parliament, been
on radio talk shows and participated in rallies with
other groups to voice their demands to stop the
reclamation project. As a concrete outcome of the
sherwomen’s political campaigning, the national
human rights body conducted a eld investigation
on the rights violation brought about by the coastal
reclamation activities of the Makassar New Port
project.
Lessons learned
In countries such as Indonesia where patriarchy is
deeply rooted in customary, family and government
structures and decision-making, a feminist
focus in political mobilization of fisherwomen
is imperative for building advocacy for gender-
sensitive and gender-responsive policies. However,
this must go hand in hand with building alliances
and shared goals with other relevant stakeholder
groups (such as fishermen and environmental
groups) to make the advocacy more effective and
sustainable. This alliance building can also lower
the risks of threats and violence against women and
human and