The 'Blue Economy' and 'Blue Growth' initiatives, which frame the oceans as the new economic and development frontier, have entered the international agenda over the past decade. Although some of these development agendas imply an alignment with social objectives and speak to small-scale fisheries concerns, many are oriented towards further technological innovation, industrialization of the oceans, and commodification of the marine resources. These initiatives pose a potential risk to the livelihoods and wellbeing of small-scale fisheries, as they could affect access to coastal and ocean spaces, fisheries resources, and markets. Therefore, it is essential to push towards a more equitable and just oceans for small-scale fishing, and one way to do this is to enhance knowledge about the current situations, looking at social injustice and inequity issues affecting women and men involved in small-scale fisheries.

With this background, TBTI is calling for contributions from everyone to submit stories and examples of policies, programs, projects, initiatives, regulatory frameworks, as well as other situations that create different types of injustice and inequity in small-scale fisheries, putting them in a disadvantaged and marginalized position.

The first release of the ‘Blue Justice for Small-Scale Fisheries – A Global Scan’ e-book that contains 18 stories from 14 countries has been publish in the summer of 2020. These stories are also captured in the new ISSF ‘Blue Justice Alert’ dataset that allows anyone (including you!) to alert the world about injustice and other threats for small-scale fisheries in communities, regions, countries, etc. The second volume, released on February 2021 to mark the  World Day of Social Justice, contains 11 new case studies from 9 countries.

We are continuing to collect Blue Justice stories, which will be included in Volume III. If you would like to make contribution, please complete the template below.