The world needs problem solvers and creative thinkers to address its most urgent problems, including the degradation of ecosystems and the services they provide. Shellfishers in West Africa, and especially women gleaners of molluscs and bivalves in the estuarine and mangrove ecosystems of the subregion whose livelihoods depend on these ecosystems, can be empowered as leaders of sustainable shellfisheries and ecosystem stewardship.
As champions of coastal resources management in West Africa and around the globe, the University of Cape Coast and the University of Rhode Island are pleased to partner with World Agroforestry, the University of Ghana, the TRY Oyster Women’s Association in The Gambia, as well as governments, shellfishing groups, academia, civil society and multilateral organizations on the USAID Women Shellfishers and Food Security project to develop this Toolkit. We hope the Toolkit will inspire and provide a practical guide for stakeholders in this important, but “invisible,” undocumented, undervalued, and little recognized fishery to take the initiative to sustainably manage shellfisheries and associated ecosystems.
The potential for the rights-based, ecosystem-based approach to shellfisheries co-management highlighted in this Toolkit to contribute to win-win local, national, West Africa regional, and global biodiversity, food security, livelihoods, resilience, and climate change adaptation and mitigation outcomes is high. Consistent, locally adapted, and gender-sensitive support from a portfolio of stakeholders, including academia, can enhance synergies to realize this potential. Academia can play an important role as neutral conveners, knowledge hubs, and outreach centers, integrating local ecological knowledge with scientific knowledge using demand-driven and participatory approaches to facilitate development of the shellfisheries co-management model detailed in this Toolkit. We invite shellfishing communities and other stakeholders who can support them to use this Toolkit to act on the opportunity to improve shellfisheries and coastal ecosystem management and to create a community that will continue and build on this process.
