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18 Industry Profile//

INFOFISH speaks to …

DR MERYL WILLIAMS

Director-General of the WorldFish Centre from 1994 – 2004, former Chair of
the Commission of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research
(ACIAR), Crawford Medal Awardee, Founder and current Chair of the Gender in
Aquaculture and Fisheries Section of the Asian Fisheries Society.

Credit: Matt Cawood, University of New England

Dr Williams, over the decades, you have been in the thick of All well and good, but throughout all the big changes in
state, national, regional and global dialogue relating to so aquaculture and fisheries, not only small scale operators but
many issues in aquaculture and fisheries! women in all parts of the value chains, including in marketing
and in the industrial and export factories, were overlooked.
Through the years, would it be accurate to say that food
security and inclusivity (of women and marginalised groups) Either they were removed by modernisation or recruited into
are the two main themes that you are most passionate low-paying, often exploitative, work. And they continue to
about? support the sector, often for free through unpaid productive
work or care work from home.
That is where I have come to, although, as a zoologist and
MW
biometrician, I started out with a different set of interests in During your tenure as Director-General of WorldFish
aquaculture and fisheries. At first, scientists of my age were (previously known as ICLARM), you pushed for aquaculture
mainly using our research to help fishers, fisheries officials and to be increasingly used as a tool to help the poor, rather than
the public understand the fished stocks. This phase coincided being dominated by companies looking for profits. Nearly
with the big expansion occurring in fishing and so very shortly 20 years later, it seems that much of the world still talks
we were having to answer difficult questions on whether or more about things like catch per unit effort and blockchains
not stocks were over-fished. Many were. As ministers and rather than producing nutrient-rich foods for communities.
officials took heed of our advice, they started using various How can we make aquaculture more inclusive of social
ways of reducing fishing effort and catches, and this started needs, and how can we garner support from big businesses
to have serious effects on the fishers, their families and their to reach this goal?
communities. In more economically developed countries, the MW These are huge challenges. Yes, profitability is important, but
people affected were expected to accept the bail-outs and the social and human benefits such as nutrition will not be
find other occupations. Only more recently have the social delivered as well until governments start working to enable
and psychological costs been recognised.
this. At present, they are more focused on the economic
When I went to work in organisations serving less rather than social benefits. Seafood products are viewed as
economically developed countries, I realised that the social important domestic income and foreign exchange earners
and economic costs were front and center. However, the due to the high percentage exported – at least before the
solutions as well as the problems were much more complex. Covid-19 pandemic. Governments devote their resources
Industrialisation of fisheries, fish trade and environmental to keeping trade flowing. They need to develop more well-
degradation were all working against the smaller scale rounded fish industry policies.
fishers and their value chains, but this was not getting much
attention until, eventually, the small scale fishers advocates, Big business can be influenced by public opinion and
FAO and the countries negotiated the Small Scale Fisheries advocacy that threaten its “freedom to operate,” e.g., poor
Voluntary Guidelines . worker conditions can give companies a bad reputation.
1
Medium size businesses may not be so amenable to such
1 The Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries public pressure, but evidence from other sectors is that
in the Context of Food Security and PovertyEradication. Published by FAO
(2015). leading companies that do the right thing may positively

INFOFISH International 3/2020 ● www.infofish.org