Newsletter no 31 - Oceans and water

Editorial
Water is an essential element for life and a crucial component of the human environment. It is also an indispensable natural resource needed for the production of our food and the maintenance of our planet’s basic functions. For these reasons, water has increasingly become a central political element in peoples’ struggles for food sovereignty.
The current edition of the Nyéléni newsletter exposes the growing global threat of privatization and commodification of water – especially (...)

Oceans, small-scale fishers and the right to food: resisting ocean grabbing Since the 2007/8 financial crises, academics, NGOs, and social movements have argued that a new wave of land-grabbing has been taking place. Responding to what has been called the ‘convergence of crises’ (finance, food, climate and energy) capital accumulation strategies have increasingly focused on gaining control of the use and benefits of natural resources. In the process, everything from “businesses and NGOs, (...)

Box 1 - The UN Oceans Conference - Who’s Oceans Conference?
On 5-9 June 2017, the Governments of Fiji and Sweden co-hosted the high-level UN Oceans Conference at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. The aim was to support the Implementation of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development. Almost regardless of where we look, the outcomes are presented as a great success, and if you dare to (...)

Voice from the field 1 - Strengthening the role of fisherwomen Rehema Bavumu and Margaret Nakato, WFF and the Katosi Women Development Trust (KWDT), Uganda
The understanding of fishing as an activity that involves men going into the lake with boats, ignores the enormous work done by women, in processing, distribution and marketing of fish. Responsibilities for provision of food to fisher households disproportionally rests on women who fend for fish for household consumption as the men (...)