[asia-apec 817] reminder: workshop on globalization & fisheries

[GABRIELA]

From: pampil at skyinet.net

REMINDER: Beat the deadline! Register NOW to the Forum on Land, Food
Security and Agriculture and join us in the WORKSHOP ON GLOBALIZATION AND
FISHERIES! Join other fisherfolk in saying NO TO MONOPOLY CAPITAL'S THIRST
FOR PROFIT!

Hear leaders of major fisherfolk organizations share case studies
concretely manifesting the impact of liberalization and privatization on
their countries' fishery, their environment and their lives:

COMMERCIAL SHRIMP CULTIVATION AND AQUACULTURE are viable alternatives in
producing food for the need of the people. However, uncontrolled production
for export and profit rather than for ensuring society's food security
negatively impacts on the ordinary fisherfolk's source of livelihood, on
the environment and on food sufficiency. Sharing will come from our
brothers and sisters from Bangladesh, Thailand or Sri Lanka.  

Uncontrolled COMMERCIAL FISHING operations of transnational fishing
corporations and
local fishing magnates have led to the dramatic decrease in small
fisherfolk catch in years. Commercial trawlers and big fishing fleets prey
on communal fishing areas, monopolizing use of communal fishing grounds,
which leave poor fisherfolk empty handed. We have invited fisherfolk
leaders from Chile and Canada to share their experience. 

The BIMP-EAGA (Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines -- East Asia
Growth Area) projects in fisheries are ways by which corporate fishing
circumvent sovereign rights and territorial integrity of nations. This
concept of growth zone is actually a scheme that fishing TNCs use to
guarantee swift and large-scale harvest and, of course, quick profits.
NACFAR (Nationwide Coalition of Fisherfolk for Aquatic Reform) from the
Philippines will share the results of its study on BIMP-EAGA.

There will also be inputs on the general impact of globalization:

*  Liberalization & Privatization in Fisheries: Impact, Fisherfolk
Resistance and Alternatives by PAMALAKAYA (National Federation of
Fisherfolk Organizations in the Philippines). Trade and  investments
liberalization, pushed to greater heights by globalization, kill fisherfolk
economies and undermine food and fish security both on the local and
regional levels. The input will delve into the ill effects of globalization
in fisheries and present viable options in confronting globalization and
realizing social justice and political empowerment of the fisherfolk. 

*  Impact of Globalization on the Marine Environment and Aquatic Resources.
This presentation by India holds transnational corporations and domestic
fishing monopolies responsible for the destruction of the marine
environment and depletion of aquatic resources. Corporate practices cause
industrial pollution and chemical toxicity of bodies of water thereby
destroying the fisherfolk's source of livelihood. All this done in the
perennial corporate search for bigger profits.


----------------------------------------
REPRINT:

Rationale

Many of the world's most productive ecosystems are found in Asia. The
region has nine of the world's top fishing nations.  Ironically, the
developing countries of the region have not been able to derive full
benefits from their resources.  It is rather the developed and affluent
countries which have profited from the exploitation of the region's
resources.   

Over the years, the fisheries sector has been on the decline all over the
world, but the solutions that governments, especially Asian regimes under
pressure from global powers, resort to are liberalization,
denationalization and privatization. Lately, fishery plans under Asian
governments have become the center of attraction in the drive for
"globalization" because Asian fisheries has become the primary target of
Japanese, US and European trade and investments. Wide open are the
opportunities to "globalize" the capital and products of multinational and
transnational corporations (MNCs/TNCs) facilitated by provisions of WTO
agreements and speeded up by regional trade blocks like NAFTA and APEC.
"Globalization," government leaders and technocrats claim, is the panacea
to the woes of the sector and the poverty of the fisherfolk.    

"Globalization" has given rise instead to the uncontrolled expansion of
large fishing fleets mercilessly devastating productive fishing grounds
with their ever advancing technology and ever present capital. The result
is monopoly of vast waters in the hands of those who already have the most
concentration of capital and the "best" of technology -- the MNCs/TNCs --
and the global powers -- the US, Japan and the EU.
 
The wholesale commercialization and subsequent disintegration of vital
fishery resource bases are then used to rationalize the expansion of
unsustainable corporate aquaculture operations as a placebo to the
continued collapse of coastal and traditional capture fisheries production.
Worsened is the degradation of the already critically fragile coastal zone
ecosystems. In the end, supposed hopes of `saving the environment' become
naught with the reality of unabated degradation of coastal and offshore
resources and ecosystems.

"Globalization" renders traditional fisheries uncompetitive through the
systematic manipulation of national programs and policies to suit the
profiteering motives of capital-intensive, commercially-efficient,
high-valued and export-geared fisheries production. What it results into
are highly unsustainable fishing practices, fishery trade crises, and the
uncontrollable price increases of basic fishery commodities. 

The capitalist-imperialist competition for fishery enclaves causes the
vicious depravity of millions of artisanal fisherfolk and the dangerous
imperilment of food security all over the world. But the very same
phenomenon of imperialist globalization that intensifies global economic
and financial crisis strengthens fisherfolk and peoples' resolve to resist
and to struggle to change their situation. 

Programme:

November 10

Whole Day:	Registration to APPA
Afternoon:	Registration to the Forum on Land, 
		Food Security & Agriculture and its Workshop
		on Globalization and Fisheries
Early Evening:  APPA Opening Ceremony

November 11

0830-0930	Additional Registration
0930-1015	Opening Addresses: Globalization and 
		Its Impact on Land, Food Security &
		Agriculture
		by Dr. Vandana Shiva and Sarojeni Rengam
		(PAN-AP)
1015-1030	Tea Break
1030-1115	On Trade Agreements
		- WTO and Agriculture by Bhagirath Lal Das
		(author of "An Introduction to the WTO
		Agreements" and "The WTO Agreements:
		Deficiencies, Imbalances and Required
		Changes")
		-  Impact of NAFTA on Agriculture and
		Food Security by Ana de Ita (Ceccam, Mexico)
1115-1300	Sharing from Grassroots Movements
		- Chiapas, Mexico
		- Philippines (KMP/AMIHAN)
		- Thailand (Assembly of the Poor)
		- South Korea (Wheat Revival Movement)
		- Malaysia
1300-1400	Lunch
1400		Start of simultaneous workshops
	
		Workshop on Globalization and Fisheries

1400-1430	Workshop Introduction
1430-1630	Presentations:
		- Liberalization & Privatization in
		  Fisheries: Impact, Fisherfolk Resistance
		  and Alternatives (PAMALAKAYA)
		- Impact of Globalization on Marine
		  Environment and Aquatic Resources
		  (India)
		- Case Studies:
		  * commercial aquaculture (Bangladesh, Thailand or
		    Sri Lanka)
		  * extensive commercial fishing (Chile 
		    or Canada)
		  * BIMP-EAGA (NACFAR) 
1630-1700	Tea Break
1700-1900	Open Forum: Further discussion of issues
			     and sharing of struggles and
			     alternatives 
1900-2000	Dinner
2000-2200	Open Forum: Resolutions and 
			     Statement of Unity

November 12	Closing Plenary of Forum on Land,
		Food Security and Agriculture