Eco-labelling in fisheries along West African coast : the potentials and pitfalls

Abstract

International audience ; Eco-labelling is considered with increased interest within the scope of fisheries crisis, as a way to tackle both marine biodiversity conservation and development issues. Along West African Coast, diversity and specificity of seafood issued from localised fishery systems (or fishery territories) are remarkable and recognised from long time. Recently, initiatives to draw more value from fish and fishery while maintaining them for the future are more and more developing. Nevertheless, those innovative dynamics are generally initiated and implemented by foreign operators, targeting specific categories of customers and are unequally re-appropriated by the fishermen communities. They still occupy a minor place in local and national economies. Moreover, these devices are binding and thus exclusive. So, they could have unexpected and contradictory effects on biological and cultural diversity. An Interdisciplinary (anthropology, geography, economic, sociology, ethnobiology, ecology and law studies) and comparative approach, conducted in different environmental, political and socio-economical contexts, leads to assess the constraints and opportunities attached to eco-labelling in fisheries (Biodivalloc programme, ANR05 BDIV02). Also, the aim of this contribution is to examine the connection and consistency between the devices and norms that shape those instruments and the local practices and actors strategies all along the fish network. It seeks to determine the conditions of using these tools in ways that ensure the co-viability of coastal (biological and social) systems. This question is adressed through diverse study cases, the Mugil fishery of Mauritania, the Octopus fishery of Senegal, the mollusks exploitation (Arca, Crassostrea, Cymbium, Pugilina, etc.) of the Saloum Delta, Senegal.