Description

In the context of drawing up a Fishery Management Plan for the national Courbine fishery (an Atlantic and Mediterranean fish also known as ‘meager’), the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) local office have asked Lisode society to help fostering better involvement of local fisherman in this process.      

The project partners were: the Ministry of Fisheries and Maritime Economy (MPEM), the Mauritanian Institute for Oceanographic Research and Fisheries (IMROP) and the Banc d’Arguin National Park (PNBA).

The project last from November 2011 to November 2012. The approach was conducted in six steps:

1. Presenting and validating the approach; Organizing a first field trip and a first set of interviews
2. Organizing of a participatory modeling workshop (based on ARDI methodology)
3. Carrying out several additional interviews
4. Designing a computer-assisted role playing game to simulate the fishery current organization
5. Testing the game and its scenarios separately with the different groups of stakeholders
6. Setting up a two days final workshop bringing together all stakeholders to collectively address recommendations for the future management plan  

Project originalities are: (1) working at a national scale; (2) a working partnership including a consultant agency (Lisode) and researchers observing the process (Nicolas Becu et Amandine de Coninck). These researchers work lead to a publication on: How ComMod methodology can help to reach a sustainable compromise? (Vertigo edition)

At the end of the project, a recommendation report based on our final workshop has been written by the expert in charge of the management plan drawing. Next steps will be for him to draw from this point a first version of a complete management plan to submit it to the Ministry of Fisheries and Maritime Economy.

Project final report can be downloading below. However, as it is written in French, we translated here few quotations from the participant to show some results:

–         « Strong point of the workshop is the large and active participation of local stakeholders » 

–         « Modeling gives a global vision. It allows digging further. To test the impacts of actions. To be more productive. Other ways it’s stay theoretical. »

–         « Stakeholders have better understood scientists’ and managers’ way of thinking »

–         « The expert in charge of the management plan drawing made a very good summary of our ideas. »

–         « Participatory modeling is a new methodology for us. It works! »