This work is led by WorldFish and Timor-Leste’s Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. It is part of the CGIAR Research Program on Fish Agri-Food Systems (FISH). The pilot project in Timor-Leste was funded by The Royal Norwegian Embassy in Jakarta, and developed further under two Inspire Challenge awards from the CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture, in partnership with Pelagic Data Systems.

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The roadmap to fisheries sustainability is clear – where science-based management has been intensely applied, fish stocks are now healthy or improving. The problem lies in that we still lack reliable information about the health of the stocks which make up at least half of the world’s catch, thus the prognosis of their stock status is that most will continue to be overfished. These data-limited fisheries are critical for food security and micronutrient requirements in some of the world’s poorest communities. Greater investment in fisheries management systems will lead to healthier fish populations, to the benefit of all the communities that rely upon them.

Rashid Sumaila’s research focuses on bioeconomics, marine ecosystem valuation and the analysis of global issues such as fisheries subsidies, marine protected areas, illegal fishing, climate change, marine plastic pollution, and oil spills. Rashid has experience working in fisheries and natural resource projects in Norway, Canada and the North Atlantic region, Namibia and the Southern African region, Ghana and the West African region and Hong Kong and the South China Sea. Dr. Sumaila received his Ph.D. (Economics) from the University of Bergen and his B.Sc. (Quantity Surveying) from the Ahmadu Bello University. He won the Volvo Environment Prize and was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in .

Second, carefully research and if possible, test a suite of safeguards, to avoid fuelling the fire of overfishing and or deepening inequalities. Third, it’s crucial to avoid setting unrealistic expectations to engage partners – for example, better prices, market access and the like. Finally, because market leverage can be exceedingly powerful it must be wielded with precautionary care. Too often, market forces are unleashed in fisheries where fishers lack basic socioeconomic rights. Following a rights-based-approach to fisheries governance, we recommend sequencing investments in small-scale fisheries, first securing fishers’ basic socioeconomic rights, then ensuring fisheries governance is robust before eventually intervening in fisheries markets.