The Liberian Fisheries and Aquaculture Authority (NaFAA) and the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture Sciences (DoFAS) at the University of Liberia (UL), in collaboration with Duke University, FAO, and Conservation International (CI) have disclosed the conduct of a small-scale fisheries (SSF) training workshop titled: “Development of a Small-scale Fisheries Training Curriculum for Future Leaders-Adopting the Illuminating Hidden Harvests Global Approach for Assessments, Analysis, and Monitoring of Small-scale Fisheries”.
According to a NaFAA press release dated September 9, 2024, the Fisheries Workshop, scheduled for Tuesday 10-12 September 2024, will take place at the Royal Grand Hotel in Monrovia and is intended to help train faculty and staff of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Science Program (FASP) at the UL, NaFAA, and NGOs engaged in the Liberian fisheries sector.
The workshop’s overall goal is to identify key elements for and support the development of, a Small-scale Fisheries (SSF) curriculum, based on the Illuminating Hidden Harvests (IHH) global approach, for FASP to use to train students and practitioners in the country’s fisheries and the wider region, to more effectively manage SSF and communicate their importance to policy-makers to increase visibility and support. This curriculum would focus on collecting, analyzing, and disseminating SSF data and information, drawing on relevant elements from existing SSF curricula and training materials, including key approaches to the IHH study.
At the same time, a “Panel Discussion” on “appreciating evidence-based fisheries management and the role of academia for sustainable fisheries management” will be held on September 12, 2024, at the UL Capitol Hill campus to raise awareness of DoFAS’s key role in the science to support NaFAA’s fisheries management function in Liberia.
The targeted group and beneficiaries are the DoFAS faculty, NaFAA’s research and statistics division, collaborative management associations (CMAs), Liberia Artisanal Fishers Association (LAFA), and NGOs currently engaged in the SSF sector in Liberia (including organizations implementing donor-funded fisheries projects). The expected final beneficiary is DoFAS.
