Small-Scale Fisheries
Investment in small-scale fishers and fisheries can protect and restore fish stocks and foster local economic development.

Small-Scale Fisheries Strategies

The Mariscos Strategy The Mangue Strategy The Isda Strategy

The Small-Scale Fisheries strategies focus on three countries: Chile, Brazil and the Philippines

The term “small-scale fishery” typically refers to any fishery in which fishers operate independent of larger corporations, using vessels ranging up to 18 m in length. In developing countries, small-scale fishers, sometimes called “artisanal fishers”, generally fish within 5-10 km of shore and rarely stay out at sea for more than one to three days at a time. The FAO estimates that 50% of landings are generated by small-scale fishers and that 90% of the total 30 million estimated fishers globally are small-scale.

Despite their vital role in the global seafood industry, small-scale fishers remain impoverished essentially the world over because they lack the capital, infrastructure, and/or know-how necessary to commercialize their products. This economic distress, when combined with the multitude of environmental challenges these fishers face, including overfishing, habitat destruction, ocean acidification, and even impacts from land-based activities – creates even greater vulnerability.

Investment Strategy

The small-scale fisheries Investment Blueprints focus on implementing management improvements across a portfolio of community-based, nearshore fisheries, which, in aggregate, enable production at sufficient scale to support the sourcing needs of a mission-aligned small to medium sized processing and distribution company. In addition to funding the design and implementation of tailored fishery management improvements, investments would upgrade supply chain infrastructure and operations, in an effort to maximize catch value per unit volume. In doing so, the strategies seek to differentiate and improve small-scale fishery products that are currently sold as low-value commodities. The resulting economic benefits could in turn be shared with fishers to reward compliance with sustainable fishing practices.

Proposed Small-Scale Seafood Supply Chain Interventions

Harvest	Handling	Cold Chain/ Transport	Processing	distribution

Fisheries Management Improvements
	Seafood Distribution Companies
Catalyze stakeholder engagement Fund local fisheries governance systems Implement fishing access limitations Establish fish recovery zones Install catch accounting systems Provide ecosystem monitoring and assessment technologies and systems Increase enforcement Provide product tracking and traceability	Use gear types that are less damaging to the products Provide ice/shade on the vessels Improve handling and storage to avoid bruising and tearing Provide product tracking and traceability	Construct buying stations Build hygienic sorting and cleaning facilities Use cold truck and cold transit systems Provide product tracking and traceability	Construction and use of modernized processing facilities Use hygiene and food safety standards to avoid contamination and extend life of product Utilize quality packing and packaging materials to extend product life and maintain quality Provide product tracking and traceability	Develop higher value products Cultivate brands to serve customer preferences for sustainability, quality, and food safety Provide product tracking and traceability Expand to new markets

Comparison of Strategies

	The Marsicos Strategy	The Mangue Strategy	The Isda Strategy
Country	Chile	Brazil	The Philippines
Proposed Investment Amount	$7.0 million	$15.0 million	$11.7 million
Investment Term	5 years	9 years	10 years
Fishery/Species Focus	Multispecies, benthic focus on razor clams, scallops, stone crab, king crab, nylon shrimp, abalone, and mussels	Mangrove crab	At least 20 species, including tuna, mahi mahi, snapper, trevally, mackerel, lobster, octopus, squid, crab, and sea urchin
Core Investments	Fishery management improvements Seafood companies	Fishery management improvements Seafood companies	Fishery management improvements Seafood companies
Number of Fishing Communities Incorporated	7	98	40 initially, up to 80
Number of Fishers Engaged	550	1,300	19,000
Targeted Impact Returns: Protecting and Restoring Fish Stocks	Protect existing biomass from overfishing with potential upside increase of 10%	Protect existing biomass from overfishing with potential upside increase of 10%	Protect existing biomass from overfishing with potential upside increase of 20%
Targeted Impact Returns: Supporting Fisher Livelihoods	Pay a premium of 25% to market prices for raw materials sourced, increasing aggregate fisher income by $1.8 million over the investment period Establish and fund a Fishing Community Trust Empower fishing communities as long-term commercial partners	Pay a premium of 33% to market prices for raw materials sourced, increasing aggregate fisher income by $1.2 million over the investment period Establish and fund a Fishing Community Trust Empower fishing communities as long-term commercial partners	Pay a premium of 15% to market prices for raw materials sourced, increasing aggregate fisher income by $11.9 million over the investment period Establish and fund a Fishing Community Trust Empower fishing communities as long-term commercial partners
Targeted Impact Returns: Feeding More People	Safeguard the supply of 5 million seafood meals annually Increase meals to market through 13.5% reduction in spoilage, delivering an additional 150,000 seafood meals to consumers annually	Safeguard the supply of 6.5 million seafood meals annually Increase meals to market through 90% reduction in spoilage, delivering an additional 2.4 million seafood meals to consumers annually	Safeguard the supply of 6.7 million seafood meals annually Increase meals to market through a 13% reduction in spoilage in the supply chain, delivering an additional 800,000 meals to consumers annually
Potential Financial Returns	11.1% targeted IRR with exit sale to strategic buyer	12.0% targeted IRR with exit sale to strategic buyer	20.7% targeted IRR with exit sale to strategic buyer

Three Unique Strategies

The Mariscos Strategy

The Mangue Strategy

The Isda Strategy

The Mariscos Strategy
A $7.0 million investment to protect benthic species and support 550 fishers.

Chile

Chile’s 6,435 km coastline constitutes one of the most biodiverse and productive nearshore marine environments in the world, accounting for 4% of the world’s fisheries catch. This productivity can be attributed in large part to the physical heterogeneity of the coastline, with at least five unique ecoregions, as well as unique oceanographic conditions including upwelling, nutrient inputs, freshwater influx, temperature regime, and bathymetric complexity.

The Mariscos Strategy (Mariscos) is a hypothetical $7.0 million impact investment to protect seven small-scale shellfish and crustacean fisheries along the Chilean coastline. The investment would fund the implementation of management improvements across these fisheries and the communities harvesting them, known in Chile as “caletas”, and be used to expand an existing consumer packaged goods company producing gourmet ‘heat and eat’ meals for Latin American consumers.

The Mariscos Strategy proposes the following bundled set of investments:

An investment of $4.5 million over five years into the design and implementation of robust caleta-level fishery management improvements across the seven portfolio caletas.
An investment of $2.5 million into the expansion of GustoMar, which would sell gourmet “heat-and-eat” meals to regional retail outlets and through the institutional food service channel.

Targeted Species

Pacific Razor Clams

Pacific Razor Clams
Siliqua patula

Chilean Mussels

Chilean Mussels
Mytilus chilensis

Chilean Scallop

Chilean Scallop
Argopecten purpuratus

King Crab

King Crab
Lithodidae spp.

Stone Crab

Stone Crab
Cancer edwardsi

Nylon Shrimp

Nylon Shrimp
Mesodesma donacium

Chilean Abalone

Chilean Abalone
Concholepas concholepas

The Mangue Strategy
A $15 million investment to protect mangrove ecosystems and support 98 fishing communities.

Brazil

Straddling the heart of the Amazon Basin, the state of Pará consists of some of the most species-rich land on earth, and as such it is the subject of much national and international environmental concern. Large portions of Pará are threatened by illegal deforestation, and there are ongoing conflicts between the government and local inhabitants over land occupation in the western rainforest areas. Pará’s fisheries produce 50% of total mangrove crab landed nationally.

The Mangue Strategy (Mangue) is a hypothetical $15 million impact investment to protect the mangrove crab (Ucides cordatus) fishery in the Brazilian state of Pará. The $15 million would fund the implementation of critical fishery management improvements across the fishery, and be used to launch an integrated processing, marketing, and export business. This would include the construction of strategically-located raw material buying stations, and a modern processing facility designed to meet both domestic and international food safety standards.

Mangue proposes three core investments, split between fishery improvement and community development activities and commercial infrastructure and operations, including:

Engagement with fisheries authorities and communities to secure specific fishery management policy reforms.
An investment of an initial $3.5 million into fishery management improvement activities across 98 fishing communities in the 10 RESEX zones, incorporating up to 1,260 full-time, professional crabbers comprising 65% of the fishery.
An investment of $11.5 million into a new Crab Export Business (CEB) consisting of the construction of 10 buying stations for sourcing raw materials, construction of a processing facility, and development of new marketing and sales channels for the Brazilian mangrove crab.

Targeted Species

Mangrove Crab

Mangrove Crab
Ucides cordatus

The Isda Strategy
A $11.7 million investment to protect 24 marine species and engage up to 19,000 fishers.

The Philippines

Despite the importance of marine fisheries in the Philippines to both food security and the economy, it ranks 21st among the top 28 fish-producing nations in terms of fishery management and governance, due to limited research capacity, lack of effective access limitations, and improving but still inadequate enforcement of existing regulations.

The Isda Strategy (Isda) is a hypothetical $11.7 million impact investment to protect and restore small-scale fisheries incorporating 80 communities across the Philippine archipelago and 14 species. The $11.7 million investment would fund the implementation of fishery management improvements across both pelagic and nearshore fisheries, and be used to expand an existing seafood processing and distribution company, “TambaCo”, that produces premium fresh and chilled tuna and mahi mahi products for domestic and export markets.

The Isda Strategy proposes the following bundled set of investments:

An investment of $6.2 million into the design and implementation of robust fishery management improvements across the 80 portfolio communities.
An investment of $5.5 million into the expansion of TambaCo, a mission-aligned company with a record of success in the processing and distribution of high grade fresh and chilled tuna products.

Targeted Species Include

Spiny Lobster

Spiny Lobster
Panulirus spp.

Sea Urchin

Sea Urchin
Echinoidea spp.

Octopus

Octopus
Octopus spp.

Blue Swimming Crab

Blue Swimming Crab
Portunus pelagicus

Yellowfin Tuna

Yellowfin Tuna
Thunnus albacares

Mahi Mahi

Mahi Mahi
Coryphaena hippurus

Download Small-Scale Blueprints

The Mariscos Strategy : An Investment Blueprint for Small-Scale Fisheries in Chile

The Mangue Strategy : An Investment Blueprint for Small-Scale Fisheries in Brazil

The Isda Strategy : An Investment Blueprint for Small-Scale Fisheries in the Philippines