Editor's note

Happy International Women’s Day! This 31st issue of the Pacific Community’s Women in Fisheries Information Bulletin includes eighteen original articles from Fiji, Indonesia, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Marshall Islands and Solomon Islands. Topics covered include tuna, roles of women as fishers and sellers in small-scale fisheries, and gender considerations for coastal livelihoods. Chelcia Gomese from WorldFish and colleagues share an innovative participatory methodology called “photovoice” to capture the viewpoints of local fishers and the value of fisheries in Solomon Islands. For those who want a bit of inspiration, we have profiled a fisheries observer debriefer and assessor from the highlands of Papua New Guinea who found herself drawn to the sea, a local fisherwoman from Fiji who wants to fish all day long, and two Fijian Master of Science graduates returned home and working in the women in fisheries space. We welcome two new Fijian authors to the bulletin. Chinnamma Reddy recently completed a Master of Science looking at the socio-political and socio-economic relationships between customary fishing rights owners and users in Fiji. She writes a short, poignant piece to share the “hidden voices” of three Indo-Fijian women engaged in the fisheries sector. Bulou Vitukawalu, with a Master of Science in aquaculture, summarises a study by the Wildlife Conservation Society to understand the barriers and opportunities for women seafood vendors in municipal markets in Fiji. As the Pacific-European Union Marine Partnership (PEUMP) program gets up and running, staff from the Pacific Community (SPC) present a review of Pacific gender and fisheries literature to understand women’s and men’s roles, contributions and challenges in the fisheries sector. SPC partnered with the University of the South Pacific to trial new training focused on gender, social inclusion and human rights-based approaches in the fisheries sector, which will be rolled out in 2020. On International Women’s Day, we would like to acknowledge and stand in solidarity with all those women and men who are advocating and fighting for gender equality in the fisheries and aquaculture sectors.

Sangeeta Mangubhai

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