Legal and Regulatory Framework for Small-Scale Fisheries in Mainland Tanzania: Practical Realities and Opportunities

This chapter provides an analysis of the legal and regulatory framework for governing small-scale fisheries in mainland Tanzania. This analysis is motivated by the conviction that the multidimensional challenges facing small-scale fishers can be redressed through a coherent and robust legal and regulatory framework that recognizes, promotes, and protects their rights and freedoms to conduct fishery-related activities. We therefore examined the extent to which the existing national policies, laws, and regulations in mainland Tanzania recognize, respect, and protect the numerous rights and freedoms of small-scale fishers and facilitate the redress of challenges preventing them from generating wealth, contributing to food security and poverty eradication, and conserving inland, coastal, and marine resources. We carefully read and analyzed relevant policy and legal documents and secondary sources to generate evidence on the current state of affairs in the small-scale fishery sector. Based on the evidence generated, we established that (1) small-scale fisheries activities and business are recognized and treated as lawful productive work and businesses; (2) the performance and prominence of the small-scale fisheries sector are obscured in national statistics; (3) access and tenure rights of small-scale fishers are recognized but weakly enforced; (4) the right of small-scale fishers to financial credits is not recognized; (5) the labor rights of small-scale fishers are recognized inadequately and formal social protection mechanisms are nonexistent in the small-scale fisheries sector; (6) many taxes, levies, and bureaucratic procedures for certifying fishery products constrain small-scale fishers from accessing profitable national and international markets; (7) the roles of small-scale fishers in the protection and conservation of fisheries resources and the environment are recognized and promoted, but inadequately supported; and (8) gender issues and disaster- and climate-related challenges in the small-scale fisheries sector are not treated adequately, and appropriate mechanisms for their management are missing. Notwithstanding these limitations, we noted that overall, the status of the rights of access, tenure, and labor of small-scale fishers has improved under the current legal and regulatory framework. They may even improve further with the successful implementation of the National Plan of Action for Implementing the Small-Scale Fisheries Guidelines (NPoA-SSF Guidelines). The NPoA-SSF Guidelines has adopted human rights principles in its planned actions, so it could inspire reviews of the existing policies, laws, regulations, and enforcement mechanisms to integrate and realize the human rights of small-scale fishers.