World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fish Workers

World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fish Workers
  • Forum Mondial des Pecheurs et Travaillerurs de la Peche
  • Foro Mundial de Pescadores y Trabajadores de la Pesca
HeadquartersUganda Kampala, Uganda
Official languages
Membership48 national organizations in 42 countries
Leaders
• Co-Presidents
  • Uganda Margaret Nakato
  • Iceland Arthur Bogasaon
Establishment
Website
[1]

The World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fishworkers (WFF) is an international non-governmental organization that works towards the establishment and upholding of fundamental human rights, social justice and culture of fish harvesters and fish workers, affirming the sea as the source of all life[citation needed] and committing themselves to sustain fisheries and aquatic resources from the present and future generations in order to protect their livelihood.

The WFF is a response and also a search for alternatives to a kind of globalization that understands that the human sense of life overrides trade and the laws of the neoliberal market.[citation needed] It was founded in Quebec, Canada in 1995 after a number of fishworker organizations and concerned intellectuals, academics and social activists felt that while the World Trade Organization (WTO)’s Doha mandate declared that the priority of the current round of negotiations is to lift people out of poverty and promote sustainable development, the current WTO negotiations fail to incorporate their concerns and priorities, as well as those of traditional fishing communities everywhere.

The WFF currently represents 48 national organizations of traditional small-scale fishing communities in 42 nations, whose livelihoods depend directly on the sustainable management of fisheries resources. It acts as a world body representing the concerns of traditional fishing communities whose survival is directly threatened by the reduction of the role of governments in regulating fisheries.

The organization has four principal organs: the General Assembly (the main deliberative assembly); the Regional Councils (in charge of ensuring the coordination of the regional members); the Coordination Committee (in charge of representing the WFF); and the Executive Committee (in charge of handling all administrative and financial matters). The WFF's most public figures are the WFF's co-presidents, currently Margaret Nakato and Arthur Bogason (both since 2009). The organization is mainly funded from membership fees, donations, grants or any other source deemed acceptable by the Coordination Committee. The organization has three official languages: English, Spanish and French.