This 37th edition of the Pacific Community’s (SPC) Women in Fisheries Information Bulletin has 19 original articles from the Pacific region. As borders opened, most organisations have quickly ramped up their work. As a result, there has been an astounding surge of work on gender in fisheries and aquaculture. We seemed to be making real progress on getting gender recognised as an integral part of the sector.
Jonathan Fisk shares work from American Samoa to document fishing practices of women and fa'afafine and their broader relationalities with the seas, and the value of taking a gender-intentional approach. Victoria Syddall writes on men’s experience of gender-based violence, as she explores the roles and experiences of women and men in tuna fisheries in Fiji. Tarateiti Uriam Timiti describes fisheries management efforts of Tabonibara women in Kiribati. Cherie Morris provides details of the University of the South Pacific’s new gender and environment tertiary educational programme. The Ministry of Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation in Fiji has published a statistics rich report on their Gender Transformative Institutional Capacity Development Initiative that is worth a read. Lastly, I am proud to share some of my own work with Pacific Islands and Australian colleagues where we put forth some ideas on how to progress gender equality in fisheries by building strategic partnerships with development organisations.
There are many new projects, publications, and research in the Pacific region, and I am grateful to all our authors and their organisations who take the time to share their work. We welcome a number of new lead authors to the bulletin – Jonathan Fisk, Jill Houma, Zafiar Naaz, Nettie Thomas Sapa, Tarateiti Uriam Timiti and Alani Tuivucilevu.
Sangeeta Mangubhai