The Pacific Community is working with the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) States to engage communities around fish-aggregating devices (FAD) and sea safety. This work aims to create alternative fishing grounds, generate income for the communities, and improve the communities’ livelihoods and food security. A FAD is an anchored float or set of floats, two miles out from the shore, which aggregates fish, so fishers know where to go for schools of fish without wasting fuel.
The project’s community engagement through SPC’s People Centred Approach (PCA) is revitalising the Federated States of Micronesia’s fish-aggregating devices and safety at sea
People-Centred Approach at the heart of fish-aggregating devices and sea safety work
While FADs have been used for decades, their longevity tend to be less than a year due to vandalism, poor maintenance, etc. Community engagement is now turning the situation around. SPC and its partners are involving the community from the planning stage to the deployment, utilisation and maintenance of FADs phase.
This is bringing positive results, especially in Pohnpei, where six FADs have now been deployed.
SPC’s People-Centred Approach (PCA) is at the heart of this initiative.
Donald David, FADs and Sea Safety Focal Officer in the FAME division, said:
“I will continue with the PCA since I am now more familiar with the process and approaches being discussed. It will really help with my future community consultations”.
The PCA places Pacific people at the centre of planning, implementation, decisions, discussions, monitoring and reporting. It recognises people as unique individuals and as part of a collective with valuable contributions, experiences and skills in particular cultural contexts and with unique sets of values. The PCA components comprises of human rights, gender equality, social inclusion with a focus on youth, disability inclusion, sexual orientation, gender identity and positive expressions of Pacific culture.
Embedded in SPC’s Social and Environmental Responsibility Policy (2020), the PLANET principles guide the integration and implementation of PCA across SPC’s programs, projects and operations.
| Table 1. SPC’s PLANET principles explained | |
|---|---|
| Principles | Definitions |
| Participation | Building in participatory and inclusive decision-making by affected people and communities. |
| Link to rights | Framing programmes as fulfilling human rights obligations and objectives. |
| Accountability | Being accountable, by making information accessible and building in feedback and complaints mechanisms. |
| Non- discrimination | Committing to equal opportunity and equal outcomes, by not discriminating on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, impairment or disability, religious or political beliefs, age, marital or relationship status, pregnancy or family responsibilities. |
| Empowerment | Empower Pacific people in all their diversities with knowledge and expertise. Fostering an enabling environment in which people can employ their knowledge and claim their rights. |
| Transforming social norms | Working with partners to transform harmful social norms that constrain development, including by relating human rights to custom, culture and religious value. For example, participation of people in all their diversities in decision making bodies. |
Implementing the PLANET principles in the fisheries sector
A recent article: ‘Community engagement through SPC’s People Centred Approach revitalises the Federated States of Micronesia’s fish-aggregating devices and safety at sea’, published in the latest edition of Fisheries, Aquaculture & Marine Ecosystems (FAME)’s Women in Fisheries Information Bulletin explores how this particular project applies the PLANET principles. This is based on a presentation by Donald David, the FAD and sea safety project officer in SPC’s Fisheries, Aquaculture Marine and Ecosystems division during the SPC PCA training for its staff in the Micronesia sub region in February of this year.
PCA training in the Micronesia sub region
Participation: The project collaborates with the Pohnpei state government and organises community consultations with community leaders, men, women, youth groups and other marginalised groups. During these consultations the project receives supports from the fishers, discuss and agree on the work plan that the fishers will be engage in, agree on roles and responsibilities to implement and monitor the FAD, enhancing community ownership. BFADs effectively. David emphasised that “fishers actively participate in the development stages of constructing and installing FAD such as planning, rigging, monitoring and maintenance enhancing their awareness about its importance and their roles to oversee its maintenance demonstrating a sense of ownership. Since we are deploying these FAD outside the reef, sea safety awareness is integrated with the coastal FAD to ensure fishers and community members are aware on the importance on sea safety while fishing on these FADs”.
Link to human rights - Anchored FADs have a role in supporting coastal fisheries management activities, enhancing food security and livelihoods, increasing economic return for fishers and improving sea safety . Though its impacts on human rights can be complex pending on how they are managed, FADs attract fishes enabling fishers to have access to a source of food and income, which enhances food security and income generating opportunities hence promotes the right to food and adequate standard of living. Further, FADs can support women's economic independence contributing to gender equality by giving women fishers, their families and communities better access to resources. David underscored that indigenous Pacific Islanders have cultural ties to marine resources and FADs can support these communities to maintain their indigenous and cultural fishing practices while adapting to modern fishing practices supporting the rights to cultural identity and heritage.
Accountability - FAD can help track fish stocks, fishing activities, and the effectiveness of fishing strategies, enabling leaders to make informed decision about the state of the fisheries or marine resources and they can be accountable to the communities regarding their decisions. The active community engagement component of this project is seeing inclusive community management systems allowing community members in all their diversities to provide inputs into how FADs are rigged, deployed, monitored and managed. This process happens during the community consultations led by SPC in collaboration with the Pohnpei state government and the community creating a platform that allows for community members to voice their needs and concerns to the government leaders. Hence this relationship enhance accountability, as SPC and the state government have a responsibility to listen and response to the needs and concerns of the people about the fisheries resources.
Non-discrimination: In the efforts to promote non-discrimination, the project engages with community members in all their diversities. In the pacific, women contribute actively to the fisheries and aquaculture sector by doing near shores fishing, gleaning shells, sea cucumbers, urchins, seaweed and other coastal resources, while men are involved in deep sea fishing. However, women’s contributions in the fisheries supply chain are still poorly understood, undervalued and underappreciated. To address these issues, the project is shifting the dial to promote non-discriminatory practices by ensuring women’s voices and concerns are at the centre and are highly considered and recognises their skills in the construction of the FAD.
Empowerment: The engagement of community members appealed an empowering way of working. It is demonstrated through the project activities that the fishers co-plan the FAD related activities and were able to construct and deploy the FADs. David pointed out that during community engagement consultations the men, women, youth and other diverse community participants receive training about the rigging of a FAD mooring system, ensuring it's stable and functional to attract fish. They also receive awareness sessions about sea safety to ensure fisher’s safety during the FAD deployment. The sea safety aspect of FADs resonates with most with fishers and their families. Sea safety awareness is conducted in the communities, along the shorelines before FAD deployment and in schools. As a result, several communities, from their own initiatives, initiated their own sea safety campaign with the assistance of SPC and counterparts.
Transforming social norms - The work around FAD and boat safety highly engages men but the community engagement components is an enabler for men, women, youth and other 6 marginalised groups to engage in the project. The community engagement part of this project is transforming social norms by influencing gender roles, environmental stewardship, decision-making processes, and community cooperation. In many Pacific Island communities, women traditionally have significant roles in post-harvest activities like processing, selling, and marketing fish but have less access to decision-making power and economic benefits. FADs help to shift these dynamics by improving access to fish, which can increase women’s involvement in the entire fishing value chain, including catching, processing, and selling. Conventionally, fisheries management in many Pacific Island communities involve hierarchical decision-making, with leaders or elders making most of the decisions about resource use. It is evident that through the project’s continuous community engagement, it opens the window of inclusive and collaborative decision-making processes amongst the local fishers, SPC and the government stakeholders, which is a shift in social norms.
Applying the PLANET principles in the context of FAD and boat safety project shows the integration between the scientific knowledge and the social dimensions particularly through community engagement. Through active community engagement, the programme equips the fishers with knowledge and skills to fish smarter and safer to sustain their livelihood whist, protecting the marine resources and promote sustainable fishing practices.
Source: Adapted from Kalsuak J and David, D. (2025) Community engagement through SPC’s People Centred Approach revitalises the Federated States of Micronesia’s fish-aggregating devices and safety at sea, Women in Fisheries Information Bulletin
"The work that SPC does, and the work that all our partners do, is really about supporting people. The common denominator for all of us is the people of the Pacific"
William Kostka
SPC Regional Director, Micronesia
Lessons learned will be useful for the rest of the Pacific, which also faces similar issues.
Read the article in FAME’s Women in Fisheries No 42 (September 2025) for more details: Community engagement through SPC’s people centred approach revitalises the Federated States of Micronesia’s fish aggregating devices and safety at sea
