Yunus Aboud is Chair of the Shela Beach Management Unit (BMU) in Malindi, Kenya. As chair of the BMU, he is respinsible for the sustainable management of his community’s local marine resources. He’s struggling to find a path forward to address the tensions between bottom trawlers, which are damaging coastal ecosystems and degrading local fisheries, and small-scale fishers, who rely on these same ecosystems and fisheries for their livelihoods and food security. He calls on the national government to take action to address bottom trawling so that small-scale fishers’ rights can be upheld. As a first step, he wants bottom trawlers to fish further offshore, away from artisanal fishing grounds.
A call for government action on bottom trawlers to protect small-scale fishers’ rights in Malindi, Kenya