Paper short abstract:

This paper explores motivations of marine small-scale fishery migration in Ghana, as overfishing and unsustainable fishing practices have led to the depletion of marine fish-stock, compelling fishers to want to migrate to other West African countries to engage in small-scale fishing.

Paper long abstract:

The small-scale fishery industry is often attributed with overfishing and unsustainable fishing practices that contribute to the depletion of marine fish-stock in Ghana. Fishers have also been less willing to accept proposals for alternative livelihoods, such as crop-farming, animal husbandry and coastline aquaculture to allow for the fishes to re-plenish and restock. Facing these challenges, some fishers have often opted to migrate to engage in fishing elsewhere in other West African countries. In this paper, I explore drivers of marine small-scale fishery migration tendencies in Ghana. The paper draws on Malthusian and Cultural Rights theories of migration to analyse insights from ongo-ing empirical research and critical qualitative content analysis of peer-reviewed, media and civil society fishery reports. The paper highlights how the Malthusian theory, com-pared to the cultural rights theory of fishery migration, offers little explanations for the motivations of fishers to migrate. The Malthusian theory links overfishing with increases in fishing effort and hence holds population growth in fisher communities accountable for fisher migration. It however falls short of explaining why alternative livelihoods have barely succeeded in reducing overfishing. The cultural rights theory, however, stipulates fishing as both a livelihood and a lifestyle, and hence fishers are more likely to migrate to countries where they can continue to practice fishing as a cultural right. The paper concludes by demonstrating how fishery reforms can be inclusive of cultural rights of fishers and promote social justice for small-scale fisher communities in Ghana.