Monday, November 10, 2014

Sea Port helps sponsor Ocean Trust’s Science and Sustainability Forum

At the end of October Sea Port attended Ocean Trust’s Science and Sustainability forum in New Orleans that brought together top fishery scientists from around the world to discuss the state of the world’s fisheries in terms of sustainability and the practicality and fairness of eco-certification schemes. 

The annual Science & Sustainability Forum was created four years ago by Ocean Trust and it has now established itself as an influential international gathering of professional fishery scientists for promoting sustainable fishery practices that are based on the best available science and common sense.

The consensus at the forum was that the world’s major commercial fisheries are now managed for sustainability.  However, concern was raised about the fairness of requiring eco-certifications for the smaller scale coastal fisheries that primarily exist in developing countries. 

What we have seen is that many of these [ecolabelling] schemes are eliminating access of small scale fisheries particularly in developing states to international markets,” said Fabio Hazin, Chair of the UN Food & Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Committee on Fisheries. “This is a very worrying trend and we have to come up with a solution for that.”


During the conference Sea Port offered these inputs:


·         Sea Port stated that the altruistic end-goal of NGOs that charge money for certifying fisheries as sustainable should be the termination of their fees once governments establish credible systems to responsibly manage their own fishery resources.   Sea Port further opined that it should be the ultimate responsibility of governments (not NGOs) to guarantee the sustainability of their seafood to the buying public.

·         China should be represented at these meetings in the future because they produce over 40% of the world’s seafood (wild caught and aquaculture combined).  It is incumbent that China becomes a more active global participant in improving the sustainable production of seafood for an ever-expanding world population.



Sea Port is committed to helping sponsor next year’s forum and to once again have the opportunity to learn from this influential gathering of world-renowned fishery scientists.   


Sincerely, David Glaubke
Director of Sustainability Initiatives
Sea Port Products Corp.


No comments:

Post a Comment

Please Comment - Thank you!