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.
