Monday, March 21, 2016

The Human Factor:  The Essential Component of Seafood Sustainability

Effective on January 1, 2012, the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act of 2010 required retailers and manufacturers doing business in California to disclose efforts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking from its direct supply chain. The following is Sea Port's required disclosure under this Act:

Risk Assessments

Sea Port Products Corporation performs preliminary risk assessments of all its suppliers for both farmed and wild caught seafood to determine the level of risk associated with slavery, human trafficking, child labor, and other unfair labor practices in their supply chains. In addition, Sea Port requires all suppliers to sign our SUPPLIER ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF ADHERENCE TO SEA PORT'S FAIR LABOR PRACTICES CORPORATE POLICY. To further combat potential lack of transparency in the seafood labor supply chain, Sea Port requires all our suppliers to sign our TRACEABILITY DECLARATION FOR WILD CAUGHT AND FARM RAISED SEAFOOD.

Auditing

Sea Port performs ongoing internal audits of all our suppliers that include both food safety and all the elements of social responsibility.

Certification Requirements

Sea Port supports certification bodies within the seafood industry that are working diligently to incorporate antislavery and fair labor standards for both wild caught and farmed seafood. This will further drive our global seafood supply chains toward becoming more transparent and free from labor abuses.

Internal Accountability

Sea Port is committed to the highest level of ethical conduct in the seafood industry that drives the responsible stewardship of our environment and the expansion of social equity in the global seafood supply chain. All of Sea Port’s employees and suppliers must adhere to our fair labor practices corporate policy that requires compliance with all labor laws, including laws addressing slavery and human trafficking both at home and abroad. Non-adherence to our policy by our employees may result in disciplinary action or termination. Violations by our suppliers will result in dismissal unless corrective action is immediately implemented.

Employee Training

Sea Port's ongoing employee education and training programs help ensure that everyone at Sea Port is aware of our responsible supply chain management principles regarding slavery, human trafficking, child labor, and other unfair labor practices. This awareness will work to quickly identify and initiate corrective actions as mandated by Sea Port's Fair Labor Practices Corporate Policy.

In summary:  Advancing human equity and both the sanctity of the universality and the inalienability of human rights is a key part of Sea Port's Go Blue! Seafood Sustainability Goals.

It is absolutely critical, going forward, that the entire seafood industry assures that the current global seafood labor skill sets are not lost, but are effectively passed on to the next generation of workers that will drive growth.  Having fair and equitable labor practices will make this generational transfer of seafood skills possible by assuring that the "Human Factor" remains an essential component of seafood sustainability.

Sincerely, Dave Glaubke
Director of Sustainability

Saturday, March 12, 2016

Happy Birthday to Both Sea Port and the Magnuson-Stevens Act!


This year Sea Port celebrates its 35th birthday along with the 40th birthday of the Magnuson-Stevens Act and we undoubtedly share a common birthday wish that our ocean resources will provide current and future generations with abundant seafood from both wild fisheries and aquaculture.

Sea Port’s viewpoint is that achieving sustainable seafood from both wild fisheries and aquaculture is a perpetual pursuit rather than a static endpoint because human population and economic changes impact our marine resources along with naturally occurring environmental changes that have nothing to do with human actions. Because of this, both Sea Port and Magnuson must always work with the best available scientific facts and forgo emotional responses.

With this perspective, both Sea Port and the Magnuson-Stevens Act must be able to evolve and adapt to current and foreseen changes that will negatively affect our ability to make sure that our country always has enough seafood to maintain and improve the health of our citizens.

The following changes and potential changes are a few of the possible drivers that will spur us to evolve and adapt our wild fishery and aquaculture practices going forward:

·         Increasing ocean acidification
·         Increasing pollution from municipal, industrial, and agricultural sources, and plastics
·         Increasing world population
·         Increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration
·         Increasing ocean temperatures
·         Increasing atmospheric temperatures
·         Increasing toxic algae blooms
·         Increasing sea levels
·         Increasing loss of productive coastal marshlands, estuaries, and mangrove forests
·         Increasing demand for seafood
·         Increasing demand for freshwater
·         Increasing changes of weather patterns and intensity of storms

The notable birthdays of both Sea Port and the Magnuson-Stevens Act are definitely worthy of celebration.  However, birthdays are also a launching pad toward a brighter future, a future in which both Sea Port and the Magnuson-Stevens Act will adapt and evolve in our shared perpetual pursuit to sustainably maximize the bounty of our wondrous oceans for current and future generations.

Happy Birthday and Many More!

Sincerely, David Glaubke

Director of Sustainability Initiatives, Sea Port Products Corp.

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Rising Sea Level Predictions Should Spur a Global Initiative to Start Planning Now for ways to Protect the Productivity of our Precious Marine Coastal and Estuarine Habitats from the Coming Rising Tide

Sea Port’s business survival is dependent upon productive and sustainable wild fisheries and aquaculture.  With the warming of our oceans there will come a myriad of disruptions that the seafood industry will most likely take in stride and find creative ways to adapt.

However, the disruption caused by a possible rising sea level due to global warming may
present the most difficult challenge to adapt to without incurring a tremendous loss of property
and social stability within our global seafood industry and beyond.

Even though sea level rising predictions vary widely between 1-4 feet by the end of the century, it is
nevertheless prudent to plan now for this risk to our seafood industry and indeed the entire world.

World governments should all work together now to proactively
confront this possible rising tide by:

• Establishing global land use planning initiatives that create undeveloped natural buffer
   zones along coastlines, estuaries, and low- lying salt marshes that are currently still
   undeveloped and underdeveloped 

• Establishing comprehensive global fallback plans for relocating infrastructure that is currently
  entrenched on or near coastlines and estuaries such as ports, farms, manufacturing, power
  generation, and all the other structures associated with functioning urban areas

• Establishing flexible fishery management plans that can react accordingly
   in the face of rising sea levels and the transformation of river systems

In Short:  If the 1-4 foot sea level rise does not actually ever happen, it is still in the world’s
best interest to establish commonly agreed upon comprehensive plans now that protect our Earth's precious coastlines and estuaries from further degradation due to poor spatial planning and poor ecological understanding of their vital roles in keeping both wild fisheries and aquaculture
productive and sustainable for future generations.


Sincerely, Dave Glaubke
Sea Port’s Director of Sustainability Initiatives