This report was originally published on The Solutions Journal.
“Forward: After fifteen years of deep involvement in the sustainable seafood movement globally, it became apparent where the movement has excelled and where particular challenges remain. Two things are clear: the ecological health of oceans is still deeply threatened and funding is not always successfully appropriated to address these threats.
The solutions proposed in this article come from both ecosystem service science and sustainable business and complement efforts to improve sheries. These include practical ways of reducing overfishing, protecting marine habitats, and providing company sustainability commitment to society through eco-labelling schemes such as the Marine Stewardship Council.
Seafood is a significant source of food, and industry, governments, nongovernmental organizations, companies, and philanthropists care deeply about the health of sheries and sh farming. The question is, who pays how much to fix the problems? Ecosystem service review, and, where data is strong enough, valuation, can be used to figure out which impacts are being caused by whom as well as who is dependent on nature and to what extent. This can then inform who could or should pay, and based on their level of responsibility or dependency, how much they should pay to fix problems.
Lastly, increasing scrutiny is coming from investors, insurers, and nanciers on company environmental, social, and governance performance. A new set of metrics has been developed to enable seafood companies to more consistently assess and measure their operations. This will improve the transparency of seafood production and support efforts to reduce not just their environmental impacts but also the social conditions under which seafood is produced…”
Download the report here.
