Sustainability Abroad

By Jeremy Crawford

Indonesia

Asosiasi Pengelolaan Rajungan Indonesia (APRI), held an important board meeting that sought to reinvigorate participation of it’s 13 members through implementing new policies in it’s organization that included increased membership fees and repercussions for non-participation.  Repercussions include fines, increased fees, usage rights of the Crab Council logo, and expulsion from the association altogether that may impede Crab Council member’s ability to source from them. An assessment of membership will begin this year.

APRI Executive Director Dr. Hawis Madduppa reviewed 2014 activities of the FIP. While APRI Secretary, Bambang Nugraha (Bluestar Foods), reiterated future direction and industry leadership of the sustainability initiative that includes focus on stock assessments, gear selectivity, and finalization of a fishery management framework.  For presentation documents follow the link.

Thailand

On December 15^th at the Thai Department of Fisheries, a Technical Working Group comprised of fishery managers, NGO’s and industry representatives met to discuss elements of the FIP Action Plan that is under review.  It was a preliminary meeting leading up to larger fishery stakeholder roundtable to divulge and finalize the Thai BSC FIP Action Plan.  Key discussion topics were clarifications of MSC Principle Indicators, scoring from the initial Pre Assessment, possible actions and organizations to address them.  To see the Thai MSC Pre Assessment, follow the link.

India

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) played host to a training workshop in Kochi, Kerala, as part of their Developing World Program.  The workshop covered topics from the MSC Standard for Sustainability, Scoring Fisheries against the Standard, Traceability, a Process for Fisheries Wishing to Improve Towards Sustainability, and Tools for Improvement.  Representatives from the Indian Crab Processors Association (ICPA) attended the workshop and assured participants that they are committed to starting a FIP in the near future.  Dr. Ajitha Kumar of Handy Waterbase, highlighted the need to protect the fishery through the FIP process.  You can download presentations from the workshop by following the link.

Vietnam

Quong Trong Thao, Deputy Director of DARD (Department of Agriculture and Rural Development), Kien Giang, calls for more action on the ground.  Since the FIPs launch in 2012 most activities have been centered around forming the FIP Steering Committee and conducting the fishery stock assessment.  The fishery has had no history in collecting landing, fishing effort, nor biological baseline data.  The fishery assessment model requires comparative seasons so that outputs are more precise, and management inputs effective.  However coming to 2 years of data collection and a year prior for organizing the FIP, fishery managers are keen to see more actionable progress on the ground.  Co-management and communication initiatives have been planned for the past 2 years but have not been able to be implemented because of a shortage of funding.  After the FIPs last annual review in October, DARD are keen to keep the momentum going, and capitalize on whatever data is utilizable to enable change at the fisher and trader level for the better.  For more information on the FIP follow the link to their FIP Documents.

Sustainability At Home

Enhancement Workshop Gives Way to FIP Workshop

The Crab Council has canceled the enhancement workshop scheduled for March 2015 in the Philippines in favor of a FIP and enhancement workshop later in the year. We received a $2500 grant from SeaPact for this workshop and they are willing to consider modifying the grant to accommodate our plans. The U.S. enhancement experts who agreed to participate in the workshop in March remain interested in our crab enhancement efforts and are willing to assist in the new workshop or in other ways in the future.