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When the howling blizzard dropped two feet of snow on Boston, the resultant large drifts blocking the sidewalks were a perfect metaphor for our Seafood Expo North America panel topic that day: the barriers to seafood traceability technology adoption…and the strategies that can overcome them. Our colleagues from the Seafood Traceability Collaboration, along with special guest, Roxanne Nanninga from Thai Union, kicked off the session by sharing stories from the field regarding the stuck points they encountered and the potential strategies for combating such challenges in seafood traceability…

Our last trip to Belize took our Global Implementation Manager, Kaitlyn Sephton, and a film crew from University of Washington's Communication Leadership Masters program on a fishing trip with members of the National Fisher's Co-Op in Belize City. This photobook follows them on their trip to make a mini documentary about the co-op we've been working with and the fishers who make their living on the water.

Imagine a world where fisheries managers have at their fingertips access to robust, reliable catch data from the industry and scientific assessments, which they can use to analyze status of the stock, target enforcement efforts, and support seafood businesses through streamlined permitting and reporting processes. In this world, the seafood industry seamlessly and securely shares select data with governing agencies and with trading partners, improving management of stocks and gaining business efficiencies while reducing risk of IUU in their supply chain. Sound futuristic? In…

This is Part 2 in a series. For Part 1, click here. The bleary-eyed group sitting around the table in Boston, Massachusetts had just wrapped up nearly a 12 hour day of interviews. The Board Chair and Plant Manager of the National Fisher’s Co-op (NFC) in Belize were with their partners in Boston for the Seafood Expo North America. At 7pm, this moment marked more than the end of a long few days of meetings and networking—this was the end of a months-long process to select…

Most folks who visit the Mayan Riviera go there for vacation; but if you are in the business of saving fish and fishing communities, Cancun was the place to be last week- not for the beaches, but for the opportunity to attend the World Ocean Summit. This conference attracts policy makers, economists, conservation funders, and technology innovators to engage in a dialogue about ocean challenges, form new collaborations, and make public commitments to improving our oceans. A few members of our Future of Fish…

With almost 10 years of experience, predominantly in small scale fisheries, and with a focus on traceability and improved data systems, Momo has successfully supported the implementation of Fisheries Improvement Projects, has worked to implement the world’s first Fair Trade USA Wild Capture Fisheries certification process and has coordinated national and regional policy and fisheries management initiatives. Momo brings a practical and inclusive approach to 'on the ground' fisheries interventions and believes that this is the way to create sustainability within projects and ownership…

*** Más abajo, versión en español *** As 2017 drew to a close, we continued our work with the artisanal common hake fishery in Chile. (Read about our previous trips here and here.) Building from our initial research phase, we are now beginning to co-design interventions with partners on-the-ground. Our model puts a lot of emphasis on ensuring we are listening and learning from those who live and work in the system, testing and validating ideas with the many local actors who have put so much time…

Traceability is a process. It doesn’t happen overnight. The transition from paper to electronic traceability systems is a journey for any company. Several factors make this process especially difficult for the seafood industry, including the complexities of seafood supply chains, numerous product types, and concerns about data sharing and security. These system-level barriers mean that even the most motivated companies struggle to adopt traceability technology, and as a whole, the seafood industry lags behind most other markets. Alanna Gisondo of FishWise walks participants through the…

A collaboration of four NGOs with strong presence in the seafood traceability space--FishWise, Future of Fish, the IFT’s Global Food Traceability Center, and WWF--will be leading a seafood traceability workshop at the Seafood Expo North America (SENA) on what is required for implementing seafood traceability systems. This hands-on training session will present attendees with available tools and outputs from their collaboration (organized under the Oceans and Seafood Markets Initiative), as well as defining a pathway to achieving full-chain seafood traceability. During the workshop, attendees…

*** Más abajo, versión en español *** “It’s complicated.” When we began researching the common hake fishery in Chile, that’s what we were told, again and again. Now, a new exposé has helped highlight just how complicated solving sustainable seafood can get. This fall, the Chilean investigative journalism program Misión Encubierta (‘Covert Mission’) aired "Algo Huele Mal" (“Something Smells Bad”), a hard-hitting piece exposing illegal and bad practices in the Terminal Pesquero Metropolitano, or TPM. A sprawling complex of warehouses, the TPM acts as a giant chokepoint, funneling…

Touched by Argentina’s tragic social protests of December 2001, Iván Greco set out to study real-world economics to better understand the roles and responsibilities of economic development. From cities to rural areas and back again, Iván has described urban segregations in Uppsala neighborhoods in Sweden (where he got his Master's in Sustainable Development) and socio-environmental conflicts and asymmetries of power between artisanal fishers and industrial corporations in the Center North and Center South of Chile. He has also participated in government teams in Argentina,…

Earlier this summer, our Future of Fish founder Cheryl Dahle handed the Executive Director reins over to Peter Battisti. To mark the occasion, we asked Peter and about his vision for the organization and what we might expect from Future of Fish and the seafood industry in the coming years. Q: What do you see as the most important issues of the future, and how is Future of Fish addressing them? The issue that I see as most pressing for all of us who…