September 2014

The Seafood Champion Award finalists were announced in Hong Kong on the 4th of September and the winner will be presented at the 11th Seaweb Seafood summit, to be help 9-11 February 2015 in New Orleans, USA.

Fishing & Living is proud and excited to be a finalist for an international award that recognizes individuals, companies and organizations for outstanding leadership, innovation, advocacy and vision for promoting and pushing forward environmentally responsible seafood. It is a great honour to be part of this competition organized by Seaweb, a non-profit organization that promotes healthy oceans for the world. Fishing & Living also congratulates MDPI, our partner NGO in Indonesia, who have also been nominated as a finalist in the Vision Category. See story on MDPI website.

Since 2010, Fishing & Living has be actively involved in fisheries improvement projects (FIPs) as well as community development initatives in fisheries where Anova sources tuna. Concerned with the environmental health of the fisheries they sourced from in Indonesia, Anova partnered with WWF to implement FIPs and began the process of working toward MSC certification of Indonesian Handline Yellowfin tuna and better fishing practices in longline fisheries. Anova’s Fishing & Living team wasn’t satisfied with focusing just on the environmental health of the fisheries. They wanted to help the fishing communities as well. What emerged was a novel approach to sustainability driven by the core tenants of Fishing & Living- that truly sustainable fisheries address not only the environmental aspects of the fishery, but also the local community development and the wellbeing of the fishermen.

As Anova expanded to other tuna fisheries, F&L took the opportunity to adapt its model to the needs of other fisheries. Since 2012, F&L has actively supported the WWF lead Vietnam FIP and in January 2013 F&L started leading the charge towards FIPs in the Pacific Islands. It took on the role of FIP leader for the Cook Islands, providing support in developing FIP Action Plans, improving logbooks and training crews for improved ETP interactions. Plans are currently being made to implement tuna FIPs in the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Fiji and Mauritius as well.

Anova’s F&L wants to show the seafood industry that concern for the environment and fishing communities is the best route to sustainability.