En Español /En Français
Seafood Summit 2008
Global Challenges, Local Solutions
Barcelona, Spain
January 27 - 30 2008
Agenda
A detailed agenda with dates, times and speaker listings will be available in October 2007, when registration opens. The following is a list of panels and presentations that have been accepted for Seafood Summit 2008. Abstracts are subject to change.
- Panels
- Presentations
- Workshops
Panels
Beginner's Guide to Credible Eco-labeling
With a myriad of seafood guides and eco-labels entering the market, how can fisheries, stakeholders and seafood buyers recognize the good, the bad and the ugly? And beyond the issue of credibility, what are the pros and cons of eco-labelling for national and international bodies? Experts on independent, international norms will inform delegates about what to look for and will present their own analysis and guidance. The panel will not recommend any particular eco-label or certification program. Instead, through presentations and moderated discussion delegates will explore why particular attributes are important, and learn how to ask difficult questions that scratch beneath the surface of claims made by competing eco-labels.
Closing Ports to IUU-Caught Fish
All IUU-caught fish eventually arrives in a port to be landed. Since IUU fishing activities take place out of sight, this is often the first opportunity for authorities to prevent the fish from making it to market. This panel will explore the role that ports play in enabling – and could play in preventing - the business of pirate fishing from expanding, as well as measures to strengthen the obligation and authority of port states to deter IUU fishing
Empowering the Gatekeepers: Chefs, fishers and conservationists unite for seafood sustainability
Chefs are the gatekeepers of the seafood industry. Which seafood species chefs decide to serve determines to a large degree which fish are demanded by consumers, sought by suppliers and thus caught by fishermen. However, there is a giant information void. The flow of seafood sustainability information to chefs, while it is increasing, remains weak and ineffective. Significant and measurable change is possible if the impact of chefs and the power of environmental groups can be united to drive the seafood industry towards sustainability. How does the seafood community overcome this information void? How do we empower our chefs with the knowledge and tools they need? And what does a world look like where chefs, fishers and conservationists unite?
Engaging with Problem Fisheries: How can retailers and processors help “red list” fisheries become sustainable?
The current focus in sustainable seafood is for retailers and processors to avoid very badly managed fisheries - the so-called 'red list' fisheries. But if retailers and processors refuse to engage with red fisheries there will be no incentive to get better. This panel will lay out the ground rules that some retailers and processors have developed for working with fisheries that have problems and explain how they walk the tightrope between improving poor fisheries and endorsing unacceptable fishing practices.
Feed the World: Does a global sustainable seafood movement help or hinder developing countries?
Half of global fish trade comes from developing countries, providing valuable income for some of the world’s poorest nations. Overfishing is a significant threat and in 2002 the World Summit on Sustainable Development recognized the need to assist developing countries in the conservation and sustainable management of fishery resources. This session will outline the issues facing developing countries that are trading fish nationally, regionally and internationally. Giving an overview of the role of seafood in contributing to culture, community, economy and food security in developing countries, the panelists will each present a different aspect related to the seafood trade and sustainable fishing.
Food Miles: The next big sustainability issue or a fundamentally flawed concept?
Climate change is impacting the world’s oceans and may hinder their ability to provide seafood to an increasingly hungry planet. The food industry has begun to tackle this issue through the concept of “food miles”, a seemingly useful idea that has proven to be very controversial. This panel will begin with an overview by Dr. Peter Tyedmers, Dalhousie University, on the scientific issues surrounding food miles and the relative contribution of transport mode within the context of seafood production. Two leading organizations will then present opposing positions on the merits of the concept followed by an open discussion with the audience moderated by George Leonard of Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sustainable Seafood Initiative.
Mediterranean and East Atlantic bluefin tuna: Current situation in relation to the state of the stock, management of the fishery, trade, and consumption
Mediterranean bluefin tuna supports the most important bluefin tuna fishery in the world. It is a key species in the ecology of the Mediterranean, and coastal communities have benefited from its fishing for millennia. The strong development of fishing and farming practices to supply the Japanese market pushed the stock to the verge of collapse. To recover the stock, bold management measures need to be urgently implemented. Full traceability of the fish will certainly help to eradicate the significant amount of IUU catches. The panel will carefully analyze the impact of current levels of consumption on the fishing industry and markets.
Quality and Traceability: Issues for the artisanal fishing sector in West Africa
Quality and traceability of fish products are global issues, of particular importance to the West African artisanal fishing sector, given the key role this sector plays for African populations’ food security as well as for supplying international fish markets (particularly from the European Union). Addressing these issues in an efficient and creative way is vital for the artisanal fishing sector, coastal communities and fish consuming populations. This panel will bring together people from the artisanal fishing sector, as well as privileged observers, to present what solutions are implemented or considered.
Retailers Define “Sustainable” Seafood: A look at the internal seafood sourcing guidelines of US and European food retailers.
Amidst a wave of third-party seafood sustainability standards, several retailers have begun to develop their own seafood purchasing guidelines in order to standardize their purchasing decisions and ensure that the seafood they sell meets their own sustainability criteria. Some of these retailer-generated standards are now the most stringent in existence and, in many cases, have enormous power to shift seafood markets towards rigorous standards. Within the panel, retailers will discuss: sourcing guidelines; challenges of sourcing sustainable seafood; consumer response; and effect on their bottom line. Farmed salmon standards will serve as a case study to explore how retailer policies can influence industry practices.
Talking to the Consumer: How well do we communicate seafood sustainability issues to the end user of the product?
The panelists will represent differing perspectives of the interface with the fish buying public. Senior executives representing a seafood processor, a major UK retailer and also a food journalist will each explain which important seafood issues they feel the consumer needs to be aware of and give an insight into how these communications are being made in the UK today. We will explore how differing consumer interactions can create seafood phobia or build 'brand trust' and how can we best use these channels to ensure that the concerned consumer is given valid information to make an informed purchasing decision.
Presentations
Collective Fisheries Management - The prud'homies: the experience of Mediterranean fishers
The fishers of the French Mediterranean have been organised for several centuries in Prud’homies as a means of structuring fisheries activity according to specifically territorial characteristics and to make the best of their know-how by selling very fresh fish. Instead of specialising by type of fishing, ‘prud’homale’ regulations encourage diversified fishing methods through access rights that are limited by technical, temporal, and spatial criteria. Small-scale fishers target coastal concentrations of fish on a seasonal basis, and switch selective fishing gears in order to allow specific sea beds or species to recover. In the context of intense competition for coastal resources, the prud’hommes preserve both the area and quality of their fishing waters in a number of ways: alerts, legal action, restricted fishing zones. Their present difficulty is to achieve recognition and the means for basing fisheries management on its contribution to regional development, and on its specific territorial coherence, rather than on an all embracing type of management by fish stock, species, or fishing method.
FishSource: helping bridge the information gap in sustainable seafood sourcing policies.
Large retailers will typically source from hundreds of fisheries. Even basic sustainability assessments rapidly mount up to hundreds of thousands of dollars; an effective obstacle to adopting a sustainable seafood procurement policy. Experts involved with McDonald's and Unilever's work in these areas proposed a “common shared database” of public information needed to judge a fishery's sustainability. This public-access workspace is now up and running on line as FishSource. The presentation will demonstrate how FishSource works, the information it contains, and how buyers as well as people providing sustainable sourcing advice can use it.
Friend of the Sea – Certification and promotion of sustainable fisheries
FotS is the only scheme in the world certifying seafood from both sustainable fisheries and aquaculture. FotS fulfils main FAO Guidelines and applies the strictest criteria for fisheries: products fished with impact to the seabed or with unselective fishing methods cannot be certified. Retailers and producers worldwide participate to FotS. All their products are assessed for origin conformity and audited by third party accredited bodies. Conformance and audit procedures allow for a practical, cost and time effective assessment,whilst still maintaining the strictest criteria in thisfield. FotS actively promotes certified products and sustainable fisheries during tradeshows, in the media and at retailers.
Great expectations: How Wal-Mart's seafood commitment has been a catalyst for change.
Two years after Wal-Mart committed to source its fresh and frozen seafood from Marine Stewardship Council certified fisheries, this panel will look at the impacts of the announcement on fisheries, suppliers, Wal-Mart itself and the international retail sector. Looking beyond Wal-Mart, the session will also explore how the company’s announcement has affected the broader sustainable seafood movement and the seafood industry’s shift towards sustainability. This ripple effect is arguably the greatest impact of Wal-Mart’s announcement; the panel will chart the ‘after shocks’ within North America, Europe and Asia.
The Lira-Carnota Initiative
Lira-Carnota fishermen decided in 2003 - just after Prestige oils spill destroyed their fishing grounds – to establish a fishing reserve in their influence area in South Costa da Morte (Galicia, NW Spain). This area was identified by WWF in 2005 as one of the marine treasures it is necessary to conserve in Spain. WWF-Spain is supporting – in collaboration with A Coruña University and LonXanet Foundation - these fishermen efforts developing a project to facilitate the fishingreserve implementation process, which includes biological and sociological monitoring, volunteers, awareness and communication activities, MSC-related activities etc. Fishermen strategy includes other initiatives for commercialization improvement (by internet), public awareness to develop a sustainable fishing and dignify of fishermen life.
Sustainable Performance Benchmarks in Aquaculture: A GAPI View of the World
Web 2.0 and New Tools for Communicating About Sustainable Seafood
How can the sustainable seafood movement leverage online social networks, blogs and mobile applications to share information and get its message out? Will the next generation of the seafood wallet card be digital? When will consumers be able to view a guide to restaurants serving sustainable seafood on their cell phones? Web 2.0 offers many unique opportunities however, it can also seem risky. What does the movement stand to lose by avoiding these tools? The presentation will consist of a PowerPoint presentation of approximately 20 minutes followed by a discussion.
Workshops
Effecting seafood sustainability: What is it European decision-makers, consumers and industry need to know?
The objective of this workshop is to solicit advice from the NGO, government and seafood business communities on how to best to translate the results from a multi-year, international research project on seafood production into actionable information. We begin by reviewing the results to date from an international effort to characterize the life-cycle (“cradle to grave”) environmental and socioeconomic impacts associated with the production of a major seafood commodity—salmon (www.ecotrust.org/lca). With a supply chain originating in both capture fisheries and aquaculture systems, salmon is a salient case study for thinking about making seafood more sustainable. The bulk of the workshop will be spent in facilitated discussions about information products, dissemination channels, potential synergies with existing consumer education campaigns or supply-chain initiatives, and prospective partnerships most useful in the European context. Hoped-for outcomes of this workshop include direction for a communication strategy to help translate our research into tangible outcomes.
This workshop will be jointly convened by Astrid Scholz, Ulf Sonesson, and Peter Tyedmers.
Organic Farmed Fish in Europe and North America
This workshop will a) provide background and insights concerning the development of organic aquaculture standards in North America and Europe; and, b) explore opportunities for greater convergence of the visions for organic aquaculture standards. The United States, Canada, and European Union are now all in the process of developing government organics standards for farmed fish. A number of private certifiers, primarily in Europe, are already certifying as “organic” farmed fish produced under private standards. Canadian, European, and US stakeholders have different visions of organic aquaculture standards. In particular, European private certifiers, NGO’s, and consumers appear largely to accept organic production of carnivorous species and fish raised in net cages. In contrast, many North Americans believe such fish farming is inconsistent with the principles of organic agriculture. Many producers, retailers, and consumers regard the organic label as the “gold standard” for food production. Yet, if markedly different organic aquaculture standards are adopted in North America and Europe, the result may be a lack of common currency in one key element of the seafood choices movement. This workshop is intended to be a first step towards greater commonality.
Protecting the Ocean that Feeds Us: How CO2 pollution threatens the seafood industry, and what we can do about it.
Global emissions of CO2 (37.5 billion tons per year) are poisoning the ocean and may undercut many major fisheries. Each year a third of total emissions mix into the sea, react with seawater to form carbonic acid, and attack the foundation of marine food webs. Seafood producers, marketers, and consumers have an urgent stake in improving our understanding the potential impacts (e.g. marine research) and supporting policies to mitigate the harm (e.g. carbon emissions caps, etc). The seafood industry has real clout on ocean policy and can play a major role in advocating sound national and international policies on this problem. This could be an important area of common ground for industry and conservation groups to protect the ocean that feeds us.
Small Scale and Artisanal Fishing: Key actors of the responsible management of fisheries
Moderated by Bruno Correard of Responsible Fishing Alliance (RFA). Through living examples worldwide, the RFA intends to illustrate the idea that artisanal/small scale fishers can be positive contributors to a responsible management of the fish chain -from the fishery, to the consumer- as they consider, by nature, all aspects of the sustainability: environmental, but also economic and social issues. Iceland – Artisanal fishers and responsible management of the fishery: example of the KRAV certification. Arthur Bogason, WFF & NASBO organization. Chile & Québec – Fish products from traditional fishing: interesting alternatives for European fish market. Pedro Avendano & François Poulin, WFF. Lake Victoria (Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya) – Nile perch fishery: social and economic responsibility of Northern countries. Margaret Nakato, WFF & Katosi Woman Development. Switzerland – Beyond the dream, how to make a sustainable relation between artisanal fisheries and Swiss fish distributors appear? Pierre Hauselman, PIEC & Coordinator of the RFA Pilot project “Building a responsible fish chain in Switzerland”.
Seafood Traceability: An essential element in sustainability
Recent incidences of foods and fishmeal contaminated by illegally introduced, and often toxic, substances have highlighted the issue of knowing where our foods our coming from and what they contain. The seafood industry is no different. Intentional or unintentional product substitution, illegally-sourced seafoods and un-verified certification claims are all of great concern to the global seafood industry. Seafood fraud (substituting a less-expensive fish for a more costly species), sale of seafoods from illegal, under-reported and unregulated (IUU) fisheries is blight on the industry. Traceability is a fundamental component of any seafood certification program. While the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has a chain of custody certification requirement, the problem is much broader. However, the implementation of rigorous traceability steps by all major importing countries and seafood buyers and verification that better fishing practices are being employed will not only reduce illegal and unsustainable activities but also instill greater confidence within the seafood consuming public. This panel will discuss the regulatory and technical tools available to combat misrepresentation of seafood and the trade in IUU fishery products. By giving seafood buyers the means of insuring that what they purchase is from legal sources, traceability will move all fisheries closer to sustainability.
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