Did you know that around 3 billion people globally rely on farmed and wild-caught seafood as their primary source of protein?
The demand for seafood is projected to grow an additional 50m tonnes by 2025, this rise goes hand in hand with population and income growth, this rise is also paired with disastrous consequences for the environment and for the livelihoods of millions of people.
A recent article in the National Geographic states that 66% of the oceans have been impacted by humans. Estimations show that 85% of marine fish stocks are either fully exploited or over fished – this is alarming. Not to mention the significant impact of plastic pollution and acidification on marine life.
Current global and local efforts are helping to restore and protect the seafood industry, however, there are some persistent issues that must be addressed for this industry to thrive in the coming decades. Following are three alarming issues and ways that we can collaboratively push the sector further towards sustainability.
Issue 1: Over fishing and by-catch continue to be a threat to marine life.
Over fishing remains a huge threat to marine life, in fact in a single generation global marine populations have declined by 49% as a result of over fishing. Over fishing is closely connected to by-catch. By-catch is the incidental capture of non-targeted species, WWF claims that over 300,000 small whales, dolphins and porpoises are caught each year as they are entangled in fishing nets. Another astonishing fact: global by-catch could total 63 billion pounds annually, that’s 40% of the world’s catch.
Issue 2: Fishing gears (and aquaculture equipment) contribute to the ocean plastic issue.
The amount of plastic in the ocean is set to exceed the amount of organic life by 2050. A significant amount of this plastic (some research says around half) is made up of fishing and aquaculture products. This includes nets, line, rope, plastic storage containers, and much more.
Nylon plastic fishing nets constitute a large portion of plastic ocean pollution, an estimated 640,000 tons of fishing gear left in the ocean each year. This waste is also some of the most damaging as once waste is lost, it can travel for miles, often killing fish, mammals, and sea birds along the way.
Issue 3: There is a lack of effective traceability measures in the seafood supply chain.
In a significant amount of the world seafood, mislabelling remains a significant issue. In a recent study in Canada it is estimated that nearly 50% of all seafood is mislabelled. Moreover, in some cases there are more pounds sold of a species, than there are even officially harvested.
The 6 building blocks of market transformation push sectors towards more collaboration and alignment.
These three issues only touch the surface of the mounting problems within the seafood industry. We recognize that some of the largest issues mentioned above are:
- due to poor data collection and monitoring, incorrect measures, or poor data management. For example, in order to better manage by catch, improved data collection and monitoring is needed to assess the magnitude of by catch.
- fueled by disorganized and misunderstood data where there is potential to collect significantly more data or to better understand available data. To push the sector forward; ranking, organizing, and generating insights from quantitative and qualitative metrics gives deep insights into a given sector or issue, allowing for strategic guidance to be built on sound data systems.
To realize these goals and tackle sustainability issues, collaborative efforts and multi-stakeholder initiatives are needed that cut across challenges on both local and global scales.
Throughout the years, we at NewForesight have identified 6 key building blocks that propagate collaboration, and push the sector to move forward.
At NewForesight we recognize that collaboration around a shared vision and language, is essential to generate change. Our collaborative strategies lower the risks in your supply-chain, increase accountability between sector stakeholders at global and local levels. Most importantly, these strategies enable you to create added value together.
Our seafood expert Peter Chauvel is passionate about the seafood industry (although funnily enough he does not eat it!) and would be happy to discuss latest trends with you or see how NewForesight can help you.