Certifications are essential credentials for improving fisheries, reducing instances of illegal fishing, increasing the effective use of fish waste, and achieving food security, according to Libby Woodhatch, the executive chair of London, U.K.-based marine ingredient certification body MarinTrust.
During this year’s edition of IFFO – The Marine Ingredients Organization’s annual conference in Cape Town, South Africa, which took place from 23 to 25 October, Woodhatch spoke to SeafoodSource on the importance of these certifications, particularly emphasizing that the improvement of marine fisheries through certifications leads to catching fewer but higher-quality fish.
“Marine ingredient producers want to make high-quality fishmeal and fish oil for fed aquaculture and other consumers, but that is only possible with high-quality fish byproducts,” she said. “This means they have to source their fish from certified fisheries that are well-managed because they also want to provide assurance to their customers that they are not processing fish that is obtained illegally, unreported, and unregulated (IUU).”
Citing the example of Mauritania, where the country’s small pelagic fishery is often targeted by purse-seine and pelagic trawl vessels, Woodhatch described how fishery improvement projects (FIPs) aimed at attaining certification can open up products to international markets.
“There may be challenges whenever a country is starting out on a fishery improvement project since not all factories or players in the value chain have bought into the idea, but the biggest step for such a process is for the parties to get to the starting line,” Woodhatch said. “With the coming on board of the Mauritanian government, despite initial reluctance because officials had not fully comprehended the importance of a fish improvement project, there is now opportunity to collect and share data hence improving transparency along the value chain.”
That initial reluctance to participate in fishery improvement and certification programs from the Mauritanian government is true of many global fish-processing factories and governments, with Woodhatch attributing the hesitancy to a lack of knowledge on why these processes are important.
Thailand is another case where Woodhatch has “seen huge changes after the government and some marine ingredient producers collaborated to improve the country’s fisheries,” she said. “With the certification of some of the marine ingredient producers, the level of transparency in Thailand has improved, although not all processors have come onboard.”
There are many ways for factories and governments to get on board, including MarinTrust’s improver program, according to Woodhatch, which “gives the fishmeal and fish oil industry an opportunity to drive improvement of fisheries management systems so that the fish they source is of better quality and goes toward human consumption instead of directly going to a fishmeal plant.”
“When the fish is of better quality, the same goes for byproducts, as well as all the waste, trimmings, and all offcuts that now goes to the fishmeal plant for high-quality fishmeal and fish oil,” Woodhatch said.
Though this represents a good first step for marine ingredients processors, Woodhatch admits “there are [still] issues around transparency all the time,” especially in data accuracy and sharing. “We have had situations where anomalies are found with the data provided, and in one case, an independent third party had to remove a certificate recently because we had issues with the information provided.”
However, there has been “an influx of people who want the MarinTrust chain of custody standard,” Woodhatch said, indicating a lower level of hesitancy than has traditionally existed.
The chain of custody standard, which aims to safeguard produce traded in the global market, ensures “consistent, competent, and independent certification practices.”
“They [marine ingredient processors] are coming for the CoC because they want to prove their authenticity in a market where there could be fraud,” she said, adding that suppliers are specifically searching for “transparency regarding where the raw materials come from and further up the chain between the fishmeal producer and the feed farm.”
“In order to have good fishery management systems, you must get accurate data, but that needs time to build up as there are no overnight solutions,” Woodhatch said. “But we have to fix it ultimately if we want to feed the world.”
Photo courtesy of MarinTrust
