Europêche President and CEPESCA Secretary-General Javier Garat Perez is calling on the seafood industry to be more proactive about telling its positive story.
Speaking during the 2022 Seafood Expo Global – which took place 26 to 28 April in Barcelona, Spain – Garat called on seafood companies to be more proactive at presenting itself as a force for good.
“Aren’t you a little bit tired of listening, almost every day, that there is bad news about the fishing industry?” Garat said. “That’s the reason why I am going to give some positive messages today.”
The industry, he said, has plenty of positive aspects that can be promoted – from its low environmental impact compared to other food to the health benefits of the products it sells. Both narratives frame the industry as a valuable contributor to efforts to reduce the impacts of climate change.
Presentation of the industry as a positive contributor to society can help ensure fisheries management organizations treat the industry fairly, Garat said.
“Management works, and this is very important. Everything I said, without this, it would be for nothing. Because we would not have enough fish in our seas,” he said. “Our focus should be to have 100 percent of our seas sustainably managed.”
Garat said spreading the message of the industry being under effective, sustainable management is important in order to combat the growing call for more marine protected areas, manifested in the "30 by 30" movement, which seeks to place 30 percent of the world’s oceans into MPAs off-limits to fishing.
“There is a huge trend in the world trying to convince the politicians that we have to close 30 percent of our seas. And I think instead of talking about prohibitions, we should talk about good management,” he said.
To counter the push for more MPAs, the seafood industry should emphasize management success stories, such as that of the Atlantic bluefin tuna, which has been partially rehabilitated thanks in part to effective management from the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), Garat said. Just under two decades ago, the species was overexploited and there was even a push to put the species on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) list.
“After a very good recovery plan through ICCAT, one of the good RFMOs we have in the world, bluefin tuna went from a biomass of 200,000 metric tons in 2006, to we now have a biomass of 900,000 MT in 2020,” Perez said. “According to the figures we have from the scientists, the biomass is at a historical level. That means when scientists, government, industry, some NGOs work together, we are able to find solutions to the problems that we have.”
However, those messages aren’t getting out to the general public, Garat said.
“When you read or listen to the news, it looks like the industry is doing nothing and we don’t care about the stocks. But that’s not true,” he said.
Garat said the seafood industry should be doing more to counter negative perceptions and communications about it through proactive messaging about the solutions it offers.
“We need to tell the world how good we are. We have to offer solutions, not deny the problems,” he said. “The reality is, we need to communicate more, and there a lot of positive messages in our community, but we are not communicating them enough.”
Photo by Chris Chase/SeafoodSource
