The National Fisheries Institute (NFI) is hiring a new Crab Council Asia liaison after Jeremy Crawford, its previous liaison, recently left to work with Thai Union on sustainability projects.
The new liaison will work with government agencies and NGOs to promote regulatory changes and oversee the council’s fisheries improvement projects (FIPs) in Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.
The NFI’s Crab Council has dealt with controversial issues in the past, such as the size at which blue swimming crab are harvested, and has effectively increased the sustainability of crab fisheries around the world.
“When the liaison is in a country, he or she is coordinating between the NGOs, companies that are crab council members and regulators in the countries,” Gavin Gibbons, vice president of communications for NFI, told SeafoodSource. “There is a lot of policy integration going on, including pushing for regulatory oversight. In many of these countries, regulatory oversight is weak, so we lobby for more oversight.”
The liaison will be based in Indonesia, since “we have a number of new efforts in the Indonesian crab FIP that will take a lot of time and attention,” Gibbons said.
The position closes 14 March, and interested individuals can email their resumes to Gibbons at [email protected].
One of the responsibilities of the new Crab Council liaison will be to oversee implementation of a new control document to trace crab from landing all the way through picking and processing.
“The control document will help ensure the sustainable origin of the crab and follows it through the whole value chain. It helps us confirm the crab is being harvested sustainably, is the right size, came from the right place and follows other regulations,” Gibbons said. “We are trialing the Control Document in Indonesia now, since it is the biggest in terms of crab production.”
Gibbons is confident that NFI will find a skilled liaison who resides in Asia.
