Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) is pleased to announce the first public posting of a new industry-led fishery improvement project (FIP) covering octopus fishing off the coast of the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico.

The FIP is listed on the Fishery Progress website as the Mexico Yucatan octopus—drift rod and line FIP. The FIP’s goals include four key areas of focus:

  • Developing a stock assessment methodology
  • Increasing knowledge about the fishery’s interactions with protected, endangered, and threatened (PET) species
  • Strengthening of the management and monitoring system
  • Promoting enforcement of the regulatory framework.

“Adding 10,000 tonnes of responsible octopus to the market is going to make a substantial shift in the sustainability of the octopus sector dynamics,” said Pedro Ferreiro, coordinator of SFP’s Global Octopus Supply Chain Roundtable(SR). “Other major octopus fisheries competing for Yucatan octopus in the marketplace are now behind in terms of meeting the growing sustainability demands of the US and EU markets.”

The Global Octopus SR, together with several national and international industry stakeholders, including Netuno USA, Empacadora Promarmex, Orca Seafoods, LP Foods, Comercializadora Healthy Fish, and MASPESCA, are lending their support to the project.

“The Global Octopus Supply Chain Roundtable is committed to the promotion of sustainability among the most important octopus fisheries worldwide, and the Yucatan fishery is one of our priorities,” said Andre Brugger, Sustainability Manager at Netuno USA and member of the SR. “We are looking forward to seeing similar steps in other key octopus fisheries, such as in Morocco and Mauritania, where the SR is also providing support for the setting up of similar improvement projects.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: The FIP is listed at this link: https://fisheryprogress.org/fip-profile/mexico-yucatan-octopus-drift-rod-and-line

Contact: Sean Murphy, SFP Communications Director