Highlights from 2023

SFP’s U.S. Gulf of Mexico Shrimp SR celebrated the news that the American Shrimp Processors Association entered the U.S. Gulf of Mexico shrimp fishery into sustainability assessments under the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and Certified Seafood Collaborative (CSC) Responsible Fisheries Management (RFM) certification programs. SFP has been working with processors and distributors in this fishery for 15 years.

Following on last year’s public commitment to prevent IUU fishing in their supply chains, the members of SFP’s Global Squid SR signed an MoU demonstrating their commitment to implementing the strategy. In the MOU, the companies also commit to better traceability and transparency in their own supply chains, beginning with strengthening their procurement policies.

Stakeholders from the Mauritanian octopus fishery, supported by SFP’s Global Octopus SR, signed an MoU to establish a fishery improvement project (FIP) in the fishery and begin defining a workplan and activities.

• The Global Roundtable on Marine Ingredients, which was launched by SFP and IFFO – The Marine Ingredients Organisation, released a human rights impact assessment (HRIA) of the small pelagic fish value chain in Senegal and Mauritania. The report identifies several actual and potential human rights impacts that the roundtable is committed to working toward addressing. 

The 14th edition of SFP’s annual sustainability overview of reduction fisheries found that South American reduction fisheries continue to decline or are stagnant in their management performance. The majority of fisheries assessed in the report continue to be reasonably well-managed or better, but performance has been slowly declining since 2018.

Research by SFP in Ocean & Coastal Management showed that engaging resource users in regional fisheries management organization (RFMO) governance can help RFMOs more effectively meet their objectives. The authors recommend co-management mechanisms to enable effective participation of artisanal and small-scale fishers in RFMO decisions that affect their livelihoods.

As part of our Sector Sustainability Updates series, SFP reports found that, while the reported production and trade of octopus and mahi-mahi have increased significantly in recent decades, a lack of data and inadequate regulations present a challenge to sustainable management of these fisheries. In addition, our overall T75 Sectors Status Update summarized progress in 13 seafood sectors, along with information on significant changes in production sources and the latest trends in production and trade.

SFP and the Hilborn Lab at the University of Washington celebrated the fifth anniversary of the Fishery Improvement Projects Database (FIP-DB) with the release of an updated version that includes data on all 300 FIPs initiated to date.

Two SFP staffers were featured on The Catch, a podcast from Foreign Policy and the Walton Family Foundation. In season 2, Supply Chain Roundtables Director Megan Westmeyer discussed the intersection of Mexico’s Upper Gulf of California shrimp fishery and threatened habitats of the endangered vaquita porpoise and totoaba. In season 3, Chief Executive Officer Jim Cannon looked back at his experiences working with the seafood industry to help save the North Atlantic cod fisheries from further collapse in the 1980s and 1990s. 

Two members of SFP’s Aquaculture Team were featured on the Global Seafood Alliance’s Aquademia Podcast. Aquaculture Director Jenna Stoner spoke about aquaculture improvement projects (AIPs), while Aquaculture Information Manager Paul Bulcock spoke about regenerative aquaculture.