Pacifical Partners Ask Tuna Fishing Companies to Adopt the…

Pacifical partners call for the Responsible Fishing Vessel Standard (RFVS) to be adopted in their MSC tuna supply chain. Retailers and brand owners, sourcing MSC tuna from the Pacific, are aware that labor conditions in wild capture fisheries, such as tuna, are difficult to observe and monitor, due to the remote nature of their workplace. The RFVS certification can play an important role in providing assurances for crew members and their families, but also to End of Chain tuna buyers.

The potential for workers in the fishing industry to be exposed to exploitation, due to the challenging environment of working at sea, is a reality. In some instances, there could be inadequate living facilities onboard the vessels, physically dangerous working conditions, lack of safety equipment, excessive working hours and low wages.

The RFVS specifically focuses on ensuring the crew’s rights, their welfare and safety on board and provides comprehensive assurances of vessel best management practices from catch to shore. The standard was developed to be in alignment with International Labor Organization (ILO) C188, the fundamental ILO labor conventions, as well as the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the UN International Marine Organization (IMO).

The RFVS is offered by the Global Seafood Alliance (GSA). The RFVS is not an industry based social accountability standard, but rather a one designed through a global multi stakeholder engagement process. Developed in line with ISO 17065 requirements to ensure that impartial, robust, and credible certification decisions are made by independent certification bodies. It is also the first vessel standard program to apply for the new SCCI At-Sea Operations Benchmark.

Pacifical partners, including Simplot Australia, producers of John West Tuna products, are backing the move to have vessels adopt the Responsible Fishing Vessel Standard (RFVS) in the Western Pacific region. Simplot sources 100% Marine Stewardship Council certified skipjack tuna, from the waters of the PNA Pacifical Island nations. Graham Dugdale, Managing Director Simplot Australia, said, “Ensuring that our John West tuna products are responsibly sourced is of paramount importance to our business. This extends beyond the way fish are caught, it runs through the entire supply chain and includes protecting the human rights of the people working on fishing vessels.”

“Knowing that fair working and living conditions are undertaken on board these vessels is vital and integral to our business values. We are committed to increasing our visibility of human rights, enhancing practices and remediating any issues that we may find.”

The PNA nation’s observers bring an extra dimension to social accountability on board. They are their eyes and ears on board of purse seiner vessels. Daily, they monitor and report on everything that happens on the boat, including living and working conditions. These observations will assist in continuously monitoring compliance with the RFVS program.

“Without these crews and observers hard work we would not have any sustainable tuna. So ensuring their daily well-being is fundamental to us all. The RFVS governance is a further evolution of the already robust practices that we have in place across our Pacifical supply chain. With our fishing partners we will work closely together to further improve on-board practices and conditions” says Henk Brus, Chief Executive Officer at Pacifical.

Working under one social standard within PNA waters brings several benefits for Pacifical’s fishing partners. The social accountability criteria will be clear for all crew, captains and fishing masters, the management staff and human resources department. Social accountability claims will be independently verified onboard, on a trip-to-trip basis. Default and simplified independent verification processes will replace the self-assessment protocols currently in place.

Pacifical & Digimarc Making The GDST Traceability Standard A…

Digimarc Corporation (Nasdaq: DMRC) and Pacifical have been working together to achieve interoperability between their traceability systems through use of communication protocols of the Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (GDST) standard.

Supply chains across all sectors are complex. Even though most suppliers make attempts to provide full traceability for products, the challenge for retailers is that each supply partner has different traceability reporting protocol. This is why a common language for traceability in retail is much needed.

The GDST standard has been designed as a seafood-specific extension of the GS1 EPCIS, which offers uniformed vocabulary for interoperability across many product categories. The EPCIS is widely used by worldwide retailers and suppliers. The GDST standard enables trading partners to share information about the physical movement and status of seafood products as they travel throughout the supply chain – from business to business and, ultimately, to consumers. The GDST has just announced plans to release a new tool—the GDST Interoperability Capability Test—that will be able to test whether IT systems can achieve interoperability under the recently updated GDST 1.1 standards.

“We congratulate Pacifical and Digimarc for the progress they are making to advance interoperability. Pacifical and Digimarc are on track to be among the first companies to pass the GDST Interoperability Capability Test once it is released,” said Blake Harris, Sr. Food Traceability Manager of GDST.

Roughly a quarter of the fish caught globally is done so illegally. Traceability is the first step to eliminate these practices.

“Increasing the verifiability of seafood supply chains, enhancing traceability and facilitating compliance with government regulations on the legality of seafood products, is what the GDST is all about,” added Greg Brown, Executive Director of the GDST.

The EVRYTHNG Product Cloud®, brought to you by Digimarc, is a leading provider of realtime digitized end-to-end value chain information, and Pacifical is the market developer and promoter of the Pacific Island nations and its sustainable tuna resource certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC).

“We are pleased to work with Digimarc to validate Pacifical’s work on implementing supply chain traceability data based on the GDST Standard. We are looking forward to transferring this ability to retailers and brands worldwide sourcing and supporting sustainable tuna catch from the Pacific Island countries,” says Cynthia Asaf, COO of Pacifical.

“Adopting the very best technology in traceability and supply chain transparency will both help brands meet market regulations, and enhance brand integrity,” concluded Dominique Guinard, Digimarc’s VP of Cloud and IoT, and Founder of EVRYTHNG. “We’re excited to start this process with Pacifical.”

This initiative aims to demonstrate the technical ability to transmit all GDST Key Data Elements (KDEs) and Critical Tracking Events (CTEs). This ability could be extended to tuna buyers that are aiming to implement the GDST Standard and sourcing from the Western Pacific Island region.

Infographic Pacifical Impact Sourcing 2021 – Happy Holidays

An estimated $14.5 Million USD is how much our partners have directly contributed to the people of the PNA Islands nations through sourcing Pacifical tuna products.

When sourcing and processing traceable Pacifical sustainable wild tuna, you can be 100% assured that your sourcing decisions are making a critical positive impact in the pacific island region; Not only from an ocean conservation perspective, but also towards the overall well-being of communities and families. Thanks to your involvement and tuna income received, many Pacifical nations are able to build schools, hospitals, roads, and fight the effects of climate change.

So, this message is to say THANK YOU! Because without your sustainable buying decisions we would not be able to reach our sustainability and social development goals. It is an honor and a privilege for our team to work with you to create maximum impact through purpose driven sustainable tuna sourcing.

2022 will come with exciting changes and we are looking forward to contacting you early next year to discuss those. In the meantime, we put together a nice infographic that captures some of our key metrics year to date. Please check it out.

Happy holidays from our Pacifical family to yours!

Pacifical Targets GSA Certification to Guard Fair Conditions for…

Pacifical, the market development company of the nine Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) Pacific Island nations, and the Global Seafood Alliance (GSA), announce their partnership to implement the Responsible Fishing Vessel Standard (RFVS) on all Pacifical fishing operations. The RFVS scheme certification will provide independently verified assurance of fair working and living conditions onboard, and will involve more than 7,000 crew members working on more than 250 vessels operating in the Western Pacific tuna purse seiner fisheries.

How will the Pacifical RFVS scheme differ from the other social guidelines and standards?

The RFVS program differs from other social guidelines or standards in that Pacifical will not rely on self-assessment forms or sporadic audits. Instead certificate issuance will be independently assessed and verified on a trip-to-trip basis against the RFVS standard .

Over the last five years, several social accountability guidelines and standards have been launched with good intentions to address key issues at sea. Most of these guidelines, due to limitations, have focused their approach on self-assessment documents filled out by the fishing companies themselves, accompanied by an in-port audit once a year at best.

The rise of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has proven that consumers and retailers demand clear, independently verified standards when it comes to sustainable fishing. Fishing can only be truly considered sustainable, if the people who make those fisheries run are also treated fairly and responsibly to clear and independently verified standards as well.

“To complement the PNA MSC certification, Pacifical also seeks to provide consumers with the assurance that their PNA caught tuna is fished by people who work under conditions that are free of forced or child labor, and who can enjoy a good life, in a healthy and safe working environment, with fair pay and conditions. The GSA’s RFVS certification program goes beyond our existing guidelines and provides this possibility.” Says Henk Brus, Chief Executive Officer, Pacifical.

The PNA nation’s observers are their eyes and ears on board of purse seiner vessels with crew of about 30 on typically one month trips. They monitor, and report daily on everything that happens on the boat including social issues. With the RVFS program their function on monitoring social conditions will be further extended.

Working under one social standard for PNA waters brings several benefits for our fishing partners. The social accountability criteria will be clear for all management staff, human resources department, captains and fishing masters, and crew. Social accountability claims will be independently verified onboard on a trip to trip basis by default and simplified as independent verification processes will replace the self-assessment protocols in place.

Within the next two years Pacifical and GSA plan to work with industry to bring the certification to 250 purse seiners, owned by about 50 fishing companies, and flagged to more than 10 states.

PNA’s FAD Fishery Now Recommended for MSC certification

Yesterday the Marine Stewardship Council has published the Final Draft Report (FDR) by the certification assessment body (CAB) Lloyd’s Register on the scope extension of our PNA Western and Central Pacific skipjack, yellowfin, and bigeye tuna purse seine fishery. The report focuses on extending the scope of the certification from exclusively being a free school fishery to now include sets on Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs). Once certified this entire fishery will cover around 1.5 million M/T of catch.

This addition of FADs to the current certification was forced on the PNA nations after pressure by certain market parties and NGOs which demanded an end to compartmentalization. This led to a change in the MSC rules that now require the PNA MSC certified fishery to include not only free school sets but also FAD sets, so in effect both catching methods used by tuna purse seiners. The effective date of this new MSC requirement begins on March 25, 2023.

The FDR, which also includes an extension of our unit of certification to cover bigeye tuna, tentatively recommends that our purse seiner fishery should now be certified.

Lloyd’s Register recognizes the health and status of all three major tuna stocks in our PNA waters are not subject to overfishing. They have scored skipjack at 85.8, yellowfin at 84.2, and big-eye at 81.7 on Principle 1.

On our FAD management strategy we received a final score of 75, showing that still, further progress needs to be made. FADs within our area are identified as having ‘moderate’ impacts on coastal habitats, especially vulnerable coral reefs. PNA will seriously consider recommendations on the introduction and large-scale use of non-entangling and biodegradable FADs, but this will take time.

For some time, PNA nations jointly have been in the process of establishing an innovative and comprehensive FAD registration and monitoring scheme along with initiatives to reduce the impact of FAD beaching. This route is being taken by PNA and will occur with or without the support of other member countries within the WCPFC, same goes for conditions on the FAD design and materials.

PNA has been a pioneer in FAD tracking since 2016, and with funding received from the Pew Charitable Trust and the support of SPC, it has been possible to determine the rate of FAD beachings, which largely occur in the Solomon Islands, PNG, and Kiribati. PNA had previously commissioned work into assessing the environmental and economic impact of FADs.

Along with harvest strategies for skipjack and yellowfin, the strategy will be extended to include bigeye tuna. All Pacific fisheries are required to have a harvest strategy for all tuna species in place by December 2022. PNA has worked hard on developing a strategy for skipjack, as a priority, but unfortunately, progress and countless attempts to advance the process towards adopting a global Pacific strategy have been blocked by Distant Water Fishing Nations such as Japan and the USA.

PNA already had its own control mechanism in place in the EEZs of PNA members, through the highly successful Vessel Day Scheme (VDS) and annually reviews the limits of the program based on the requirements set by WCPFC to limit the total tuna fishing effort to 2010 levels. PNA will remain firm towards adopting harvests strategies in its waters, with or without the support of other nations.

Another matter addressed in the FDR is the issue of shark interactions. PNA has a ban on shark finning and strict rules that apply to shark retention, all closely monitored by our 100% onboard observer program in the pre-COVID period. Whilst this program has suffered in 2020 due to COVID 19, the PNA has still managed to maintain an observer coverage rate of up to 20-40%, which is well above the standard advised by SPC. Noting observer coverage is currently not an MSC requirement.

Those stakeholders that still have objections after the review of their earlier comments and the recommendation to certify by the CAB, have the possibility to log their objections before UTC 5 pm on November 18, 2021

You can find and view the FDR report here:  https://fisheries.msc.org/en/fisheries/pna-western-and-central-pacific-skipjack-yellowfin-and-bigeye-tuna-purse-seine-fishery-fad-and-non-fad-sets/@@assessments

Pacifical Video Clip Contest Winners Show Community Impact On…

Today is May 2nd, World Tuna Day! The day to commemorate the existence of tuna and its contribution to our daily lives. A day to spread awareness of the importance and value of tuna, both to the Pacifical community and consumers worldwide. We wanted to hear directly from the PNA people how they experience tuna is contributing to their lives and communities!

Pacifical asked people in all 9 island nations via Facebook to submit a video clip showing in real time any recent finalized government-led project that had an impact on their community and explaining how their tuna resources are contributing to these developments. Three top performing videos were selected by the jury, resulting in the following winners:

Merry Christie Kere [1st Place]
Nationality: Solomon Islands
Award: $1,500 USD

Merry convincingly presents how a governmental-led and financed project related to a pacific fruit called “Noni” is being developed in her Guadalcanal province also benefits from tuna. The project aims to build local in-land agriculture and food production.

“Tuna production represents 10% of the Solomon Islands government revenue, therefore I can say that tuna has contributed indirectly towards the noni project in my community for being government funded” she explains. Congratulations to Merry!

Damida Alez [2nd Place]
Nationality: Solomon Islands
Award: $750 USD

Damida shares on a personal level how families from his community in Solomon Islands benefit from tuna daily for economic subsistence and food supply. The video shows his father leaving to go out fishing for tuna to pay for all necessities, including the education from his children.

“Tuna is my future, tuna is my life. Thank you tuna” is his message. Great Job Damida, you deserve this!

Sam Johnny Pedro [3rd Place]
Nationality: Tuvalu
Award: $500 USD

Sam’s video starts with a key statement on impact: “Tuvalu’s largest source of domestic revenue comes from tuna fisheries. It generates an estimated amount of $52 M USD to the 2021 budget” says Hon. Seve Paeniu, minister of Finance. The PNA “Vessel Day Scheme” alone contributes an estimated amount of $23 M USD. Part of this revenue is allocated to each island Kaupule for their various development needs.”

He shows how government grants invest in education through a “Tuition Fee Scheme”, the construction of a pre-school, and the Island Strategic Plan, Good job Sam!

Big thanks to everyone who participated. Sustainable tuna means everything to our Pacifical PNA People. For them sustainability is not a matter of choice, but of pure survival! Close to 17,000 of our people fully depend on tuna as a source of income. While in their community tuna income builds schools, hospitals, and roads and provides nutritious healthy food for the whole populus. Tuna is at the very core of our Pacifical nations’ economic future.

HAPPY WORLD TUNA DAY!

Pacifical World Tuna Day VIDEO CLIP Contest

***Limited to residents of PNA Nations: Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tokelau and Tuvalu.

May 2nd, World Tuna Day is approaching! The day to commemorate the existence of tuna and its contribution to our daily lives. A day to spread awareness of the importance and value of tuna, both to the Pacifical community and consumers worldwide. We want to celebrate it together with you!

Post a video clip on Facebook to win $1,500 USD if your video ends up in first place. Second place will win $750 USD and the third place $ 500 USD.

What you should do:

1. Introduce yourself, your name and where you live. Tell us what role tuna plays in your daily life or your Pacific community.
2. Show us in real time a recent finalized government-led project*** that had an impact on your community, making things better for your local area, friends and/or family.
3. Show and have people explain us in your video how your country’s tuna resources are contributing to these developments.

***The project can be of any nature (examples: Healthcare, Education, Communication, Employment, Conservation, Battling Rising Sea Levels climate Change, Infrastructure, etc.).

Post your video on Facebook:

1. Please post your video clip on your own Facebook page and tag our company page @PACIFICALtunaMSC. Please include the hashtag #worldtunaday2021.
2. Send us a private message directly to our Pacifical Facebook page. Let us know your full name, nationality, email and mobile number immediately after uploading the video:

https://www.facebook.com/PACIFICALtunaMSC

What are the criteria?

1. 50% of the evaluation criteria will be based on:

• How well you communicate the project and its impact to your community
• Content quality
• Video quality

2. The other 50% will be judged based on the amount of likes your video clip has received by May 1st midnight Marshall Islands time (GMT+12).

Important details:

• Deadline: Friday, April 30th 2021 (18:00 hrs Marshall Islands time (GMT+12))
• Decision announcement: Sunday, May 2nd 2021
• Videos can be maximum 2 minutes long
• Contest limited to residents of the Pacifical PNA Nations: Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tokelau and Tuvalu

OCEANIA: MSC Canned Tuna Snapshot 2021

Oceania is not only the world’s largest supplier of MSC certified tuna, but with Australia and New Zealand, the region is also one of the major MSC tuna buyers in the planet, yet it is a market that is experiencing stagnation.

There has not been a lot of MSC tuna developments in Oceania since 2016. To this day, only one major brand has consistently used the MSC ecolabel. A bit sad to see many “responsibly sourced” claims without independent verification. Some of those brands even offer yellowfin from the Indian Ocean, where the stock is overfished.

Sourcing from sustainable fisheries supports island nations highly dependent on the health of their tuna resources. Making the right sustainable choices makes a huge difference. We are hopeful to see major players in Oceania making the right choices in 2021.

Click here to access the March 2021 Oceania MSC Canned Tuna Snapshot.