Ground-Breaking Agreement by Fishing Giants Announced by SeaBOS

In a press release today, SeaBOS, or Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship, announced that ten of the world’s largest seafood companies have committed to a set of time-bound and measurable goals to make seafood production more sustainable.

Industry giants Thai Union and Cargill Aqua Nutrition, amongst others, have acknowledged that more needs to be done to make the industry greener and also fairer for the hundreds of thousands working in commercial fishing and aquaculture.

The newly elected Chair of SeaBOS, Therese Log Bergjord, says: “It’s time to face the facts – the situation is critical, and we have to act. We can all do better. I hope more will follow our example to build momentum on the ocean stewardship agenda.”

The SeaBOS collaboration has been coordinated by the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University and aims to achieve 100% sustainability in the fishing industry. By the end of 2021, SeaBOS members have agreed to the following:

• Eliminate IUU fishing and forced, bonded and child labour in our operations– and implement measures to address those issues in their supply chains – with public reporting on progress in 2022 and 2025

• Extend the collaboration with the Global Ghost Gear Initiative to solve the problem of lost and abandoned fishing gear and combine to clean up plastics pollution from our coasts and waterways

• Agree on a strategy for reducing impacts on endangered species and agree on a strategy for reducing the use of antibiotics

• Set CO2 emission reduction goals

The guidelines are a significant step towards better stewardship of the oceans and with so many major players involved, the plan represents a real opportunity for the whole of the fishing and seafood industry to move towards greener standards and more humane principles.