Southeast Asian NGO, Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) has launched the Southeast Asia Fishery Improvement Project (FIP) for improving the fisheries that supply fishmeal
The FIP will consist of four separate projects, two in
The projects will consist of groups of industry and government stakeholders that will assess the improvement needs of the fisheries, create work plans to meet the needs of the fisheries, measure progress against work plans over time and report on progress.
It is likely that the most pressing improvement needs at the start of the project will be generating data concerning the state of fish stocks, volumes of fish landings, bycatch issues and establishing other important facts about the fisheries.
The project will be closely coordinated with the work of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation that will be conducting a program of work on reducing the by-catch of juvenile fish in trawl fisheries in
The project will be supported by companies within the supply chain for farmed seafood including retailers, processors, aquaculture producers and feed manufacturers.
Commenting on the launch of the project, SFP technical director Duncan Leadbitter said, “The sustainability of aquaculture is crucially dependent on the good management of fisheries that provide fishmeal for feed.
“This project is intended to work with Southeast Asian fisheries that catch many species in trawling gear and have challenges that need to be resolved. One common ambition of the four projects will be to reduce the number of juvenile fish that are caught in the nets because this reduces the potential catch in future years.”
