Nachi Katsuura Albacore Longline FIP

#SDGAction42785

Description

Intro

Tuna and tuna-kind species have been part of our core pillar of dietary and culinary culture in Japan. Nachi Katsuura, where this project is conducted accounts for the largest landings of fresh tuna in Japan. However, the tuna landing in Nachi Katsuura has been decreasing since 2000s along with the global trend.Yamasa Wakiguchi Co. and No. 78 Kaiou Maru has been working on this project since October 2017 to retain albacore tuna stock that is healthier status compared to other tuna species and enable people to enjoy tunas for the future and contribute to local community’s prosperity in economy.

Objective of the practice

This project is a so-called, fishery improvement project (FIP). It is a science-based project that helps to solve issues for the fishery to be more sustainable, cooperating with business, NGOs and management authorities.The object of this project is to improve the fisheries sustainability based on Marine Stewardship Council principles and indicators to become more sustainable, weaving the environment, social and economic development through this multi-stakeholder collaborative projects throughout the supply chain from fisher to the retailers.Fishery Improvement Projects in general begin with addressing the environmental deficiencies in the fishery based on the assessment against MSC standards. Furthermore, there is requirement of transparency in this project to check and share the progress to the public every six months to assure the pre-competitive knowledge to share but also having a space for public to make sure green washing is not happening. in MSC is an international certification scheme that ensures the sustainability of the fishery. <br />
In this project, the goals are to improve/solve following issues by September 2022 to be at the unconditional pass level of MSC standards :1) Assess gear impacts on habitat, 2) Eliminate shark finning in the fishery, 3) Minimize impacts on Endangered, Threatened or Protected (ETP) species, 4) Support the recovery of depleted primary species, 5) Align fishery objectives with sustainability principles. Again, this is a multi-stakeholder project to address and improve sustainability deficiencies among fisher, government authority, NGOs and local fishery coops.Not only solving the environmental or stock management issues for sustainability, but this project also aims at raising awareness of the importance of supporting fisheries in sustainability improvements in partnership with Seiyu GK, one of the largest retailer in Japan, to supply at their retailers to communicate with consumers and incentivize the sustainability practices via purchasing power. This project is to capture and implement comprehensive issues and solutions based on the community needs for sustainability and prosperity.

Partners

Yamasa Wakiguchi Co., No. 78 Kaiou Maru, Ocean Outcomes, Seafood Legacy Co., Ltd., Seiyu GK, Nachi Katsuura Fisheries Cooperative, Wakayama Prefecture Fisheries Cooperative, Wakayama Prefectural Office, WWF Japan, Birdlife International, Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency, International Sustainable Seafood Foundation, WCFPC, and IATTC.

Implementation of the Project/Activity

Fishery Improvement Project usually starts with stakeholder engagement and conducting pre assessment against MSC standards to address and improve environmental deficiencies in the fishery. Consequently, based on the result of the assessment, the comprehensive work plan is developed with specifications of leads, due date, budget, and improvement action needs. Furthermore, FIP stakeholders are required to meet every six months to check the progress and adjust the plan if needed. The progress is to be publicized on stakeholders website or/and fisheryprogress.org that tracks all the FIPs' progress in the world. This is not only to assure the transparency but also independency in the scoring the progress that lead to the rigorously and credibility of this project.The project is following FIP guideline set by Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solutions that North American US environment NGOs gathered and created for bigger impacts on the sustainability in seafood. This is the third party transparent PDCA cycle that we set in place for this project.

Results/Outputs/Impacts

FIPs are assessed every six months based on the activity plans which are divided into three sections; "Sustainable fish stocks", "Minimizing Environmental Impact", and "Effective management". There is a third party scoring process for registered FIPs on fisheryprogress.org and according the latest evaluation, the progress of this project in the last 12 months has been scored as “A” and now at stage 5 “improvements on the water”, also improved all of red flagged issues and now the fishery is very close to full assessment level.

In the section "Sustainable fish stocks", assessing gear impacts on habitat (2 in the "Objective of the Practice") was needed to be improved in the assessment in the first year, but it was improved in the last assessment in last October.

In the section "Minimizing Environmental Impact", eliminating shark finning in the fishery, minimizing impacts on ETP species and supporting the recovery of depleted primary species (2, 3, 4 in the "Objective of the Practice") were solved in the last assessment.

In the section "Effective management", aligning fishery objectives with sustainability principles (5 in the "Objective of the Practice") were improved.

Enabling factors and constraints

One of the enabling factors is voluntary financial support and sales promotion by Seiyu GK. At the beginning of this project, the products were sold in 20 shops but now it's expanded to over 50 shops. Moreover, 20% of an annual catch by No. 78 Kaiou Maru has been now supplied to those market retailers that provide strong incentives for other fisheries to participate in this project to expand the social and environmental impacts all along. However, this project still has many issues that can't be solved fishermen alone. For instance, introducing catch management plan needs to be submitted in The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCFPC) and agreed by the member countries. For this issue, we have been leveraging in international conferences like WCFPC, building the relationship with Fishery Agency in Japan and supporting them to understand the meaning of this project. This project also draws the attention of multi-tech companies and generates the necessary ideas for a more sustainable fishery, such as traceability system that clarifies the route and information from catch point to the end market and ensure legitimacy and credibility in the supply chain.
We can also communicate the story and passion of the fishermen to consumers in partnership with Seiyu GK, and this added value is expected to promote more sales and develop as a good tool for dietary and environmental education.

Sustainability and replicability

The goal of this project is to raise the sustainability of albacore tuna fishery to the unconditional pass level of MSC standards and to sustain the albacore tuna stock for the future generation We also aim to balance short-term financial benefit and long-term sustainable benefit by cooperating with fishery markets. We utilize the fund from international or domestic organizations and companies and try to execute this project in a non-intrusive way for securing the fishery's business and stock sustainability. Through this project, we have successfully expanded and stabilized the markets of sustainable albacore tuna, and some longline fishermen are getting interested in this project. We are sure that making financial benefits like this project would encourage more other longline fishermen who catch albacore tuna to be involved and making our society and environment more sustainable.

Conclusions

This project is one of its kind successful story and project on going an unusual success story in Japan in regarding with the multi stakeholder efforts for sustainability including NGOs, fishery, companies and administrations toward sustainable fishery. <br />
As the expansion of the number of retailers from 20 to over 50 retailers where sell this project product, we expect that looking at and purchasing the real product would raise awareness or understanding of the sustainable fishery. Proactive purchase by the consumers means appreciating the day-to-day effort by local fishery and tuna wholesalers, and secured financial benefit would motivate them and leads sustainable fish stock for our next generation. Sustainable use of relatively abundant species stock in the primary species would draw other fishery's attention who wants to start projects or who want to start but don't know how to do. If the business model became more rigid and beneficial, other communities, fisheries or corporates could apply the model to their own way that would give greater social and environmental impact. Sustainability is the root of our environment, business and society. Tokyo 2020 shed spotlight on sustainable seafood recently, and we keep on working hard for this project to grow further, sailed by this trend.

Other sources of information

Projects overview:
http://www.oceanoutcomes.org/what-we-do/fishery-improvement-projects/na…

Website for FIP Tracking
https://fisheryprogress.org/fip-profile/japan-albacore-tuna-longline

Product schedule: https://fisheryprogress.org/system/files/documents_workplan/Wakayama%20…

Scoping document:
https://fisheryprogress.org/system/files/documents_scoping/Wakayama%20L…

SDGS & Targets

Goal 15

Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss

Goal 9

Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

Goal 8

Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

Goal 11

Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

Goal 16

Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

Goal 17

Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development

Goal 12

Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

Goal 14

Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development

Deliverables & Timeline

N/A

Resources mobilized

Resources

Other, please specify

We utilize the fund from international or domestic organizations and companies.

Partnership Progress

No progress reports have been submitted. Please sign in and click here to submit one.

False

Name	Description
14.2	By 2020, sustainably manage and protect marine and coastal ecosystems to avoid significant adverse impacts, including by strengthening their resilience, and take action for their restoration in order to achieve healthy and productive oceans
14.4	By 2020, effectively regulate harvesting and end overfishing, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and destructive fishing practices and implement science-based management plans, in order to restore fish stocks in the shortest time feasible, at least to levels that can produce maximum sustainable yield as determined by their biological characteristics
14.5	By 2020, conserve at least 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas, consistent with national and international law and based on the best available scientific information
17.14	Enhance policy coherence for sustainable development
14.b	Provide access for small-scale artisanal fishers to marine resources and markets
14.c	Enhance the conservation and sustainable use of oceans and their resources by implementing international law as reflected in United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which provides the legal framework for the conservation and sustainable use of oceans and their resources, as recalled in paragraph 158 of "The future we want"