Seafish Develops Sustainable Code Of Conduct For UK Imported Tuna ff

The Sea Fish Industry Authority (Seafish) in the United Kingdom (UK) is currently working closely with the Food & Drink Federation (FDF) on a code of conduct for tuna being imported into the UK.

The code, also called risk management protocol, intends to fight Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishery by only purchasing legally-imported seafood.

The code is still under development by a partnership between Seafish and the fishing industry and it’s being trialed on suppliers of fresh tuna from the Pacific region.

According to Seafish’ Development Director, Jon Harman, the surveillance procedures are still being developed, as well as the structure of the protocol: “We are in an early stage of the project, but we expect to introduce it in 2010. We will run (the tuna project) as a demonstration project and work with the industry to improve it”.

The protocol should emit control certificates, fishing boat licenses and fishing quotas in the future.

Jon Harman talks about the outcomes of the project for the environment: “Stopping the practice of IUU fishing is one of the biggest challenges facing the seafood industry in the twenty-first century”.

“The Food & Drink Federation has enabled us to develop our new protocol in partnership with some of the UK’s leading retailers. The opportunity we now have is to present to the EU a project which marks a significant milestone in the industry’s work to stop this waste of resources, expensive and environmentally damaging IUU practice”. This statement was made during the General Assembly in Edinburgh last Friday, in which representatives from the European Fish Processing Industry Association (AIPCA) and FDF came together to discuss IUU fishing.