 The Responsible Fishing Alliance and Marine Stewardship Council Agree to Disagree and Work TogetherThe Responsible Fishing Alliance met to discuss membership, structure and day-to-day operations in Paris, June 14. This date marked one year after the first talks in New Orleans (USA) and three months after the official creation of the RFA in Brussels (Belgium). Adepa, Elior and Multivac are the three newest additions to the Alliance. Council members welcomed them and heard from them about their organizations. The Council agreed that membership in the Responsible Fishing Alliance will be restricted to organizations belonging to the fish chain and/or involved directly in the support of stakeholders of the fish chain (including fishers’ organizations through the World Fish Forum, fishers’ support organization in the field, fish processors, fish distributors and consumers associations). However, in order to take advantage of the expertise and strategic importance of consulting companies that are offering support, the Alliance will set up an additional entity as a satellite of the Council of the Alliance. This new entity, a “Qualified Comity,” will welcome consulting companies, scientific organizations and NGOs. Three consulting companies that are already engaged with the RFA are excepted: Kori Development, leading the Lake Victoria pilot project, CorreardB Consulting, RFA Coordinator and leading the EU Ecolabel project and Pi Environmental Consulting, leading the Swiss pilot project. The RFA members considered the applications of new organizations and decided to welcome CERAI and Prainha do Canto Verde (PVC), (PVC will join through the WFF which is already an RFA member). PVC is an artisanal lobster fishery from Brazil, famous for its responsible management. The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) remains, for the time being, independent of the Alliance due to an as yet unresolved disagreement about whether the RFA or MSC favor one type of fishery over another. According to Chris Ninnes, Director of Operations for MSC, the MSC insists on neutrality with respect to type of fishery and claims that the RFA favors artisanal/small-scale fisheries evidenced by two of its pilot projects, the one in Chile and the other one in Iceland. Bruno Correard, RFA Coordinator claims that the MSC supports industrial fishing evidenced by the fact that most of the MSC certified fisheries are based on industrial systems. While the RFA members and people of the MSC did not reach consensus both have described this open conversation as positive and have proposed several possible ways to cooperate despite their differences. One of the most promising is in developing a common definition of criteria of responsible fishing in developing countries based on targeted fisheries. This work in common is nevertheless submitted to the approval of the Council of the Alliance as the specificities of the mechanism have not been clearly defined yet. The Alliance made plans to construct its own website under the domains: www.r-f-a.org and www.responsible-fishing.org for an easier identification by the public by early 2008. Members of the Council are considering three long-term funding alternatives and reaching out to company board members for support:
The Council agreed that the Alliance needs to grow in order to reach critical mass and has divided up the task of reaching out to a large number of new potential Alliance members including retailers such as Ahold, Mark & Spenser, Sainsbury, Tesco, Auchan, Delhaize, Leclerc, Metro, representatives of fish producers like the Irish Sea Fisheries Board and many more. Participants:
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Fisheries Team
Responsible Fishing Alliance
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