I just finished being part of an early zoom meeting organised by the good people of the Conservation Alliance Global Hub they are a great bunch of colleagues I respect and admire.
Today’s zoom call was as around presenting the tools available around the pressing issue of social responsibility and we had beautifully crafted presentations by the IPNLF, Conservation International, RISE, FishChoice, and Montery Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch. All presentations very insightful and professional and I’m very lucky to know personally some of the presenters
it was interesting to see that most of the presentations put a lot of focus on being based on basic regulatory frameworks around labour and human rights for each of the initiatives and then sending importers (and industry) to cross-check compliance or offering services around that necessary due diligence.
As I work mostly supporting governments institutions in charge of upholding regulatory frameworks (mostly in fisheries but I’m moving from a professional and personal interest -I was a fisherman- into the social domain)… yet the problems that the tools these NGOs have developed to address labour and social issues, start with the shortcomings from the government institutions in charge of labour and human rights for fishers.
But none of those tools and seems to cater to help or intervene at the government level and I worry we are creating parallel systems that replace those core responsibilities from state institutions.
And not for a moment I’m saying that government institutions would be better than any private initiative, yet in the end upholding regulatory frameworks is their mandate (and reason of existence) and while we like it or not, chances are that government institutions would be (in some way or another) there in 30 years… while industry and NGOs initiatives may not.
I posted a question: Is anyone of your initiatives supporting government institutions in countries with known fisher labour issues? unfortunately, they could not answer it… but is a genuine worry I have.
The other issue that was interesting for me was that almost all of the initiatives were USA based, which seems ironic since the USA delegation at FAO COFI Trade meeting was the most vocal against the proposed voluntary FAO Guidelines on Social Responsibility in Fisheries and Aquaculture Value Chains