Sea Value is a founder and member of the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF), an organization which undertakes science based initiatives for the long-term conservation and sustainable use of fish stocks (initially tuna), reducing bycatch and promoting ecosystem health. For more information, please visit www.iss-foundation.org
As part of our involvement in ISSF, Sea Value has made significant commitments to better business practices.
Sea Value is committed to a series of principles and standards relating to seafood sustainability. Our procurement process considers whether the fish stocks sourced are certified, endangered, managed and clearly traceable. Only when we are satisfied that a fishery meets our procurement criteria will we assign it supplier status.
The following principles summarize our approach to seafood sustainability.
Fish Stock/ Fishery
Sea Value primarily sources tuna from the Pacific Oceans and Indian Oceans. All of the tuna we supply is purchased in accordance with our strict procurement specifications and sustainability principles.
The majority of the tuna that we buy is skipjack which, due to it being fast growing and highly fertile, is widely considered to be abundant and to have sustainable stock levels.
Smaller quantities of yellowfin are purchased from the Pacific Oceans and Indian Oceans. Sea Value supports the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission’s (lOTC) scientific committee recommendation that catches of yellowfin tuna should not exceed the estimated annual maximum sustainable yield as mandated by the respective Regional Fisheries Management Organization (RFMO) and commits to reduce sourcing of Indian Ocean origin yellowfin by between 11% and 22% with regards to the three years average volume purchased from 2017 – 2019.
Sea Value has continued to support the IOTC and the ISSF to encourage measures that protect the future sustainability of tuna stocks in the Indian Ocean.
Tuna Stock Health
Sea Value encourages the ISSF measure for tuna stock health that all vessels caught tuna (skipjack, yellowfin and bigeye) retained onboard and full retention shall pertain to every fishing trip, in the presence of an observer.
Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing
As an ISSF founder and member, Sea Value has pledged to refrain from transactions in tuna caught by harvesting vessels or transported by transshipment vessels on the IUU Vessel List of any RFMO identified as having engaged in illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing activities. Our traceability scheme ensures we keep this pledge and if product is later found to have come from vessel placed on such a list it shall be recalled from the marketplace.
Marine Protected Areas
Sea Value supports Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) of sufficient size and duration, as determined by sound science, to accomplish clear conservation objectives for tuna populations and the ecosystem upon which they depend. Again, if a closure is mandated by an RFMO through a conservation management measures, Sea Value has only purchased from vessels complying with that measure.
Catch method
Large-scale pelagic driftnets are an unselective method of fishing that result in substantial catches of many non-target species
Sea Value has refrained from transactions in tuna caught by large-scale pelagic driftnets regardless of the geographic area in which the tuna were caught by such driftnets. All of the tuna that Sea Value purchases in caught using purse seine, pole and line and longline fishing methods. Sea Value does not purchase tuna caught using gill net or drift net fishing method.
Bycatch
Sea Value encourages the ISSF commitment that total catch retained on board except those individuals that are released alive or those whose retention is prohibited by an RFMO Resolution or vessel’s flag state’s national law. Training on proper handling and release of bycatch will occur.
Sea Value has been essential to promoting and executing bycatch, as will active engagement with local fisheries resource management authorities and local and regional scientific bodies. In addition, the vessel captain will be completed captain training on best practices for sharks, sea turtles and seabirds handling, school and FAD fishing and bycatch reduction.
For shark finning, Sea Value will not conduct transactions with vessels and companies that carry out shark finning and do not land all sharks with fins naturally attached, if retained and will not purchase from any vessels that has been found to have finned for 2 years following the date of the most recent finding.
Sea Value has pledged to conduct transactions only with large-scale purse seine vessels are those with at least 335 m3 fish hold volume that have 100% observer coverage (human or electronic if proven to be effective) on every fishing trip, unless prevented by force majeure conditions in a particular region.
Sea Value shall conduct transaction with large-scale purse seine and support vessels that have public policies regarding the use of non-entangling FADs and FAD Management.
Vessel registry
Sea Value has not engaged tuna transactions with tuna fishing vessels and carrier vessels that are not registered with the RFMO in the region which they are fishing or receiving fish even though regulations require them to be registered. Through our membership at ISSF, Sea Value supports and encourages the use of Unique Vessel Identifiers (UVI) in all tuna fisheries to help eliminate IUU fishing and refrain transactions in tuna from vessels that fail to secure a UVI by May 31, 2011.
Traceability
Sea Value maintains a credible scheme that traces tuna from capture to store shelf, including; the name, flag and UVI of catcher and transshipping vessels, fish species, ocean of capture corresponding to tuna RFMO area, fishing trip dates, fishing gear employed, date the company took ownership of the fish and each species by weight.
Management framework
Our tuna suppliers are monitored through the Earth Island Institute (Ell) international dolphin safe monitoring program which ensures Sea Value can carry the ‘Dolphin Safe’ logo on cans or pouches of tuna because no purse seine net or other fishing gear was intentionally deployed on or used to encircle dolphins during the fishing trip, and no dolphins were killed or seriously injured in the sets or other gear deployments in which the tuna were caught. The vessel captain has completed the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Tuna Tracking and Verification Program’s dolphin-safe captain’s training course.
ProActive Vessel Register (PVR)
As ISSF’s conservation measures if purchasing tuna from large-scale purse seine vessels to ensure that 100% of those vessels are on the PVR. Additional supply and tender vessels which are used for maintaining a purse seine vessel’s network of drifting FADs at sea will be controlled and register on the PVR. This conservation calls for all ISSF participating companies to register their controlled purse seine vessels and supply and tender vessels on the PVR.
Sea Value has encouraged all of our tuna suppliers to register large-scale purse seine and supply and tender vessels on the PVR.
For longline vessels, Sea Value has continued to push forward our plan for increasing purchases of tuna from vessels on the PVR.
Transshipment
Sea Value has not engaged tuna transactions with vessels that transship at sea, whether high seas, Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), territorial seas or archipelagic waters. Exemptions will be made in cases where the at-sea transshipments are authorized (as necessary, by all of the following: the vessel’s flag state, by the coastal state where the transshipment took place, and by the relevant RFMO) and the transshipped catch is adequately sampled according to the RFMO science provider. Such exemptions shall be based on a detailed report that will be reviewed and approved by the ISSF Board and announced publically through the ISSF website.
Labor
Sea Value commits to conducting business with our supply chains on social and labor at a minimum of categories are forced labor, child labor, freedom of association, wages, benefit and employment contracts, working hours, health and safety, discrimination, harassment and abuse and grievance mechanism to ensure that our supply chains have a good practice on labor which comply with law and international regulations.
