WWF seeks int’l certification for yellowfin tuna fishing sites

MANILA, Philippines – Environmental solutions provider World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is working to secure Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification for two yellowfin tuna fishing sites.

Up for certification next year are  the Lagonoy Gulf covering the provinces of Albay, Catanduanes and Camarines Sur, plus the Mindoro Strait in Occidental Mindoro.

WWF is a close ally of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources in promoting responsible fisheries.

“Securing the country’s first MSC certification to promote sustainable fishing is an excellent way to transform our tuna industry,” WWF-Philippines Partnership Program Towards Sustainable Tuna (PPTST) project manager Joann Binondo said.

“This stamp-of-approval adds immense market value to tuna sourced from our country. Consumers in Europe, Japan and America will know that the fish they are eating were caught fairly and sustainably,” Binondo added. 

Developed with scientists, conservationists and fisheries experts, MSC is an independent organization which creates and polishes environmental standards for sustainable, equitable and well-managed wild fisheries. It has certified 265 fisheries across the globe, which altogether account for 10 percent of all wild-capture fisheries.

The Philippines is the world’s third largest tuna producer. Almost half its seafood exports come from yellowfin, skipjack and frigate tuna.

However, the unregulated use of giant nets called purse seines and floating aggregation devices called payao are rapidly depleting stocks.

Many of the country’s tuna fisheries are severely overfished. 

In June 2014, the European Union issued the Philippines a yellow card for failing to curb illegal, unreported and unregulated  fishing – a precursor to a total EU import ban on Philippine seafood products.

Acting decisively, the BFAR revamped the country’s fisheries laws – and the yellow card was lifted by April 2015.

Since 2011, WWF has been working to enhance yellowfin tuna management practices for 5,000 fishers in 112 tuna fishing villages around the Lagonoy Gulf and Mindoro Strait.

WWF’s PPTST project has organized tuna fishing associations in all 15 municipalities in the Lagonoy Gulf, plus six LGUs in the Mindoro Strait.

It spearheaded the registration and licensing of tuna fishers, vessels and gear to minimize bycatch and illegal fishing.  It also deployed 1,000 plastic tuna tags to make the fishery traceable and completed a series of training sessions on proper tuna handling to ensure that exported tuna continually meet international quality standards.

“PPTST harnesses market power and consumer demand to promote sustainably-caught tuna and support low-impact fishing methods like artisanal fishing with hand-line reels,” Binondo said.

“It is the first and only Fishery Improvement Project (FIP) for artisanal fisheries in the Philippines,”  he added.

Funded by Coop, Bell Seafood, Seafresh and the German Investment and Development Corp.

PPTST involves European seafood companies plus their local suppliers, BFAR, local government units in the Bicol region and Mindoro, the WWF Coral Triangle Programme, WWF-Germany and WWF-Philippines.