Illegal fishing represents 40% of the total catch in the country, according to the organization Oceana. Combating these numbers requires an effort that includes the entire fish and seafood supply chain.
Iván Del Mazo, vice president of Food Service at the Mexican Council for the Promotion of Fishery and Aquaculture Products (Comeesca), believes that supermarket purchasing policies contribute to sustainability through the implementation of certifications.
A fundamental link in achieving this is the consumer, he said, whose demand for certified products is capable of modifying the fishing production chain towards a more sustainable one.
In an interview with Causa Natura Media, Del Mazo highlighted the role of certifications such as good aquaculture practices (BAP), the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), fisheries improvement projects (FIP) and the Fairtrade seal, which guarantee the sustainability and social responsibility of fishery products.
*This interview has been edited for synthesis and better reading.
— What efforts are being made by supermarkets to offer sustainable products?
In supermarkets, as far as I understand, everyone already has sustainability and traceability projects, and they already have internal company policies that they have to buy more and more sustainably, or there are some that have to buy one hundred percent sustainable. There is already a big movement there.
These companies are making a change because at least they force producers to have a third party to audit them and say that their products are sustainable through certifications.
— What is the decisive sector in the supply chain to discourage illegal fishing?
Although every piece of the market has an influence, I think the most important influence is that of the final consumer. It is necessary to raise awareness, provide simple information to the final consumer so that they understand what they are consuming, and in this way they can reflect on why they consume it, decide if they consume something else, or demand that they have some traceability and sustainability.
We need more and more people to understand what they consume and the repercussions of not consuming something sustainable.
— What is the best guide consumers can follow when buying fish and seafood?
It's a bit difficult for the consumer to say where to and where not to consume. I think the important thing is for consumers to understand that there are certifications that have certain logos and that those certifications are the ones that are valuable. These can be found on the website of the Seafood Watch, a program of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which gives an orientation of the species and the area. Also at Comeesca we have designed a map of fishing and aquaculture projects that are certified or that are in a fishing improvement process (FIP) on which they can be based. But I think it's complicated for the consumer. The best thing is to ask where what you consume comes from, who sells it, where it comes from, that's more important.
— What changes can take place if the consumer starts to question the fish and seafood they consume?
When the consumer asks, there is pressure that comes directly from the final consumer and the supplier will eventually say, 'I want to have a certification so that I can respond to my customers with an appropriate answer and with what they are demanding of me'. And eventually they will start looking for products with BAP, ASC and MSC certifications, fishery improvement projects or a Fairtrade seal. Any audit seal is useful.
— Does the certification of fisheries and aquaculture solve the problem of overfishing?
The bottom line is that only a part of the world's fisheries are certified and audited, while the other part is not. So auditing some species doesn't solve the problem, but you're making progress in generating the solution. I don't think the solution is immediate and there are also a lot of complexities surrounding it, but there is still overfishing. There are many countries that don't even know if they are overfishing, since they don't have established quotas and they don't have scientific studies by species that tell you what to fish, in what periods and what is the current stock (quantity) of the population. Countries like ours don't have any data on many species. There's also the issue of illegality that you can't control either. Not because there are some audited people will no longer be illegality, but the bet we have to make is to insist on the positive side, that people and companies are becoming aware that if we don't make a radical change today... we will run out of food in the future.
— Is there capacity in Mexico to replace all export production to consume certified and local productions?
The simple answer is no. We have no capacity to replace those products with domestic products. What is imported from tilapia and imported grass is a lot and it is a very good price protein for people who need to eat properly and have access to that. The thing is that producing certain things here is sometimes more expensive.
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