Daily 2019 - 9 mai 2019 - 6

New GSA certification setting higher standards
From labor standards on-board fishing
vessels to food safety in processing
plants, the Global Aquaculture Association's new Global Seafood Assurances
(GSA) standard is seeking to create an
all-encompassing certification addressing
every major aspect of sustainability in the
seafood industry.
Launched a year ago at the 2018 Seafood
Expo Global, GSA is an independent,
non-for-profit certification scheme covering environmental responsibility, social
responsibility, food safety, and animal
welfare for both farmed and wild-caught
seafood.
In a panel presentation titled, Beyond
2020: A New World of Assurances, the
GAA offered an update on its many initiatives, including the development of
new standards for wild-catch seafood
processing facilities and the revision of
the Seafish responsible fishing scheme,
which has been absorbed by GSA.
The primary goal of GSA is to create a
comprehensive certification scheme that
addresses existing gaps in the seafood
certifications universe, according to GSA

Executive Director Andrew Mallison. "The
bottom line is these efforts will allow
people to buy seafood with confidence,"
he said. "We want seafood companies to
be able to sell more seafood. We want
to promote consumption of seafood over
terrestrial proteins. To do so, we need to
give the market greater assurances, and
we plan to do that by joining up the
capture fisheries sector in the way we've
done for aquaculture."
GSA, through its affiliation with GAA,
already has a robust assurance program
for aquaculture farming and processing
in the Best aquaculture practices (BAP)
program. Over the past year, the organization has worked to expand that model
into capture fisheries processing, according to GSA European Director Melanie
Siggs. "There are very rigorous and credible certification schemes [governing]
environmental management of fisheries
and aquaculture, and then we have quite
a big jump in supply chain assurance in
regard to processing that seafood. So
we're specifically looking at processing
plant standards, which are now quite

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The GAA offered an update on its many initiatives.
generic, and working to create a chain
of custody process that specifically addresses issues most pertinent to the seafood industry," she said.
GSA will also soon roll out the second version of the Seafish RFS, which covers the
safety and legality of vessel operations, as
well as social and labor issues. Siggs said
social issues have become a high priority
for the seafood industry, and that the RFS

is an important tool in giving companies
a set of standards to work from in developing their policies and procedures for atsea operations. "We are breaking down
what those gaps look like, listening to
the noise bubbling up around the most
pressing issues facing the industry, and
hopefully take on a leadership role in
creating standards."
Cliff WHITE

Nonprofit calls for equity in the seafood industry

Marie Christine Monfort and Tesa Diaz-Faes Santiago.
Speaking at a special event at Seafood
Expo Global, Marie Christine Monfort,
the executive director International Organisation for Women in the seafood
industry (WSI) said women still face extraordinary obstacles in obtaining positions of leadership in the industry. Also
participating was Tesa Diaz-Faes Santiago, director of communications for
Grupo nueva pescanova; Dan Costello,

Ambassador of the Mission of Canada
to the European union; Clearwater Seafoods CEO Ian Smith; British Columbia
[Canada] Seafood alliance executive
director Christina Burridge; Sunrise Fish
farms owner and general manager Laura
Halfyard; and Mary Larkin, president of
Diversified communications.
The 90-minute event covered What
Government and the Private Sector Can

ESE & SPE Daily

do to Support the Inclusion and Advancement of Women in the Seafood Industry,
and panelists discussed their experiences
and examples of what they are doing to
attract, support, and promote women at
all levels.
Monfort stressed the importance of
including and advancing women in the
industry - something she said is still not
being done extensively, despite substantial data showing that doing so improves
overall business performance.
Monfort founded her nonprofit in 2016
and has advanced several initiatives to
foster discussion and action on the issue
of gender equity in the seafood industry.
She said she has been encouraged by the
response her organization has received
from women, but has been dismayed by
what she said has been a dismissal of the
issues raised by organization amongst
many men in the industry. "We received
diverse responses. The most common was
a patronizing attitude, saying 'Oh yes, we
understand you, poor girl.' Then we had
a second attitude, even worse, the denier,
who said, 'No, no, there are no problems,

that maybe 20 or 30 years ago there were
problems, but things have been fixed.'
The third reaction has been curiosity, and
that is the reaction of people who have
never had the understanding that things
can be done differently," Monfort said.
Larkin said while the industry is currently
split roughly equally in terms of men and
women, there is still a significant gap
between the sexes at senior leadership
levels. "My head still has bruises from hitting the glass ceiling," Larkin said.
While many men have become supportive of the effort toward gender equity,
some men are just tired of the conversation, Larkin said. She asked Monfort
whether she had felt a shift in how the
women's equity movement has been received since WSI's founding. "Some men
have shown their willingness to change
and turn the industry into a more socially
progressive place, but we are far from
total acceptance. It's hard to get men into
the discussion," Monfort acknowledged.
"I'm optimistic. I can't say tide has turned
yet. But we are working on it."
C.W.

Secrétariat de rédaction :
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Rédaction :
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Bruno VAUDOUR, Cliff WHITE
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