Snapshots

The Information Age is here, but data-rich fisheries continue to be a rarity around the world. Instead, we see fisheries defined by limited information and limited application of that data for effective management. Such poor data usage results in flawed catch limits, a lack of reliable forecasting or enforcement, little to no accountability or transparency, and the inability to meet demands for adaptive management and sustainable fisheries.

Reports of overfishing, Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) activities, human rights abuses, and fraud continue to tarnish the reputation of the global seafood industry.

Future of Fish asked exhibitors at SENA 14, the largest seafood trade event on the continent, four questions about the state of the industry. Here's what we heard.

Ending overfishing is in everybody's interest.

Build distribution networks that help aquaculture producers access bigger markets

Develop better risk mitigation strategies and improved dialogue around how to lower risk profiles of aquaculture farms.

Pair industry and restoration in a way that taps into underutilized resources and piggy- backs on infrastructure and know-how that exists in other industries

Demand for oyster shell far outstrips supply. Increase the supply of shell to decrease the cost of restoration.

Aquaculture has been around for millennia. But aquaculture as an industrial food system is in its adolescence, suffering from major growing pains.

Eating fish these days is a game of bait and switch: what you think you’re buying isn’t what you get.

The challenges of developing-nation fisheries look very different from those of their commercially developed brethren.