How Do We Stop Over Fishing? Fishing Transparency is a Good Start

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The absence of transparency measures leads to things like

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IUU fishing, fisheries mismanagement. fraud

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and corruption in fisheries decision making and

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Overfishing is a major problem all over the world

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in the ocean. It doesn't matter if it's near a coastline. It doesn't

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matter if it's in the high seas. Every country struggles

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with ensuring that fisheries species like

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the species that are fished are actually managed properly.

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A lot of the countries that we are operating in or

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partnering with have specific roles attached

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to specific species. What we would really like

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to see is a much, pardon the pun, but a much broader

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net cast. where more of these species are

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falling under these import control schemes and things like that so

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There's some species that have sustainable fisheries and there

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are some that just don't. And it's very difficult to control because

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there are a lot of players at play. You have the government, you

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have the industry, and then you have the scientists and

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conservationists that try and feed information into

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both processes, government and industry, to be able

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to get the right number of, say, to set a quota or

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to make sure that management is put forth. Now, with

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that complexity, you put in political will and

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you put in voters and campaign contributors and you get

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a lot more complex in how things roll

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out. And it can be really sticky situations.

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What adds to that complexity is the fact that we don't have a

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lot of information about most of the fisheries that

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happen around the world. That means a specific species

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that is fished may not have the amount of information that

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we need as scientists and conservationists to be able to

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set quota for government to manage properly as well as

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We saw the same thing in maritime security, where within

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a single country, you might not have the Coast Guard talking

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to the Ministry of Fisheries. And that's a challenge. But

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it's also just not something that they've ever been faced with before. They

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And there are some, like I said, there are some bad players and there are some good players. And

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the bad players are greedy and they just want as much money as possible. The

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good players want to be able to fish forever and be able to

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pass it on to generations to come. So how do

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we manage data that we don't have a lot of? The

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big thing is transparency. Being able to

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find out how we can get as much data as possible and sharing

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that data and sharing how the data came to be and

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the methods to get that data, the methods of phishing with

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other players around the world. In comes the

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Coalition of Fisheries Transparency. It's a

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global network of civil society organizations working to

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advance fisheries transparency measures to ensure the sustainability and

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equitability of the fisheries sector. And today

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I have the director of that coalition, Maisie Pidgeon

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who is here to talk about the work that

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the coalition has done in the two years since its inception and the

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work that it plans to do in the future and hopes to do and gives us a lot

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of information on the complexity as well as some

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of the strides that have been made by a variety of different countries. So we're going

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to talk about that on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's

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start the show. Hey

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everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.

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resource that is you know covering 70 over 70 percent

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slash newsletter, let's start this show.

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So, this is a topic that I've been wanting to talk about for a

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long time. And Maisie's team reached out to me and said,

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hey, do you want to talk about fisheries transparency? And

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I said, absolutely I do. And you're probably wondering why does

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this matter? And why don't we have this information before?

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Like why do we not have enough information? If you remember a couple

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of years ago or a year ago, I had on someone

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from Oceania, Canada. We talked about sort of the state of

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stock assessments and fisheries in Canada. And

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the big thing there, the big conclusion was we don't have a lot of information on

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most of the fisheries that are available. And they're going to be putting

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out another, if they've not already put it out already, they're going to be putting out another

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stock assessment sort of evaluation. And

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we're going to find out probably the same thing, that we do not have enough information

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on enough of the fishery stocks that are being fished around the world, around Canada.

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Imagine what that is around the world. There are a lot of different countries.

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They all have their own practices and their own rules and their own set of regulations. Not

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all of them are equal. Some of them are a little bit behind. Some of them

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are really advanced. It's not all there and

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that's really hindering better management of

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fisheries by not knowing what we have to manage. Not

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having that information can lead towards the extinction or

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the collapse of a fishery of a specific species. And

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so we're gonna talk a lot about how important transparency is,

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how the coalition started, why it started, and what the purpose is

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in this interview with Maisie Pidgeon. Enjoy, and I will talk to

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you after. Hey Maisie, welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean

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podcast. Are you ready to talk about transparency and

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fisheries? Absolutely, let's do it. All right. This

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is a topic that I've been wanting to have on the podcast for

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a long time. And when you contacted me and your staff contacted

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me to be like, hey, Andrew, would you like to talk about this on your podcast? I'm like, absolutely, yes.

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I'm going to respond, respond, respond as quickly as possible. Because I

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find when we get into just the topic of overfishing and

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fisheries in general, it can feel disconnected

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from anybody who's listening to this podcast, even myself. Sometimes I'm

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just like, do I have any control over this? Do I have enough information

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on this? How can I do better either as an individual or

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as like a volunteer for an organization such as Oceana or anything like

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that? How can I support this type of work in

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any way possible? And so it's great to have yourself on

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to be able to explain this to us. Now, we're gonna get your title

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in just a second, but we're gonna get involved into like, you know, illegal,

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unreported, and I keep forgetting the last one, and what's

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the last one? Unregulated. Unregulated, shoot. And unregulated fisheries.

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We've talked about it in the past before. We're going to really get down into it. How do we

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combat it? How do we address it with other countries and

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so forth? So we're going to get into all of that. But before we do, Maisie, why

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Sure. My name is Maisie Pidgeon. I'm the director of

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Nice. Very, very nice. Now, how does

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one become the director of sort

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of like a coalition like this? Because, you know,

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this is, why don't you just let us know a little bit more about

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the coalition first, and then we'll kind of talk a little bit about your background and how you

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Yeah, absolutely. So the Coalition for Fisheries Transparency

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is a network of 50 civil society member organizations. and

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we have members across Africa, Asia, Europe,

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Latin America, North America, Oceania, and

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all of those organizations are working to improve fisheries

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governance and sustainability through advancing fisheries transparency

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policies. The framework around which we work

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is something called the Global Charter, which I'm sure we'll speak about later, but it's

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a set of 10 policy principles around fisheries

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transparency, the best practices in fisheries transparency in

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the areas of vessel information, fishing activity,

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Gotcha. Okay, look, now this makes me want to get into it even more.

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Before we do, I just want to get a little background on you, Maisie. So how does

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one become a director? Like, where did it all start? Where did your love for

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So I have been in this position for just over two years.

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And prior to that, I spent about

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a decade and a half working in maritime security. So

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I originally started working in counter-piracy. And

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that evolved into all other kinds of

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maritime crime, including illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing,

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as well as wildlife trafficking by

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maritime modes and things like that. So I've worked

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for NGOs. I have been a consultant for the U.N. and

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Gotcha. OK, so this is interesting. You know, it's funny when you said counter

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piracy right at the beginning, you know, I think people think piracy now of

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videos and and other things. But now we're talking about like

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actual pirates, actual piracy on the water.

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Like, I think the closest we could probably really

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relate to is sort of the pirates in Somalia

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that, you know, were attacking supply boats. And there was a

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famous movie starring Tom Hanks, who, you know, really

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sort of displayed sort of what would happen

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and how dangerous it could be. What it like what, like,

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how prevalent is piracy still today,

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Well, when I started working on it, that was really sort of the height of

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the Somali piracy crisis that you're talking about, in

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which case we were seeing anywhere from 50 to

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100 attacks every single year off the coast of Somalia. And

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increasingly, we saw lots off the coast of West Africa and

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in the Sulu and Celebes seas as well,

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and eventually even into Latin America. Thankfully,

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at this point in history, we have decreased

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the annual piracy attack numbers.

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And I think a lot of that is due to international cooperation, which

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is sort of brings us back to where we are now talking

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about IUU phishing and some of the tools we might have in

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Yeah, for sure. Let's talk about that. The IEU fishing. I kind

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of defined it very poorly at the beginning of this episode. Can

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you just talk about what it is and the

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problems that it's causing in fisheries today and

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I'll actually start by talking a little bit more about transparency and

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what the lack of transparency can do, can enable, I

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should say, if that's all right. But the

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absence of transparency measures leads to things like

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IUU fishing, fisheries mismanagement, fraud

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and corruption in fisheries decision-making, and

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even human rights abuses in the fisheries sector is unfortunately

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something that we see as well. The downriver effects of

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this kind of fisheries mismanagement, which is sort of the broad

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umbrella that IUU would fall under, I

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would say, includes overexploited fishery stocks, food

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insecurity is a major concern, and

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risks to the livelihoods of residents of these coastal communities

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in places like West Africa or Pacific Island

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nations, for instance. Meanwhile, we

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would say transparency is the tool at our

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disposal to combat these kinds of challenges. These

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measures are, generally speaking, low cost and easily

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implemented. And I think the

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really critical thing, which is something I bring from my past in maritime security,

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is that more and better information enables informed

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and inclusive decision making, which brings everybody to

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a seat at the table. From the government perspective, too, it lends

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credibility. It demonstrates the government's trustworthiness to citizens

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because they're sharing information and they're including them in the process. So

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to us, transparency measures are really a win-win for

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For sure. Now, if it has so many benefits,

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Why are we talking about it now? Why isn't it just something that

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we have in every government where there's transparency? Where

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is the incentive to not be transparent for when

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it comes to fisheries, where it comes to

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I think there's a couple of different ways

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that you could frame this. I think the fishery

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sector is one in which there are some corrupt actors

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working. Um, where a small number of people are

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becoming enriched by overselling fishing licenses or

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something like that. Um, so that's one part of the problem. The

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other part of the problem though, and I think probably the more commonplace

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one is there's just a lack of understanding of

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what fisheries transparency can do. Um, these infrastructures are

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not necessarily in place, uh, in places. Um,

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and there are a lot of competing voices telling these governments

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that there The fishing industry

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doesn't want additional measures to

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abide by. So it can be a kind of complicated set

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I feel like international fisheries in general, even

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whether you're looking at a national scale, It feels like it's

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complex, right? Like this is not an easy problem to solve. I

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mean, if it was, it probably would have been solved a long time ago.

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So you've mentioned some of the complexities and some

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of the problems from a human rights point of view, obviously, in

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terms of what we call fishery slavery and other

236
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acts that have occurred through a lot of these

237
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bad players and so forth. You know,

238
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I feel like with overfishing, that kind of

239
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is one of the major problems with the ocean. It feels as though a

240
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lot of, it feels almost like there's a blanket, and some movies

241
00:15:30,350 --> 00:15:33,755
have highlighted this, where there's this like blanket of negative view

242
00:15:33,995 --> 00:15:37,659
of any kind of fishing. in any kind of fisheries, to

243
00:15:37,679 --> 00:15:40,742
the point where people are like, the only way we can really get over overfishing is

244
00:15:40,802 --> 00:15:44,124
if everybody stops eating fish. You and I know that will never happen.

245
00:15:44,144 --> 00:15:47,307
There's too many people that depend on the protein stores worldwide that will

246
00:15:47,327 --> 00:15:50,489
happen. And even people who don't necessarily need to depend on

247
00:15:50,529 --> 00:15:54,532
it will still want to have fish. So we know that's not low.

248
00:15:54,552 --> 00:15:57,935
But we also know that it's not all fishing is

249
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bad. So I guess where I really wanted

250
00:16:01,638 --> 00:16:04,820
to go with this was, When we talk about fishery and

251
00:16:04,940 --> 00:16:08,522
transparencies, there are some

252
00:16:08,662 --> 00:16:12,984
fisheries where there's large

253
00:16:13,004 --> 00:16:16,826
and then there's small fisheries, right? And when

254
00:16:16,846 --> 00:16:20,188
we talk about transparency, it's like where do we begin in terms of

255
00:16:23,769 --> 00:16:27,724
Oh, yeah. Okay. I hear you. Um, so I think some of the positive examples,

256
00:16:28,305 --> 00:16:32,245
uh, here are generally sort of fishery by fishery. And

257
00:16:32,445 --> 00:16:36,146
just in case your listeners are not necessarily

258
00:16:36,366 --> 00:16:40,127
fisheries biologists, which I am also not for the record. Um,

259
00:16:40,567 --> 00:16:44,248
when I refer to a fishery, I mean, a specific species of

260
00:16:44,328 --> 00:16:47,749
fish. So maybe that's squid or maybe that's yellowfin tuna.

261
00:16:48,469 --> 00:16:52,170
Um, so a lot of the countries that we are operating in

262
00:16:52,470 --> 00:16:56,087
or partnering with. have specific rules

263
00:16:56,307 --> 00:16:59,591
attached to specific species. What

264
00:16:59,631 --> 00:17:02,995
we would really like to see is a much, pardon the pun, but

265
00:17:03,035 --> 00:17:06,599
a much broader net cast where more of these species

266
00:17:06,940 --> 00:17:10,103
are falling under these import control schemes and things like

267
00:17:10,143 --> 00:17:13,447
that so that we have better data on all of the species that

268
00:17:14,925 --> 00:17:18,287
Got you. So everybody is part of the information that comes in.

269
00:17:18,327 --> 00:17:21,449
So for instance, I know in Canada, we've talked to

270
00:17:21,509 --> 00:17:24,971
Oceana Canada before they've come in and they've done their annual report on

271
00:17:25,031 --> 00:17:29,093
where the fisheries stock assessments are and where our fisheries management

272
00:17:29,313 --> 00:17:32,595
is. And a lot of the times there's lack of data for a number of

273
00:17:32,675 --> 00:17:36,257
species. So it's really difficult to gain an

274
00:17:36,277 --> 00:17:40,060
understanding of where they're at, whether they're critically endangered in

275
00:17:40,120 --> 00:17:43,405
danger or they're doing really well we we have no idea because there's there's

276
00:17:43,445 --> 00:17:47,091
a lot of lack there's a lack of information of those species. And

277
00:17:47,131 --> 00:17:50,637
a lot of the times as we know from just ocean

278
00:17:50,677 --> 00:17:54,422
biology and how it's changed over the last number of decades is that. We've

279
00:17:54,502 --> 00:17:58,066
seen a change in like going from looking at more of a habitat style, like

280
00:17:58,146 --> 00:18:01,770
looking at like an ecosystem management, base management scheme, rather

281
00:18:01,810 --> 00:18:05,694
than a species by species basis. Because you never know if you're fishing yellowfin

282
00:18:05,754 --> 00:18:09,337
tuna, you're going to affect other species. That's right. Long lining or

283
00:18:09,377 --> 00:18:12,681
what have you, right? And gillnets can also affect

284
00:18:12,741 --> 00:18:16,584
other species. There's a lot of gear that comes down to it. Absolutely. Yeah,

285
00:18:18,962 --> 00:18:22,423
I should also say that a lot of countries, for

286
00:18:22,463 --> 00:18:25,624
instance, we're working in East Asia with Japan and

287
00:18:25,664 --> 00:18:29,225
Korea, and they have started their import control

288
00:18:29,265 --> 00:18:32,606
schemes by looking at high-risk species. And

289
00:18:32,646 --> 00:18:35,967
this is, of course, a really logical starting point. From

290
00:18:36,027 --> 00:18:39,587
the perspective of the coalition, any progress is good progress.

291
00:18:40,568 --> 00:18:44,089
And we understand that countries are not operating from

292
00:18:44,149 --> 00:18:47,986
the same starting point. So, like, regardless

293
00:18:51,698 --> 00:18:54,999
Yeah, for sure. Obviously, yeah, that's

294
00:18:55,039 --> 00:18:58,339
an important point to stay home is not

295
00:18:58,400 --> 00:19:01,700
every country has made it a priority in the past, even though they might

296
00:19:01,760 --> 00:19:05,881
be a coastal country and depend on its fisheries. It

297
00:19:06,121 --> 00:19:09,942
took a while before the US and Canada probably tracked cod.

298
00:19:10,262 --> 00:19:13,463
Yeah, right. So we were probably on the downfall a lot

299
00:19:13,503 --> 00:19:16,644
before than we knew when it comes down to that for

300
00:19:16,724 --> 00:19:20,465
Atlantic cod. It's really interesting

301
00:19:21,125 --> 00:19:24,966
when you talk about this coalition, you talk about working with different countries.

302
00:19:25,706 --> 00:19:29,908
When it first started, how many countries were involved?

303
00:19:30,048 --> 00:19:35,169
Did the coalition have

304
00:19:35,289 --> 00:19:40,071
as many organizations a part of it? I think you mentioned about 50 organizations.

305
00:19:40,091 --> 00:19:43,492
Did it have as many when it first started or have you been bringing people on

306
00:19:46,553 --> 00:19:50,074
bringing people in as we've gone along. And part of that is organic,

307
00:19:50,234 --> 00:19:53,955
as you might imagine. But a lot of that has been that my

308
00:19:53,995 --> 00:19:57,455
team and I have been working with our other partners, whether that's

309
00:19:57,555 --> 00:20:00,816
Oceana or EJF or some of these other

310
00:20:00,916 --> 00:20:04,137
civil society organizations who are really plugged in on

311
00:20:04,157 --> 00:20:07,917
the ground to understand who they're working with and

312
00:20:07,957 --> 00:20:12,398
where these major fishing countries are, whether they're seafood exporting

313
00:20:12,438 --> 00:20:16,685
countries, seafood importing countries, fishing nations, And

314
00:20:16,725 --> 00:20:20,009
finding potential partners in civil

315
00:20:20,029 --> 00:20:24,655
society on the ground in those places too. Sorry,

316
00:20:25,175 --> 00:20:28,460
I was just going to say we really are seeking out places where

317
00:20:28,640 --> 00:20:31,904
we think civil society has an opportunity to

318
00:20:32,304 --> 00:20:35,498
make an impact and change policy. So that's

319
00:20:35,558 --> 00:20:39,301
sort of the criteria for the places where we're actively recruiting members

320
00:20:39,401 --> 00:20:42,782
and seeking to organize them and align their strategies and

321
00:20:43,663 --> 00:20:47,585
Makes total sense. If you think about it, if you think about looking at tackling

322
00:20:47,625 --> 00:20:51,227
transparency for fisheries, that's a huge undertaking for

323
00:20:51,247 --> 00:20:55,129
like a small team. You need the team that's on the ground that understands the

324
00:20:55,189 --> 00:20:58,531
local fishery, which helps and the local people who are involved

325
00:20:58,551 --> 00:21:02,114
in the fishery. and get that feedback mechanism. That's still

326
00:21:02,194 --> 00:21:06,677
a tall order to take on. How

327
00:21:06,757 --> 00:21:10,640
is the organization, like how's the sort of the coalition

328
00:21:10,940 --> 00:21:14,602
sort of organized in terms of gathering

329
00:21:14,662 --> 00:21:18,205
the data and then compiling it into reports

330
00:21:18,305 --> 00:21:21,407
to give you more of an idea, the coalition more of an

331
00:21:21,447 --> 00:21:25,450
idea of what we're actually seeing and what kind of information we're

332
00:21:27,837 --> 00:21:30,958
So to me, the value of a coalition is in

333
00:21:30,998 --> 00:21:34,659
its ability to bring together diverse organizations that

334
00:21:34,719 --> 00:21:38,020
have a variety of skills, a variety of areas of focus and

335
00:21:38,101 --> 00:21:41,342
expertise, and pulling all of

336
00:21:41,442 --> 00:21:44,803
these different abilities together to tackle a complex issue.

337
00:21:46,083 --> 00:21:49,344
So with that in mind, I would say that's

338
00:21:49,384 --> 00:21:52,705
really what we've done. We rely really heavily on the

339
00:21:52,745 --> 00:21:58,210
different skill sets that are contained within the member organizations. Oceana,

340
00:21:58,550 --> 00:22:02,752
for instance, is not in every single country where we are prioritizing

341
00:22:03,732 --> 00:22:07,553
in 2024. Neither is WWF, for

342
00:22:07,633 --> 00:22:10,735
instance. So we seek to see who the

343
00:22:10,815 --> 00:22:14,516
most active people are, understand what the situation is

344
00:22:14,596 --> 00:22:17,957
based on their perspective, see who the potential, you

345
00:22:17,997 --> 00:22:21,398
know, champions in government or industry are.

346
00:22:21,418 --> 00:22:24,599
We focus on government, but some

347
00:22:24,639 --> 00:22:27,916
of our partners work more closely with industry. So we're

348
00:22:30,578 --> 00:22:34,041
Yeah. No, absolutely. And was it difficult to bring on?

349
00:22:34,982 --> 00:22:38,304
some of those like smaller civil society groups that

350
00:22:38,324 --> 00:22:41,607
were on the ground or was it did it make sense for

351
00:22:41,647 --> 00:22:44,830
them to just be like Yeah, we want to contribute to this to this

352
00:22:45,050 --> 00:22:50,014
coalition and contribute to the information that we can get worldwide as

353
00:22:51,938 --> 00:22:55,461
When we reached out to most organizations, so long as

354
00:22:55,501 --> 00:22:59,304
they were aligned with what is

355
00:22:59,344 --> 00:23:02,966
contained in the global charter and those 10 policy

356
00:23:02,986 --> 00:23:06,329
principles, we didn't really have too

357
00:23:06,389 --> 00:23:09,751
much pushback. People were really

358
00:23:09,811 --> 00:23:14,294
happy for the support and for the community of practice that hopefully

359
00:23:16,700 --> 00:23:20,161
And do a lot of the different groups follow the Global Charter?

360
00:23:22,182 --> 00:23:25,803
It was definitely new to some of them. So

361
00:23:27,164 --> 00:23:30,905
within the Global Charter, there's everything from vessel monitoring,

362
00:23:31,065 --> 00:23:34,686
which, if you're familiar with Global Fishing Watch, is something that

363
00:23:34,726 --> 00:23:38,548
they really focus on, to collecting crew

364
00:23:38,568 --> 00:23:42,809
data, which touches back on your human

365
00:23:42,869 --> 00:23:46,227
rights question earlier. So some

366
00:23:46,287 --> 00:23:50,048
of them have different areas of focus, but they generally are aligned

367
00:23:50,388 --> 00:23:53,569
with the really broad definition of what's

368
00:23:53,629 --> 00:23:56,810
included in transparency policy. They might

369
00:24:00,211 --> 00:24:04,828
That makes a lot of sense. Now,

370
00:24:05,228 --> 00:24:09,451
is it the goal of the coalition to have

371
00:24:09,491 --> 00:24:13,194
all this information in a shareable database to all these coalitions,

372
00:24:13,274 --> 00:24:17,577
or to the members of the coalition, having information on specific fisheries

373
00:24:17,697 --> 00:24:21,920
of species in, say, Indonesia, to Greenland,

374
00:24:24,962 --> 00:24:28,044
I don't think that we will ever be the arbiters of that data, so

375
00:24:28,144 --> 00:24:32,107
to speak. But what we do aim

376
00:24:32,227 --> 00:24:35,736
to contribute is knowing who has that data. So

377
00:24:35,776 --> 00:24:39,299
that if a partner in the Philippines wants to know how

378
00:24:39,419 --> 00:24:43,323
Indonesia accomplished measure XYZ,

379
00:24:47,227 --> 00:24:50,630
Gotcha. So they can contact that affiliation and say,

380
00:24:50,810 --> 00:24:53,953
yeah, we'd love to work with you. So it kind of fosters, it's kind

381
00:24:53,973 --> 00:24:57,657
of a way to like, it is a network where you're fostering collaboration.

382
00:24:59,687 --> 00:25:03,270
OK, I like that. I like that idea. Bit of a social media

383
00:25:07,293 --> 00:25:10,816
One of the goals that we were originally tasked

384
00:25:10,876 --> 00:25:14,459
with was developing a global community of practice so

385
00:25:15,039 --> 00:25:18,942
that we could really start to build worldwide momentum towards

386
00:25:19,963 --> 00:25:23,186
fisheries transparency because civil society is really

387
00:25:23,246 --> 00:25:26,488
powerful and they've accomplished lots of things. But a lot of these

388
00:25:26,548 --> 00:25:30,151
victories have been you know, somewhat isolated by geography.

389
00:25:30,871 --> 00:25:34,575
So our funders and our supporters see

390
00:25:36,056 --> 00:25:39,219
CFT, the Coalition for Fisheries Transparency, as

391
00:25:39,259 --> 00:25:43,602
a vehicle to connect the dots between folks

392
00:25:47,245 --> 00:25:51,369
Yeah. Well, even just to put them in contact is

393
00:25:51,729 --> 00:25:55,673
a huge feat. You're familiar with RARE, the

394
00:25:55,693 --> 00:25:59,316
group RARE? They do a great job at

395
00:25:59,496 --> 00:26:02,958
their Fishing Forever program, where they

396
00:26:03,118 --> 00:26:06,479
connect tropical countries, but more like villages of

397
00:26:06,499 --> 00:26:09,860
tropical countries. They're connecting government officials, mayors, and so forth

398
00:26:10,481 --> 00:26:13,822
in the Philippines to people in Haiti and

399
00:26:13,882 --> 00:26:18,104
the Caribbean. And it's great to be able to get to share information, transfer

400
00:26:18,124 --> 00:26:21,325
of information, look at similarities, look at differences, and how each

401
00:26:21,525 --> 00:26:25,127
one of them have been able to tackle a challenge, say,

402
00:26:25,167 --> 00:26:28,348
in fisheries for this instance, and then maybe they can use

403
00:26:28,388 --> 00:26:32,210
some of that to apply their own. I think that's probably

404
00:26:32,350 --> 00:26:35,691
the same kind of deal with this, just a little bit

405
00:26:35,971 --> 00:26:39,313
higher level, because you're dealing with a lot of different countries. Is

406
00:26:40,253 --> 00:26:43,595
Yeah, right. I mean, obviously, every

407
00:26:43,635 --> 00:26:46,896
country has its own nuances. So there is

408
00:26:46,996 --> 00:26:50,418
no one size all application for fisheries

409
00:26:50,458 --> 00:26:53,907
transparency, unfortunately for us, I think. I

410
00:26:55,268 --> 00:26:58,570
think it's just useful in its

411
00:26:58,650 --> 00:27:01,911
most basic form for these organizations doing this really

412
00:27:01,931 --> 00:27:05,553
hard work to know they're not alone, to hear some other ideas.

413
00:27:05,973 --> 00:27:10,836
Maybe they try them. Maybe they already have before they worked or they didn't. But

414
00:27:10,856 --> 00:27:14,958
they're not reinventing the wheel. And I think that community actually is

415
00:27:15,318 --> 00:27:18,820
really valuable on its own without

416
00:27:21,075 --> 00:27:24,839
Well, I mean, if you think about it, we globalize everything, pretty much. We globalize

417
00:27:24,859 --> 00:27:28,102
transparency and figuring out how to tackle these challenges, right?

418
00:27:28,142 --> 00:27:32,826
I think it's great. How many countries are currently working

419
00:27:36,169 --> 00:27:39,633
You know what? I just asked somebody on my team.

420
00:27:44,958 --> 00:27:48,843
Wow. That's incredible. 62 countries.

421
00:27:49,244 --> 00:27:52,265
Now, this is something that I've always wanted to know. A

422
00:27:52,285 --> 00:27:55,687
lot of times when we talk about fisheries

423
00:27:55,727 --> 00:27:58,949
or overfishing, there's always certain countries that are highlighted as

424
00:27:59,029 --> 00:28:02,190
being maybe not the best players in town or not

425
00:28:02,350 --> 00:28:05,913
tracking They've had fishers from

426
00:28:05,973 --> 00:28:10,235
that country doing some bad practices. And

427
00:28:10,295 --> 00:28:13,497
so they get highlighted a lot. It's the same country. I don't really want to mention them

428
00:28:13,517 --> 00:28:17,680
because I don't really want to bring them down. Because I assume the coalition, when

429
00:28:17,700 --> 00:28:21,582
you go and work with a country that may have been highlighted before

430
00:28:21,922 --> 00:28:25,284
as not monitoring IUU fishing as well as they could

431
00:28:25,324 --> 00:28:28,606
be and stuff, Do you go not as like a finger

432
00:28:28,626 --> 00:28:32,088
wagging, you're going in as, hey, we want to help you be as transparent as

433
00:28:32,148 --> 00:28:35,389
possible. When you do approach or if you do

434
00:28:35,449 --> 00:28:38,891
approach, what's the reaction of the

435
00:28:38,931 --> 00:28:42,232
country, you know, of the government that you're working with? Are they a little bit

436
00:28:42,272 --> 00:28:46,574
standoffish because fisheries can be such a big player

437
00:28:46,614 --> 00:28:49,936
in terms of like GDP or is it more of like, yes,

438
00:28:49,976 --> 00:28:53,157
we would love to work with you because we need some

439
00:28:56,830 --> 00:29:00,011
In my experience, nine times out of the 10, it's the latter. Oh,

440
00:29:00,851 --> 00:29:05,431
great. I think people are generally receptive

441
00:29:06,332 --> 00:29:11,012
to what we're selling, for lack of a better word, because

442
00:29:11,292 --> 00:29:14,853
I think that they see that it benefits their people. And

443
00:29:15,113 --> 00:29:19,114
this is something that their constituents will get behind. But

444
00:29:19,134 --> 00:29:23,154
that said, it should be noted that we

445
00:29:23,394 --> 00:29:27,244
really focus our efforts, like I mentioned earlier, places

446
00:29:27,304 --> 00:29:30,467
where we think we can have a tangible impact. So some

447
00:29:30,507 --> 00:29:33,770
of this is already baked into the calculus in some respects, where

448
00:29:33,810 --> 00:29:37,954
we see an opening with governments. But I'll

449
00:29:37,974 --> 00:29:41,578
say, we've certainly engaged with governments who have maybe received

450
00:29:41,718 --> 00:29:45,521
a yellow card or a red card in the past from the European

451
00:29:45,621 --> 00:29:48,864
Union. And that is not disqualifying for us. That's an

452
00:29:49,966 --> 00:29:53,488
Yeah, for sure, for sure, because that's an opportunity to work with them. Because look,

453
00:29:53,508 --> 00:29:56,829
I think what some people don't understand when

454
00:29:56,849 --> 00:30:00,191
they read articles like that, and I'm glad you brought up the yellow card,

455
00:30:00,671 --> 00:30:03,713
red card with the EU, because they brought that out a

456
00:30:03,753 --> 00:30:07,234
number of years ago. It's kind of like a soccer or

457
00:30:07,254 --> 00:30:10,396
a football sort of approach to

458
00:30:10,456 --> 00:30:13,957
saying you've done well, you haven't done well, or you're in the warnings zone.

459
00:30:15,338 --> 00:30:18,641
It's very difficult for a government to track IUU. Is that not right?

460
00:30:18,741 --> 00:30:22,384
It can't be easy because there's so many different scales

461
00:30:25,307 --> 00:30:28,569
Yeah. And even another

462
00:30:28,609 --> 00:30:32,212
layer to that is that there's lots of different agencies within

463
00:30:32,232 --> 00:30:35,715
a singular government who might have some piece

464
00:30:36,336 --> 00:30:39,639
of the fishing sector, whether it's commerce or

465
00:30:39,679 --> 00:30:42,988
the Ministry of Fisheries or Ministry of

466
00:30:43,028 --> 00:30:46,471
Foreign Affairs, they all sort of have various touch points, and they might have

467
00:30:46,571 --> 00:30:50,394
different components of the full information picture,

468
00:30:50,454 --> 00:30:53,856
which makes this, you know, pretty difficult. We saw the same thing

469
00:30:54,076 --> 00:30:57,739
in maritime security, where within a single country,

470
00:30:58,300 --> 00:31:01,862
you might not have the Coast Guard talking to the Ministry of Fisheries, and

471
00:31:01,902 --> 00:31:05,551
that's a challenge. But it's also just not something that they've ever

472
00:31:08,533 --> 00:31:11,974
That's true Yeah, so with the coalition What

473
00:31:11,994 --> 00:31:15,156
are the keys to success in working with a

474
00:31:15,216 --> 00:31:18,458
country to get them to be? Is

475
00:31:18,498 --> 00:31:21,859
it to get them to be more transparent? Is that the goal when you work with the country

476
00:31:21,919 --> 00:31:25,061
or you work with organizations like what? What is the keys to

477
00:31:25,181 --> 00:31:28,482
getting them the more trans like the most transparency out of the of

478
00:31:30,733 --> 00:31:34,155
So I would say it depends. There are certain countries which

479
00:31:34,375 --> 00:31:37,717
are in the position of maybe stepping

480
00:31:37,817 --> 00:31:41,039
up and taking a global leadership role in

481
00:31:41,119 --> 00:31:45,101
transparency, and that would be the way that we frame the ask. They've

482
00:31:45,121 --> 00:31:48,683
already shown some willingness to embrace transparency policies, and

483
00:31:48,703 --> 00:31:53,626
we want them to go further. In other settings,

484
00:31:53,926 --> 00:31:57,848
maybe there's been a considerable amount of investment

485
00:31:57,948 --> 00:32:01,488
from our partners in the ground time, money, whatever.

486
00:32:01,508 --> 00:32:05,051
And we're looking for the

487
00:32:05,091 --> 00:32:08,913
lowest hanging fruit to just get momentum going. Like

488
00:32:08,954 --> 00:32:12,496
I said, success is success. This is a big, long fight. So

489
00:32:12,716 --> 00:32:15,898
we will take what we can get. And these are all victories worth

490
00:32:16,999 --> 00:32:20,542
Right, for sure. When you approach

491
00:32:20,602 --> 00:32:23,684
a country who hasn't maybe had a

492
00:32:23,724 --> 00:32:29,079
lot of experience in this endeavor, I

493
00:32:29,099 --> 00:32:32,922
guess, what are those first pieces that would

494
00:32:32,982 --> 00:32:36,565
be like, hey, it's successful that you've already taken this first step? This

495
00:32:40,549 --> 00:32:43,972
It totally depends, I think. It depends on

496
00:32:44,352 --> 00:32:47,735
what the government has prioritized to this point. Maybe they

497
00:32:47,775 --> 00:32:51,678
have been publishing lists of vessels

498
00:32:51,778 --> 00:32:54,961
authorized to fish in their waters. That's a great

499
00:32:55,001 --> 00:32:58,480
first step. Yeah. That's a really great first step. Because so

500
00:32:58,520 --> 00:33:02,624
much can build from that. Maybe they've already

501
00:33:03,624 --> 00:33:07,307
agreed to share their data with Global Fishing Watch. That's an amazing first

502
00:33:07,387 --> 00:33:11,110
step, too. So it really just depends on what

503
00:33:11,150 --> 00:33:14,272
their priorities are and where the political will is in

504
00:33:15,653 --> 00:33:18,836
Right. Do you find it sometimes frustrating when you come up against

505
00:33:18,876 --> 00:33:22,598
a country who resists? Or do they resist when

506
00:33:22,799 --> 00:33:26,381
you try and work with them on certain aspects that would bring

507
00:33:29,432 --> 00:33:33,153
I mean, sure. Uh, there's always setbacks in this kind of work

508
00:33:33,273 --> 00:33:36,954
and it can be really frustrating, but I think our role as

509
00:33:36,994 --> 00:33:40,354
the coalition is not so much to focus on that. It's to

510
00:33:40,394 --> 00:33:44,275
support the folks on the ground who are really in the grind, um,

511
00:33:44,375 --> 00:33:47,636
and make sure that they have what they need from

512
00:33:47,676 --> 00:33:51,456
a global perspective, whether that's just another point of leverage or

513
00:33:51,576 --> 00:33:55,414
some communication support or whatever we can offer. to

514
00:33:55,454 --> 00:33:58,616
make sure that they're sort of staying in

515
00:33:59,136 --> 00:34:02,218
Yeah, for sure. On the

516
00:34:02,258 --> 00:34:05,740
other hand, on the other scale, you had mentioned you had countries

517
00:34:05,780 --> 00:34:09,061
who have done pretty well and then you want to challenge

518
00:34:09,081 --> 00:34:12,843
them a little bit further to tackle

519
00:34:12,883 --> 00:34:16,525
even more of that transparency, where

520
00:34:16,565 --> 00:34:19,806
are they at when you get to them and they'd be like, oh, these guys

521
00:34:19,826 --> 00:34:23,207
are pretty far advanced? What have they done to

522
00:34:23,267 --> 00:34:26,709
say, hey, they've done really well? You don't have to name a country, but

523
00:34:26,749 --> 00:34:30,130
if there's something like an example that you can talk about where

524
00:34:30,470 --> 00:34:34,152
there have been pieces where you're like, oh, wow, this country's fairly advanced. Let's

525
00:34:36,993 --> 00:34:40,074
I've been talking a lot about the global charter, which I have a

526
00:34:40,114 --> 00:34:43,830
copy of here. a country that

527
00:34:44,090 --> 00:34:47,613
has maybe ticked off six of the ten,

528
00:34:49,094 --> 00:34:52,637
or something like that, of these ten policy principles.

529
00:34:53,498 --> 00:34:56,761
So what that would look like for us from that point on would be, you're

530
00:34:56,801 --> 00:35:00,484
so close. You could be one of the first countries in

531
00:35:00,504 --> 00:35:04,947
the entire world to be fully aligned

532
00:35:05,107 --> 00:35:09,371
with the Global Charter for Fisheries Transparency. Doesn't

533
00:35:09,411 --> 00:35:12,818
that sound appealing to you? And, you know, I

534
00:35:12,858 --> 00:35:16,079
think we get varying levels of receptiveness to

535
00:35:16,119 --> 00:35:19,340
that. But I think in

536
00:35:19,420 --> 00:35:22,861
general, countries do want to be leaders, but

537
00:35:24,201 --> 00:35:27,882
there is a lot of geopolitics at play, too. And we certainly understand

538
00:35:27,922 --> 00:35:31,282
that. It's one of the biggest

539
00:35:31,302 --> 00:35:36,505
challenges of this job. Fish

540
00:35:39,288 --> 00:35:42,590
Exactly. That's such a great line. I love that.

541
00:35:43,671 --> 00:35:47,094
You mentioned the 10 policies here. Can we actually

542
00:35:47,134 --> 00:35:50,337
just list them just for the audience? Absolutely. If that's OK? Sure. I

543
00:35:53,139 --> 00:35:57,823
No problem. So under vessel information, require

544
00:35:57,963 --> 00:36:01,706
unique identification numbers for all fishing vessels, including transport

545
00:36:01,766 --> 00:36:05,754
and supply vessels. Publish lists of licenses, authorizations,

546
00:36:05,814 --> 00:36:09,416
and sanctions. Make public the beneficial ownership

547
00:36:09,716 --> 00:36:13,198
of vessels. And stop the use of flags of convenience by

548
00:36:13,258 --> 00:36:17,220
fishing vessels. That's a

549
00:36:17,260 --> 00:36:21,123
good one. Under fishing activity, make

550
00:36:21,203 --> 00:36:24,725
vessel position data public. Ban or

551
00:36:24,785 --> 00:36:28,507
closely monitor at sea transshipment, or the transfer of

552
00:36:28,667 --> 00:36:32,998
catch from ship to ship at sea. Right. mandate

553
00:36:33,058 --> 00:36:36,419
seafood traceability. Uh, we're looking from boat to

554
00:36:36,499 --> 00:36:40,001
plate. Yes. And then in governance and management

555
00:36:40,581 --> 00:36:44,102
ratify international agreements that set standards for fishing vessels

556
00:36:44,182 --> 00:36:47,563
and trade. Um, those include the FAO agreement

557
00:36:47,623 --> 00:36:51,484
on port state measures, the international labor organization, fundamental

558
00:36:51,524 --> 00:36:55,406
principles and rights at work, uh, Cape town agreement, um,

559
00:36:55,526 --> 00:36:58,887
ensure equity, public and equitable access to fisheries data.

560
00:36:59,508 --> 00:37:03,969
and participation in fisheries management and decision-making. And

561
00:37:04,590 --> 00:37:08,051
finally, collect data on the conditions of fishing vessel crews and

562
00:37:10,691 --> 00:37:14,413
Interesting. These are all like, they all

563
00:37:15,033 --> 00:37:18,174
sound really great because there's a couple of them where I was like, oh

564
00:37:18,214 --> 00:37:22,675
yeah, that's a big thing. The flag was a big thing, obviously. But

565
00:37:22,695 --> 00:37:25,776
the first two seemed very simple. I'll explain the

566
00:37:25,816 --> 00:37:29,357
flag in a little bit, or maybe have you explain the flag in a little bit. Some

567
00:37:29,377 --> 00:37:32,639
people don't understand what happens at sea, and

568
00:37:32,659 --> 00:37:36,001
you have a lot of experience with that, with your maritime security

569
00:37:36,021 --> 00:37:39,383
experience as well as this experience. But the first two

570
00:37:39,423 --> 00:37:42,805
seem very simple in terms of publishing data and making sure

571
00:37:42,845 --> 00:37:46,066
that you have the vessel demarcation, like

572
00:37:46,086 --> 00:37:49,268
the vessel numbers. as well as who's allowed to, you

573
00:37:49,308 --> 00:37:52,370
mentioned it before, who's allowed to fish in those waters. I

574
00:37:52,411 --> 00:37:56,173
think that really helps with that transparency, because

575
00:37:56,193 --> 00:37:59,395
you have a lot of fishing vessels that come in

576
00:37:59,735 --> 00:38:03,398
from a different country, from a foreign country, and come in and fish. Some

577
00:38:03,438 --> 00:38:06,860
countries have handled it in very different ways, from sinking boats,

578
00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:10,362
as extreme as sinking boats, to not doing anything at

579
00:38:10,482 --> 00:38:13,925
all, or not even realizing that they're there, to putting in

580
00:38:14,645 --> 00:38:17,946
specific pillars that would destroy any kind of trawl nets

581
00:38:18,006 --> 00:38:21,247
to protect the local coral reefs and other

582
00:38:21,267 --> 00:38:24,608
habitats. Can you just talk

583
00:38:24,668 --> 00:38:28,369
about the vessel flags and

584
00:38:28,869 --> 00:38:32,570
what that, I think it's the third priority, what that would mean

585
00:38:32,610 --> 00:38:35,871
and what it means? Because some people here may not understand, like in the audience, may

586
00:38:35,891 --> 00:38:39,332
not understand what the vessel means and searching

587
00:38:40,697 --> 00:38:43,880
Absolutely. So every vessel needs to

588
00:38:43,940 --> 00:38:47,123
have a flag of a country. And it's a bit

589
00:38:47,143 --> 00:38:50,726
like having your car with

590
00:38:50,786 --> 00:38:54,970
a license plate tagged to Virginia

591
00:38:55,150 --> 00:38:59,354
or Colorado, say. And basically, the

592
00:38:59,594 --> 00:39:03,477
flag under which your vessel sails,

593
00:39:04,358 --> 00:39:07,781
you are meant to abide by the rules of that country.

594
00:39:08,683 --> 00:39:13,226
So when we say flags of convenience, that's one

595
00:39:13,266 --> 00:39:16,749
way of saying that those countries

596
00:39:16,809 --> 00:39:20,632
that issue the flags are not necessarily connected

597
00:39:21,432 --> 00:39:24,714
to the vessel in some way. The vessel is not necessarily from that

598
00:39:24,794 --> 00:39:27,997
place. The crew is not necessarily from that place. We call that a

599
00:39:28,077 --> 00:39:31,779
genuine link. And

600
00:39:32,360 --> 00:39:37,956
when we say flags of convenience, sometimes these countries

601
00:39:38,377 --> 00:39:42,198
are less inclined to, you know, enact

602
00:39:42,518 --> 00:39:46,080
the rules at sea. So this enables

603
00:39:46,120 --> 00:39:49,362
things like illegal fishing or human rights

604
00:39:52,916 --> 00:39:56,337
Yeah, yeah, that's a great explanation. You know, that

605
00:39:56,357 --> 00:39:59,578
always surprised me when I first learned about that when I was in school and I was just like,

606
00:39:59,958 --> 00:40:03,120
I can't believe people can switch flags that easily and go

607
00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:06,321
to places where they may not have the same rules as in

608
00:40:06,361 --> 00:40:10,282
other places, they may not be as strict. You would think with maritime law, That

609
00:40:10,322 --> 00:40:13,784
would have to be the same, but I guess every country goes by its own

610
00:40:16,105 --> 00:40:19,427
Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, the ocean is a big, wide

611
00:40:19,447 --> 00:40:23,009
space, unfortunately, for enforcement purposes. But

612
00:40:24,069 --> 00:40:27,651
there are things like there are measures in place, which is why

613
00:40:28,411 --> 00:40:32,834
all of these principles kind of work in cohesion with one another. Later

614
00:40:32,994 --> 00:40:36,575
on, the international agreements stipulation that's

615
00:40:36,615 --> 00:40:39,724
included in the charter One of the things that that calls for is the

616
00:40:39,764 --> 00:40:43,005
Port State Measures Agreement, which, in theory, would

617
00:40:45,947 --> 00:40:49,248
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's wonderful. The other

618
00:40:49,428 --> 00:40:54,030
thing that stood out, one of the policy points, was the stopping

619
00:40:54,150 --> 00:40:57,932
of transferring at sea. And can you explain what

620
00:40:57,992 --> 00:41:01,314
that means? Because this is a big thing when it comes to human

621
00:41:02,874 --> 00:41:06,456
Yes, it is. Absolutely. So transshipment at

622
00:41:06,516 --> 00:41:09,847
sea. is basically a fishing

623
00:41:09,907 --> 00:41:13,188
vessel has a fresh catch, which

624
00:41:13,268 --> 00:41:17,029
is then transferred while still at sea to a larger

625
00:41:17,129 --> 00:41:20,550
transport vessel, which brings that catch back

626
00:41:20,691 --> 00:41:23,872
to port to be sold. And so where

627
00:41:23,892 --> 00:41:27,553
the human rights concerns come in is that this allows

628
00:41:27,593 --> 00:41:30,874
those fishing vessels to stay at sea for extended periods of time.

629
00:41:31,334 --> 00:41:35,035
We sometimes see months or years. And oftentimes,

630
00:41:35,095 --> 00:41:38,356
the crew that are on the vessels are there against their will.

631
00:41:38,936 --> 00:41:42,519
So they don't have access to fresh food or water, to

632
00:41:42,759 --> 00:41:45,962
medical care, to Wi-Fi is a big

633
00:41:46,022 --> 00:41:49,404
issue right now in the fishery sector that people are calling for.

634
00:41:50,265 --> 00:41:53,908
And you can imagine the kinds of nefarious

635
00:41:53,948 --> 00:41:57,130
things that might happen when people are at sea for years at

636
00:41:57,150 --> 00:42:00,673
a time. So that's something

637
00:42:00,713 --> 00:42:04,696
that we're looking to crack down on. We

638
00:42:04,776 --> 00:42:08,090
say ban or closely monitor. at

639
00:42:08,150 --> 00:42:11,513
sea transshipment. Sometimes transshipments are

640
00:42:11,573 --> 00:42:15,337
inevitable and that's certainly understandable, but

641
00:42:15,897 --> 00:42:19,200
they need to be logged and monitored to

642
00:42:22,143 --> 00:42:25,285
Yeah, absolutely. Even fisheries observers who have been on

643
00:42:25,345 --> 00:42:28,667
those transfer boats have had a lot of problems. There

644
00:42:28,687 --> 00:42:31,948
was a couple years ago a gentleman who

645
00:42:32,408 --> 00:42:36,230
was lost at sea because he kept reporting on

646
00:42:36,270 --> 00:42:39,652
these types of nefarious transfers, not only from a human rights impact,

647
00:42:39,672 --> 00:42:42,853
but even just from being unable to identify fish

648
00:42:42,873 --> 00:42:46,256
because they've already been kind of processed, let's just say,

649
00:42:46,336 --> 00:42:49,819
and they couldn't identify the fish. It could have been a shark. It could have been a swordfish. We didn't know.

650
00:42:49,839 --> 00:42:53,062
We couldn't know, right? So that can be quite difficult. So

651
00:42:53,702 --> 00:42:56,825
all these policies make a lot of sense in terms of

652
00:42:57,205 --> 00:43:00,588
bringing this to transparency. Now, how long is it? You've

653
00:43:00,608 --> 00:43:04,031
been with the director two years. Were you at the inception of

654
00:43:04,051 --> 00:43:07,194
the coalition, director? I was. OK. So this has been involved. This is

655
00:43:07,254 --> 00:43:10,296
two years. This is a long process to do.

656
00:43:11,236 --> 00:43:14,877
Where would you rate the work that you've been able to

657
00:43:14,897 --> 00:43:19,038
do now compared to when you first started? Obviously,

658
00:43:19,178 --> 00:43:22,439
you've probably hit some pretty big milestones in terms of the number

659
00:43:22,459 --> 00:43:25,639
of countries that are involved, number of organizations that are involved. But

660
00:43:25,659 --> 00:43:28,840
where do you see, if you look past the

661
00:43:28,880 --> 00:43:32,081
past two years, how fast you've progressed? And

662
00:43:32,121 --> 00:43:35,462
then I'll ask the future as well. Where do you see things going

663
00:43:40,145 --> 00:43:43,708
This is a marathon, and we are maybe on mile two

664
00:43:47,571 --> 00:43:50,934
I like that. We've done a lot of work, but

665
00:43:52,175 --> 00:43:55,397
it's going to be hard. But we've trained for this, so we're

666
00:43:56,878 --> 00:44:00,179
Absolutely. Now, with that said, you talk about training, you talk about

667
00:44:00,219 --> 00:44:03,440
people who are involved in the coalition. What are the type, we've

668
00:44:03,460 --> 00:44:07,042
got a lot of people who are looking for ways to help out with

669
00:44:07,202 --> 00:44:10,643
organizations and they've dedicated their careers to working

670
00:44:10,663 --> 00:44:13,824
on the conservation side, not just on the science side,

671
00:44:13,844 --> 00:44:17,625
but on the conservation side. What are the types of,

672
00:44:18,125 --> 00:44:21,887
I guess, titles of people, of jobs that people

673
00:44:25,798 --> 00:44:29,260
We have a couple of different sort of characterizations of

674
00:44:29,340 --> 00:44:33,422
partners. So the coalition has a secretariat of

675
00:44:33,802 --> 00:44:37,524
three staff and some additional support. So

676
00:44:37,544 --> 00:44:41,767
it is myself, a communication staff person and a membership engagement and

677
00:44:41,847 --> 00:44:45,614
outreach person. So that is the

678
00:44:46,814 --> 00:44:50,617
nuclear family of the Coalition Secretariat.

679
00:44:51,457 --> 00:44:55,340
But we have tremendous support from our co-chair organizations, which

680
00:44:55,640 --> 00:44:59,623
include Oceana and the Environmental Justice Foundation, who

681
00:44:59,923 --> 00:45:03,225
each provide staff time on a really regular

682
00:45:03,265 --> 00:45:06,627
basis. So basically a full-time staff person from each of them as well,

683
00:45:06,687 --> 00:45:10,049
who help organize with their offices on the ground.

684
00:45:11,170 --> 00:45:15,134
So this is a lot of transparency policy manager,

685
00:45:15,955 --> 00:45:20,198
communications staff, those kinds of folks. And

686
00:45:20,238 --> 00:45:23,580
then we have even support from

687
00:45:23,780 --> 00:45:27,183
Oceana's chief scientist and the COO at

688
00:45:27,583 --> 00:45:30,865
EJF. So it's a really broad range of folks.

689
00:45:31,846 --> 00:45:37,970
In terms of our member organizations, I would say that most

690
00:45:38,070 --> 00:45:42,353
frequent title that we see is policy officer or some derivation

691
00:45:42,373 --> 00:45:45,829
of that. Uh, there are a lot of lawyers in the mix, uh,

692
00:45:45,889 --> 00:45:49,331
which is quite useful in terms of understanding what the legal

693
00:45:49,391 --> 00:45:52,474
environment is in these places and what the opportunities are to

694
00:45:52,554 --> 00:45:55,916
actually move laws ahead. Um, so

695
00:45:55,956 --> 00:45:59,679
that's, that's always an incredible asset, uh,

696
00:45:59,779 --> 00:46:03,081
to have those folks on our side as well. Um, and then

697
00:46:03,301 --> 00:46:06,643
there's a lot of conservation biologists and marine biologists like yourself

698
00:46:07,084 --> 00:46:10,566
and scientific communicators, which are all essential

699
00:46:12,404 --> 00:46:15,987
Amazing, amazing. This has been wonderful.

700
00:46:16,007 --> 00:46:19,149
I assume if people want more information, they can

701
00:46:19,189 --> 00:46:22,992
go to the website fisheriestransparency.net. I'll

702
00:46:23,012 --> 00:46:26,515
link to it in the show note. You do have a Twitter profile as

703
00:46:26,555 --> 00:46:29,697
well, Fish Coalition. That's right. And so we'll put

704
00:46:29,737 --> 00:46:32,838
that as well. And in

705
00:46:32,858 --> 00:46:36,499
the next year or so, what kind of projects are you, as

706
00:46:36,519 --> 00:46:39,760
the coalition, focusing on over the next year? Are there new countries that

707
00:46:39,780 --> 00:46:43,062
are going to be coming on board? Or what is the priority for

708
00:46:44,682 --> 00:46:48,564
So we are looking at a couple countries in Africa and Asia, where

709
00:46:48,824 --> 00:46:53,025
we are hoping to advance specific transparency policies. We're

710
00:46:53,045 --> 00:46:56,406
also looking to take advantage of the upcoming Our Ocean

711
00:46:56,446 --> 00:46:59,729
conference in April. where what

712
00:46:59,749 --> 00:47:03,750
we'd really like to see is the profile of transparency raised

713
00:47:03,950 --> 00:47:07,111
in a way that we haven't seen yet. I understand that this can

714
00:47:07,151 --> 00:47:10,751
be kind of an obtuse concept and we're trying to to combat that

715
00:47:10,831 --> 00:47:14,332
too so that people understand that this is a tool

716
00:47:14,992 --> 00:47:18,113
and it's an accessible tool which is

717
00:47:18,133 --> 00:47:21,593
to everybody's benefit. So that is one of our our major

718
00:47:21,653 --> 00:47:24,834
lifts for 2025 as well and

719
00:47:25,654 --> 00:47:29,272
you know I think We are always open to

720
00:47:29,692 --> 00:47:33,615
opportunities as they emerge, too. So I'm reticent

721
00:47:33,875 --> 00:47:38,238
to say that we have a concrete plan at this point, because oftentimes

722
00:47:40,679 --> 00:47:44,242
And especially as a network does, conversations happen.

723
00:47:44,602 --> 00:47:48,184
You get introduced to different people who are in the game. you're

724
00:47:48,304 --> 00:47:51,946
able to either grow the network from an organization, like

725
00:47:51,986 --> 00:47:55,649
from bringing on more organizations, civil society groups,

726
00:47:55,789 --> 00:47:59,671
or even by countries. And obviously, this is a growing

727
00:48:00,492 --> 00:48:04,014
work, and it's complex, and not

728
00:48:04,054 --> 00:48:07,196
an easy undertaking. I just want to thank you.

729
00:48:08,156 --> 00:48:11,458
for not only coming on the podcast and letting us know about this, but also to

730
00:48:12,358 --> 00:48:15,640
do the work that you do and manage it from such

731
00:48:16,141 --> 00:48:19,342
a large scope. You have a

732
00:48:19,923 --> 00:48:23,445
good nuclear family, but it is a small nuclear family that does a lot, and

733
00:48:23,505 --> 00:48:26,706
we appreciate all the work that you do. And we'd love to

734
00:48:26,786 --> 00:48:30,028
have you or some of your partners on to talk more about some

735
00:48:30,048 --> 00:48:33,430
of the projects that have gone on in the last two years or

736
00:48:33,470 --> 00:48:36,693
that are upcoming and you want to share Feel free to reach out, because we'd love

737
00:48:36,733 --> 00:48:40,076
to have you on to get the word out there and get

738
00:48:40,096 --> 00:48:43,320
this audience knowing. Because the one good thing about

739
00:48:43,340 --> 00:48:46,603
this, they like to speak up as well. So they're going to talk about it as well.

740
00:48:47,364 --> 00:48:50,648
So we'd love to have you back on as well. Well, thank you so much for having

741
00:48:52,353 --> 00:48:55,635
You bet. Thank you. Thank you, Maisie, for joining us on

742
00:48:55,655 --> 00:48:58,717
today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. It was great to

743
00:48:58,737 --> 00:49:02,399
have you on. I'm looking forward to being able to talk about more projects that

744
00:49:02,459 --> 00:49:05,601
the coalition is putting together or working on and some of

745
00:49:05,641 --> 00:49:08,863
the results that have come out of the coalition in the future. Maisie

746
00:49:08,883 --> 00:49:12,125
and I were talking after and she's like, hey, we can put you in touch with some great players

747
00:49:12,145 --> 00:49:15,826
that we have that we'll be able to talk about. a lot of interesting projects

748
00:49:15,866 --> 00:49:19,127
that we have. And so today is just sort of the kickoff of

749
00:49:19,227 --> 00:49:22,668
this overview of the Coalition of Fisheries Transparency, being able

750
00:49:22,728 --> 00:49:26,109
to get the whole purpose of it and why it's so important. And

751
00:49:26,149 --> 00:49:29,890
then we're going to dive in deep into some of the other players that

752
00:49:29,930 --> 00:49:33,030
are working on the ground with specific fisheries in

753
00:49:33,070 --> 00:49:36,411
specific countries. And we're going to see the challenges they face,

754
00:49:36,431 --> 00:49:39,952
the successes that they've had through those challenges, and also maybe

755
00:49:39,992 --> 00:49:43,953
some of them not so successful. So we're going to talk about that because it's all about transparency.

756
00:49:44,373 --> 00:49:47,776
And I think that's really important. So I hope you enjoyed this

757
00:49:47,936 --> 00:49:51,119
episode as much as I did recording it and doing the interview for

758
00:49:51,139 --> 00:49:54,362
it. Maisie was fantastic. So again, thank you to Maisie. But

759
00:49:54,382 --> 00:49:58,165
do you have questions around fisheries transparency, IUU

760
00:49:58,245 --> 00:50:01,308
fishing, or anything that has to do with overfishing, whether it

761
00:50:01,328 --> 00:50:04,671
be on the high seas or coastal area or within the EEZ, the

762
00:50:05,011 --> 00:50:08,173
Exclusive Economic Zone of each country? I would love to

763
00:50:08,254 --> 00:50:11,676
hear it from you. You can just put a comment on On

764
00:50:11,716 --> 00:50:14,997
the Spotify if you're watching this on Spotify or listening through Spotify or

765
00:50:15,257 --> 00:50:18,878
on YouTube Or you can hit me up on Instagram at

766
00:50:19,058 --> 00:50:22,179
how to protect the ocean That's at how to protect the ocean And

767
00:50:22,199 --> 00:50:25,560
of course if you enjoyed this video and you're watching this or you're listening

768
00:50:25,600 --> 00:50:29,342
to this Please subscribe hit that notification bell on whatever platform

769
00:50:29,362 --> 00:50:32,503
you're watching or listening to this because it's really important that

770
00:50:32,543 --> 00:50:35,903
we spread the word and that we have regular information about

771
00:50:35,923 --> 00:50:39,504
the ocean coming to us. Like I said, this is a resource that I didn't have when

772
00:50:39,564 --> 00:50:42,605
I was a kid. We didn't even have internet when I was a kid. That's how old I am. I

773
00:50:42,625 --> 00:50:45,725
had to go to the library, which is great, but a lot of the books that I had in

774
00:50:45,925 --> 00:50:49,306
Ontario and Toronto did not have a lot of information on

775
00:50:51,226 --> 00:50:54,647
sharks or on fisheries or on the ocean just in general, other

776
00:50:54,687 --> 00:50:58,528
than large, beautiful photographs, didn't have a lot of information. The

777
00:50:58,568 --> 00:51:01,708
encyclopedias can only take me so far. Now with the internet, now

778
00:51:01,748 --> 00:51:04,969
with all the information that's out there, I'm trying to bring it together so

779
00:51:05,009 --> 00:51:08,230
that you can have it for yourself and you can stay informed and

780
00:51:08,270 --> 00:51:11,831
you can make better decisions around the ocean so that you can live for

781
00:51:11,851 --> 00:51:15,451
a better ocean. So stay tuned, subscribe, follow, hit

782
00:51:15,471 --> 00:51:18,632
the notification bell, whatever you have to do so that you can get more

783
00:51:18,652 --> 00:51:22,413
information and use this as a resource for you to help protect

784
00:51:22,433 --> 00:51:25,634
the ocean. So thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect

785
00:51:25,674 --> 00:51:28,855
the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next