Bali (15/6) - The fisheries industry is one of the parties that has the greatest influence on the improvement as well as the damage to the environment and the sustainability of marine resources. Responding to the importance of sustainability and efforts to minimize the impact of fishing activities, Celebes Seaweed Group and UD Pulau Mas joined the Seafood Savers improvement program, a WWF-Indonesia initiative to support the realization of responsible fisheries.

After passing through an application process consisting of various stages of assessment and improvement, Celebes Seaweed Group and UD Pulau Mas officially tied their cooperation with Seafood Savers at the Seafood Savers Annual Meeting 2016 at Mercure Hotel, Sanur, Bali, Indonesia. In addition to the signing ceremony, the event was also a venue for Seafood Savers members to exchange information and help strategize to drive the development of Seafood Savers and its membership, through a series of constructive collective discussions.

Celebes Seaweed Group is a company engaged in seaweed cultivation, while UD Pulau Mas is a capture fisheries company that registers its lobster commodity. Before registering the lobster commodity, UD Pulau Mas has been a member of Seafood Savers since 2013 with reef fish commodities.

Both companies are engaged in export, with destination countries located in East Asia, such as Taiwan, South Korea and the People's Republic of China. UD Pulau Mas specifically has a superior product of live marine products, with fishing locations spread across 7 provinces in Indonesia. On the other hand, Celebes Seaweed Group is engaged in seaweed cultivation with Gracilaria sp. species cultivated in two locations, namely Bone and Takalar, in South Sulawesi.

With natural habitats increasingly threatened and stocks declining, strategic countermeasures are needed that can improve the welfare of business, nature and society. "Seafood Savers and UD Pulau Mas share the same vision of sustainability. Our company depends on the sustainability of resources, if the stock continues to decline, our company's activities can certainly decline. By registering some of my commodities to Seafood Savers, I hope that the sustainability aspect can be realized, thus ensuring the running of our business as well as the welfare of habitats and resources," said Heru Purnomo, director of UD Pulau Mas.

The signing of this Cooperation Agreement will be followed by the implementation of fisheries improvement programs that are arranged in a relevant manner according to the needs and conditions of each company. Also referred to as the Fisheries Improvement Program (FIP) for capture fisheries, and Aquaculture Improvement Program (AIP) for aquaculture, the improvement program refers to global ecolabel certification standards, namely the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC).

MSC and ASC are ecolabel certificates that promote meaningful improvements to seafood production activities, adding more value to producers and consumers of certified products. Basically, Seafood Savers acts as a bridge that connects businesses to achieve MSC and ASC, through the facilitation of FIPs and AIPs that are developed based on MSC and ASC standards, while still accommodating local and national fisheries conditions.

The improvement program usually includes various activities that are essential in sustaining business sustainability, including data collection, fulfilling legality requirements that apply in each business location, and improving governance. During the improvement process, WWF-Indonesia team routinely provides assistance and assessments to improve program performance. It is expected that within 5 years, these two companies can achieve all indicators that are adjusted to the eco-friendly ecolabel standard, and achieve ASC certification for Celebes Seaweed Group, and MSC for UD Pulau Mas.

For more information, please contact:

Niki Nofari, Seafood Savers Officer, WWF-Indonesia
Email: [email protected], Hp: +62 815 8812 844

Note to Editor:
SEAFOOD SAVERS is a business-to-business platform initiated by WWF-Indonesia to implement efforts to improve fisheries in Indonesia that refer to MSC and ASC ecolabel standards. For more information, visit www.seafoodsavers.org.

MSC or Marine Stewardship Council and ASC or Aquaculture Stewardship Council respectively are international non-profit organizations that develop third-party certification schemes for sustainable capture and aquaculture fisheries.

FIP or Fisheries Improvement Project and AIP or Aquaculture Improvement Project is the improvement process that a capture fishery or aquaculture unit goes through to meet the sustainability standards set forth in MSC or ASC certification.

Seafood Savers Annual Meeting, is an annual meeting held by Seafood Savers, where Seafood Savers members, WWF-Indonesia and government parties gather for collective discussions to provide input, convey criticism and suggestions, and plan improvement steps for the Seafood Savers program.