ON DECK
Northern Lights VIEWS FROM ALASKA
Show your work By Matt Alward & Dan Aherne
fter 20-plus years of working to improve environmental seafood sustainability, seafood retailers, processors and foodservice providers have expanded the vision of sustainable seafood to embrace social elements. Alaska is a global leader in environmental sustainability, and now is the time to be transparent about responsible environmental and social practices. Alaska’s seafood industry operates more than 9,000 vessels. More than two-thirds of those are owned by Alaskans, many of which are multigenerational, small family businesses. New certification standards will be available soon for vessels to demonstrate social and labor best practices similar to the way Alaska RFM demonstrates sustainable harvesting. Matt Alward, a commercial fisherman and president of the United Fishermen of Alaska, and Dan Aherne, group chief executive for New England Seafood International, shared their thoughts on the importance of social responsibility to customers of Alaska seafood as well as fishermen.
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6 National Fisherman \ August 2021
Q: Why is wild Alaska seafood important to you and your customers? DA: NESI has a core purpose of “enhancing lives through fish.” We want the products we source, process and sell to be a force for good, whether at the consumer end of the chain through health and nutritional benefits, or at the catching and processing stages of the chain where fishers and production operatives deserve a fair deal for their efforts in supplying that product. If we are to be true to our purpose, we must be confident that the people that make this industry what it is are being fairly and humanely treated in all areas of the supply chain. Q: What are some of the challenges NESI faces in trying to provide adequate information for your customers around these issues? DA: The initial reaction from a great number of our supply chains has been fairly defensive. That is often because they are confident in how they treat their people and think the questioning suggests a lack of trust. Furthermore, these are busy, timeconstrained operations, so the prospect of opening themselves up for more auditing is rarely welcome. Our suppliers also worry that norms and custom practices (Alaska’s tradition of children fishing with their parents, for example) could be threatened by overzealous bureaucracy. Our job is to spend time with our suppliers to explain and discuss the why. Bad actors like to operate where they have cover. When our partners consider this perspective, they are usually happy to share more of what they do.
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