Last year, a small group of hotels, restaurants, retailers and NGOs got together to conceptualize the Sustainable Seafood Week, to build public awareness on the issue of responsible seafood sourcing, and how critical it is for the seafood industry to act in response to the rapid depletion of the ocean’s resources. This year, expect a bigger and more substantive celebration and learning event, which will run from February 20 to 26.

To launch the Sustainable Seafood Week 2017, a gathering was held at the Marriot Grand Ballroom where each hotel, restaurant, and NGO had its own corner. A tour of the space took one through each hotel and restaurants’ best sustainable seafood offerings, while participating NGOs also showed their support by stimulating discussions on the issue at hand.

Christian Schmidradner, general manager of seafood company Meliomar, one of the lead proponents of the initiative, said that this year’s initiative will involve more industry players, including education institutions that will help spread the news. “This shows growing importance placed on the topic of responsible seafood sourcing, implemented traceability, legal fisheries, and improvement of fishery and aquaculture management. We started this movement with the involvement of all stakeholders, and with so many more organisations involved, we can draw more attention on the topic.”

This interest and commitment from the industry is reflected in the words of Meik Brammer, executive chef of Marriott Hotel, who said: “This event is important to Marriott because we want to reinforce our commitment to ensure that only fresh, sustainable seafood will be served to our guests. I will always support Sustainable Seafood because I want to support our local communities, I want to educate and inspire associates and guests to conserve and preserve.”

This year’s activities will include workshops to develop a monitoring framework that will enable the progress of responsibly sourced seafood on the menus of the hotels and restaurants, and will link the Sustainable Seafood initiative to government policies. An educational series on Sustainable Seafood will also be kicked off, to provide venues for discussion and learning throughout the year. The initiative will also bring more activities to more public spaces, in order to reach out to a broader spectrum of people.

In the end, the real impact of the effort comes in when proven sustainable seafood solutions are connected to the buyers in the hotel, restaurant and retail chains. These seafood products that count as responsible solutions are fully traceable—from legal fisheries, include no threatened and endangered species, are not caught with harmful and destructive gear and are not juvenile fish. Best sustainable seafood products from aquacultures have no external feed, no medication, and are purely naturally grown.

Of course, to achieve this, a multi-stakeholder approach must be put in place. Laws, execution, community building, procurement guidelines and responsibly-built supply chains, sustainable seafood policies, public awareness, and education are all important ingredients to improving the state of our oceans in the future. “The Government should take cue from this increasing number of Sustainable Seafood Week participating establishments to strongly and urgently implement the Amended Fisheries Code of the Philippines, and ensure that fish is sustainably provided. Making sure seafood is sustainable is crucial in allowing our seas to recover from overfishing and ecosystem degradation. Sustainable Seafood Week Philippines is first in Southeast Asia and shows how the Philippine hospitality industry is serious in their role to address the problems happening at sea, one plate at a time,” said Vince Cinches, oceans campaigner for Greenpeace Southeast Asia.

Rocky Sanchez Tirona, of Rare, a conservation organization that works directly with local communities, added that seafood buyers, users and consumers also need to understand that how they source their seafood can create powerful incentives for fishers to do the right thing. “If buyers are clear about the standards they want to enforce, and support that with schemes that will allow fishers to earn more from their catch as long as they comply with the standards, both the ocean and the people that depend on them, can thrive.”

For information on the participants and the lineup of activities, visit the Sustainable Seafood Week Philippines' Facebook page.