Tuna Sustainability and The Work of the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
How much can an organization that'sinvolved in tuna fishing and making tuna
fishing sustainable get done in one year?
Well, that's what we're gonna talkabout on today's episode because I
have the president of the InternationalSeafood Sustainability Foundation,
Susan Jackson, on the episode today totalk about all the work that they did
in 2024 and what they plan on doingin 2025 based on the successes and

(00:24):
the challenges that they face in 2024.
We're gonna talk about not onlyabout transparency, we're gonna
talk about advocacy and policy.
We're gonna talk about financialcommitment to science and their
commitment to science in general.
Stakeholder engagement workshops,electronic monitoring and compliance.
There's so much that we're gonnatalk about on today's episode.
Let's start the show.

(00:44):
Hey everybody.
Welcome back to another exciting episodeof the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, andthis is the podcast where you find
out what's happening with the ocean,how you can speak up for the ocean,
and what you can do to live fora better ocean by taking action.
On today's episode, we're gonna be talkingto the president of the International
Seafood Sustainability Foundation, theISSF, Susan Jackson, who is here to talk
about not only how she became presidentof the ISSF and for the last 15 years,

(01:08):
what they've been able to accomplish,but what they were able to accomplish
in 2024 last year, talking about theannual report, and you're like, Andrew,
why are you talking about annual report?
They're boring.
Like it's just a mouthpiece forthe organization to talk to their
funders and stuff like that.
But this is not it.
At all.
Susan comes with the receiptsof what they were able to do.
They have a small staff.

(01:28):
They were able to accomplish a lot,not only with just the staff, that
they have collaborators on all frontsof the supply chain in sustainable
seafood, in tuna fishing in general.
And I think it's amazing.
This conversation really ignitedmy hope for sustainability, my hope
for collaboration, but also my hopefor private sector funding, being
able to accomplish so much morethan just waiting around for funding

(01:52):
to come around, which is not veryavailable these days in these times.
And a lot of organizations,nonprofit organizations are
suffering because of lack of funding.
They can't get the workthat they need done.
ISSF has funding.
From private sector that arewilling to say, let's put
our money where our mouth is.
Let's be able to makethis more sustainable.
Let's work with not onlyfishers, but with vessel makers.

(02:15):
You know, let's work with RFMOs.
Let's work with scientists.
Let's work with advocacy people.
Let's work with policymakers and government.
This is the legit, this is whatgoes on in ocean conservation,
in fisheries management thatwe never get to talk about.
We're talking about on this episode, andthat's why I have this podcast is to talk
about these wonderful things that arebeing done that nobody ever hears about.

(02:37):
And I think that's reallyimportant to talk about.
So getting an annual report that'sjust put on a website and only
available for the people who go to thatwebsite who know about that website
has now transformed into a podcastwhere you get to hear about this.
And I'll tell you, Susancomes with so much energy.
I just love it.
So here is the interview with SusanJackson, president of the International
Seafood Sustainability Foundation,talking about their 2024 annual report.

(02:58):
There's so much in here you'regoing want to hear all of it.
Thank you so much for joining us andI can't wait to talk to you after.
Enjoy the interview.
Hey Susan.
Welcome to the head ofProtect the Ocean podcast.
Are you ready to talk about theInternational Seafood Sustainability
Foundation's annual report?
Hey, Andrew.
Yes, I absolutely am.
Thanks for having me here today.
You bet.
I'm, I'm very excited for this, and I knowit's weird to say I'm excited about, uh,

(03:21):
talking about an annual report, becausea lot of times those get published and
it's, you know, it's like a white paperand a lot of people will go through it and
just be like, oh, this is kind of cool.
But I always go through these reportsand I'm always just like, how in the heck
did you get all of this done in one year?
So, we're gonna be focusing on the 20,24 year, but of course, we're gonna be
talking a little later on about, youknow, we're already halfway through 2025.

(03:43):
So, you know, what are theprimary goals for 2025?
Building on the successes, someof the challenges that you may
have faced in 2024 to go to 2025.
But I think it's interesting to talkabout, you know, your organization's
work, uh, the ability to get stuff done,uh, and what you're able to get done.
So we we're gonna talk a lot of thingslike talking about supply chains
and fads and all this kind of stuff.
It's, it's gonna be pretty exciting.

(04:04):
But before we get into all of that,Susan, why don't you just let us
know who you are and what you do.
Thanks.
Yes.
I'm Susan Jackson and I am thepresident of the International
Seafood Sustainability Foundation,or ISSF as we call ourselves.
I love it now, uh, to bethe president of ISSF.
What kind of background did you have?
Like how did this become like your career?

(04:27):
Mm-hmm.
Where did it all start?
Yeah.
Well, it all started with me being,what I like to say, a real lawyer.
Um, I actually practiced reallaw, uh, for, um, gosh, about
12 years and That's awesome.
A, a number of them or in-housewith the HJ Hines Company

(04:48):
who owns stares at the time.
Okay.
So, and I was assigned to the Starkestbusiness unit, so I started working
in tuna in, uh, the late nineties.
Yeah.
Okay.
And, uh, just fell inlove with it immediately.
It's fascinating.
It's global.
You know, I've been to.
A whole bunch of countries I can imagine.
Um, and no matter what issue speaks toyour heart, tuna touches it in some way.

(05:14):
I can promise you.
Um, so I sort of morphed aroundin my tuna career from the law
department to the business side.
And then Star was a founderof ISSF and I was the point
person at StarKist at the time.
Okay.
And it just, uh, there wereeight companies and, um, for
a number of reasons I was.

(05:35):
The first president of ISSF,and I've been here ever since.
Amazing.
So I'm sort of, I'm, I'm the poster childfor if somebody comes knocking on your
door and it sounds like an interestingopportunity, say yes, because you
never know where it's gonna lead you.
Well, here, let me ask you thequestion, like as it, so you went
into corporate law, I guess, when youwere, when you were becoming a lawyer.

(05:56):
Uh, what made you decide to gointo corporate law As a lawyer?
Yeah.
Actually I was a litigator,believe it or not.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
And um, yeah, my specialty was on criminaldefense and plaintiff's civil rights work.
Oh, interesting.
And yeah.
And so some of the cases that I didin Pittsburgh caught the eye of the
folks of the Heinz Law Department atthe time, uh, and because they realized

(06:19):
they didn't have anybody in their lawdepartment that had actually tried a
case and they had a lot of litigation.
So it might be helpful to have someoneright on their team that actually
knew their way around the courtroom.
So that's kind of, I, I learned someof the more, uh, you know, corporate
side of it, but I was still reallydoing litigation management and then.

(06:40):
Uh, the corporate side of starcast and had, had you had a lot of
information about tuna before that,or is this, was this more of a I
need to adapt, this is the, this isthe company that I'm working for.
They're all about tuna, so I needto adapt and figure it all out.
And then I guess the follow upquestion right away to that is like,
how did you adapt so quickly to it?

(07:00):
I mean, when I started.
At Heinz.
Yeah.
I thought that light meat, tunaand white meat, tuna were like
different parts of the same fish.
That's, that's howlittle I knew about tuna.
I ate a lot of it, and I knew Iliked tuna, of course, but also
when you go work for a conglomeratelike Heinz was at the time I had.
Ketchup cases and tomato pastecases and pet food cases.

(07:22):
So you learned that was a fabulouspart of that experience as you
learned so much about the business.
And then I became more and more and morealigned with this, um, tuna business
unit and started going to plants anddoing procurement contracts and, um, you
know, other, other things at, at theirfacilities around the world and Right.

(07:43):
Really got a much deeperknowledge of tuna, the.
And, and when you startedfrom that perspective.
'cause I think it's so interesting,a lot of the guests that we've had on
are, are come from a science backgroundor a conservation background, and
they are learning it from, you know,population ecology and, and how to,
uh, predict populations and lookat fisheries management and look at

(08:03):
sustainability from the side of science.
Right.
And looking at science-basedpolicy, you are coming it from
a, a litigation standpoint.
You're learning about the business and thecorporation, uh, and you're not getting
it necessarily from the science part.
You might learn about the scienceas you go along, but what was that
like now, especially, you know,you know, 12 years of, of working
with the ISSF, uh, is it 12 years?

(08:25):
Is that, that's whatyou said before, right?
Uh, 15.
15, sorry.
15 years.
So knowing what you know now, like,and, and what you learned, did you
know, a, were you learning about thesustainability, uh, maybe issues or
successes that Tuna was having as youwere going through the process of learning
about the different parts of the business?
I was, um.

(08:45):
Back when I was running seafoodprocurement for STAR Kiss as part of
my maneuvering through the corporateworld, it was actually the procurement
team at Star Kiss that was very activeon the US delegation to the tuna
regional fishery management meetings.
So very early on, like within myfirst month, I think I went to,

(09:08):
uh, Apia in Samoa in the middleof the western Central Pacific.
Yeah.
To a meeting a, a big tuna RFMO meeting,which was the first time I, I learned also
about how tuna are managed because Right.
Obviously it's very important fortuna companies to have a tuna supply.
And so part of learning about thebusiness also included learning about

(09:30):
tuna management and then tuna science.
That's incredible.
That's so cool.
And then now you've been working,so when you got the opportunity
to be like president of ISSF, whatwas your first reaction to, was
this something that you've been.
Had been thinking about, or I guesslike, I guess ISSF was created,
they asked you to become president.
Mm-hmm.

(09:51):
Um, were you part of the creation of ISSF?
Yes.
Like, were you part of those conversationsand, and like what made you lead towards
this is what you wanted to do, youknow, full-time from now on, it was the
opportunity to really start something new.
Uh, you know, when we started,we had eight founders, right.
Um, and roughly at the time weestimated they were about 50% of

(10:14):
the tuna that was purchased wentthrough one of those eight companies.
So it was a nice number where you could.
Heard the cat, so to speak, and developa vision for a new organization, but also
you were meaningful at the very beginning.
Right.
They were major purchasersof every species and stock of
tuna except bluefin globally.

(10:35):
So we started with the global footprint,started working in every ocean, um,
right, right from the beginning.
We also had a fabulous tuna scientist,Dr. James Joseph, who mm-hmm.
Um, died about two years after westarted, but he was our founder and
he developed for us a scientificadvisory committee with all the

(10:56):
best tuna scientists in the world.
Again, from a geographicdispersal and right.
That, that was fabulous.
Um, and I, I do often think back tothose days when it was me, half of a
communications person and you know,like 40% of Jim Joseph saving the world.
And it was really fun.

(11:16):
Um, and since then, obviouslywe've grown from eight founders
to now 24 companies still global.
Um, we have five full-time scientistson staff, two communicators on
staff, plus Taylor's team, and, youknow, some other, uh, consultants.
And then we have some great, uh,policy experts as well who help us

(11:40):
with our advocacy and outreach at theRFMOs who have diplomatic backgrounds.
Right.
So it was, it really was thatthrill of, of seeing that we
could do something meaningful.
Um, but yet started up.
And so this is always an interestingaspect for me as someone who doesn't
have a lot of experience throughthe, the private sector and starting

(12:02):
organizations such as the ISSF, wherethat you're focusing in on sustainability.
It's in the word.
And, and a lot of people may look atsomething like where companies get
together to find, to, to put together anorganization like this, and they probably
wonder about conflict of interest.
Like these are companies who want tuna,they want to focus on catching tuna,
but then they've got sustainability inthere, they've got seafood in there, and

(12:25):
they've got these, these keywords thatare really important to a lot of people
that associate it with conservation.
How do you, how does an organizationlike yourself where, where you come
from a corporate world where they'recatching tuna and you're working with
a lot of different communities aroundthe world, as you mentioned, you
have representation from around theworld, scientists around the world.
You know, arguably thebest experts in the world.

(12:47):
And you, you're balancing thesustainability with the ability to
still have these companies grow, uh,in terms of, of economic prosperity.
How does that, what,what's that balance like?
Was that a, a tough thing to doto, to, to have that balance?
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
And you forgot a really otherimportant factor, which is

(13:08):
competition law, antitrust law.
In the US we call itthe rest of the world.
Okay.
Calls it competition law, you know?
Right.
Anytime you get competitors planningto do something, um, you have to
make sure it's done correctly.
Ah, interesting.
Okay.
The eight founders were really visionary.
They knew that tuna stocks,I should say we knew right.
Um, that tuna stocks needed to be healthy.

(13:30):
'cause if you didn't havehealthy tuna stocks, you weren't
gonna have a business for law.
Of course.
Right.
They knew that we needed scientificadvice and we needed to do what the
scientists said, and we needed to helpthe governments and the regional fisheries
management organizations that managetuna follow the advice of the scientists.

(13:51):
Mm. We could help get the sciencemore data, we could help make the
science better, but we should also be.
Urging the governments tofollow the scientific advice.
When we started, there was thisbreakpoint where one of the regional
fisheries management organizationshad met and failed seven times to
adopt a management measure thatthe sci, there was no dispute.

(14:14):
The scientists were saying, youneed to do this, and seven meetings
later, they still hadn't done it.
So we were at a point where it wasclear that something had to be done.
Um, the companies knew thatsomething had to be done.
They were motivated to do it.
We had great scientists.
The companies knew from day one thescience was gonna tell us what we

(14:34):
needed to do, but also the companiesknew from day one that they couldn't
just say they were doing it.
We needed to, they needed to followthe scientific advice when they could,
and they needed to demonstrate to theworld that they were in fact doing it.
It would make them more credible.
Mm-hmm.
It would also make us more credibleadvocates to the governments when

(14:55):
we were urging them to do something.
So the foundation of ISSF from thevery beginning I think got a lot.
Right.
Yeah.
And where a lot of other initiatives have,have maybe fallen short recently, where
they don't share that commitment, forexample, to clearly demonstrating that
they're doing what they needed to do.

(15:16):
Mm-hmm.
Or where, or, and I should sayalso credibly or that foundation
of trusting the science.
Investing the science.
Mm-hmm.
And just, you know, there havebeen many examples where we put
scientists on board vessels andwe're like, go figure this out.
And they come back and they'relike, yeah, we figured that out,
but we found another problem.
And we're like, okay, sowhat do we do about that?

(15:38):
And, and really that is the ethicof the work that we're doing.
Find problems, solve problems,teach fishers how to solve
the problems, and then get thegovernments to require that those.
Solutions to be implemented.
I can't tell you how refreshingit is to hear you say that.

(15:59):
Uh, from, you know, just from acorporation side, the, you know,
there's a, in conservation there'sa big component to conservation.
You have the science side, you have theadvocacy side and the activist side.
But then a, a lot of times the,uh, corporation aspect, the,
you know, gets either ignored orpitted against the other side.
Either they do it on their own or ithappens just in the business that they do.

(16:22):
Uh, and, and that becomes a problem.
And the collaboration really.
Uh, makes things better.
It helps solve problems.
And the one thing that theprivate sector is really good
is solving problems quickly.
You know, they, you wanna solve,as you mentioned, you know,
sometimes, you know, science is,is, is, is very straightforward.
It's either you, you, you pose aquestion, it either answers your
question the way you think it'sgonna answer it, or it answers the

(16:44):
questions a complete opposite way.
It's gonna answer, it's pretty black andwhite in terms of, of of the question
that comes out in, in the math andthe statistics that you put forward.
And sometimes you may like the answer andsometimes you may not like the answers
or it discovers a further problem.
And I love when you're saying it'slike, oh, we found another problem.
We solved this, we found another problem.
How do we solve that?
Like, let's just keep solving problemsas we go along to make things better.

(17:05):
It is so refreshing to hear that becauseI can't tell you how many times it's been
frustrating to hear, you know, companiesrealize that this could like, 'cause
like, let's be honest, some of the.
The problems that come up could impact thebottom dollars of a lot of the companies
that are involved in in the ISSF.
And that is a hindrance.
And you could ignore certain thingsand just continue to going on

(17:26):
the way things are going, whichweren't working in the past.
Or you can say, no, no, we're gonna solvethis and we're gonna figure this out.
We're gonna put all our mindstogether, which I think.
In, in my opinion, that's the way we,we solve problems, is everybody coming
together, the science, the conservation,the corporations, and they, and
they, they bring it together to havelike a, a true sustainable solution.
I mean, that's the firstpart of sustainability.

(17:46):
So I love, and, and I justlove how refreshing that is.
So that's just wonderful.
So I appreciate you.
Thank you.
You answering thosequestions right off the bat.
Um, it kind of, it definitely givesus a sense of where ISSF is coming
from and where it wants to go.
Now there are a lot of programs ineach, in, in each of this, and I'm
gonna refer people to, uh, the, thewebsite iss, uh, do or-foundation.org.

(18:09):
And I'll put it in the shownotes so people can take a look.
But we're looking at tuna conservation,the fad management, the marine.
Ecosystem health.
The PVR lists, the, uh, VOSI,which I assume is tracking of
ships, uh, uh, bycatch reduction.
There's just, it goes on and on and on,and, and illegal phishing prevention.
And there's so many things that,that, that you cover, which is great.
And these are your priorities andtools, and that's just amazing.

(18:32):
And I remember before we press record,like we have a small team, but we get
a lot done and, uh, and I love that.
Mm-hmm.
Um, but we're gonna talk today, we'regonna focus a lot on what you did in
2024, and it's the annual report thatyou put out, obviously every year.
Uh, and there's a lot within that.
So I, I want to get startedif that's okay on that.
Um, and I guess for, if you,when you put out these annual

(18:54):
reports, the first question is.
What do you want people to getout of this, of this report?
Mm-hmm.
I think the number onetakeaway is the commitment.
It's the effort and the commitment.
This is not a campaigning organization,this is not, um, an advocacy organization.

(19:14):
Mm-hmm.
We, yes, we do a lot of talking,but we do so much more than talking.
And it is all that other work that wedo that makes what we say more credible.
And so, and I have the samereaction and it's usually around
February where I get presented thestatistics from the prior year.
I get exhausted when I read it.

(19:35):
I was like, I, I knew we did a lot,but until you really see those numbers.
Um, so it is the actualactivity that makes our goal.
Achievable and reallydrives the progress forward.
Yeah.
Um, we talked at the beginning abouthow important science is to us and

(19:55):
how we're grounded in the science.
Um, it's almost half of our budget.
Mm-hmm.
But that's the amount thatflows through our bank account.
That goes to science is a lot, but it'sthe multiplier effect that we bring.
We work with other science organizationsand we call them coordinated science
projects, which means one of ourscientists is a co-author or on a

(20:18):
steering committee or part of thedesign last year, and that's not
money that goes to our bank account.
Last year, the value ofthat was over $13 million.
Um, then we're, we're putting scientistson boats, or boats are reporting data, or
they're buying equipment and we're puttingscientists and they're reporting data.

(20:39):
And so we keep track of the value ofthat commitment by industry participants.
Mm-hmm.
Who let, let's say, scientistsfuss with what they're doing.
Mm-hmm.
The value of that lastyear was over $50 million.
Wow.
And depending upon the research programin any year, it's ranged from about

(21:01):
30 million to over a hundred million.
Um, obviously years when scientists areon board, like taking active control,
that costs in kind more than if it's, Hey,buy these things, buy these materials,
make biodegradable fads, deploy themin a certain way and send us the data.
That's still some, um, but that's notas much of an in kind contribution.

(21:26):
So that multiplier effect is huge.
And I don't, I mean, we do real science.
When I say we have five scientistson staff, yeah, they do a lot of
writing and reading and attendingof meetings and outreach, but they
also do a lot of real science.
The result of that real science.
Was last year, 16 peer reviewed papers.

(21:46):
A lot of people are happy if they do one.
We had 16.
Yeah.
Uh, on top of that we publishedseven technical scientific papers
ourself, and some were co-authors of33 science papers that were submitted
within the tuna regional fisheriesmanagement science ecosystem.

(22:07):
They all have a scientific advisory body.
Mm-hmm.
And some science working groups.
33 additional papers went through that.
Um, we attended 56 science meetingsbecause you know what the best
advocacy is when your science orscience you've done with others.
It's not just us that's saying it, it'sif the science committee of the RFMOs who

(22:29):
have to take the action, recommend it.
So it's really important to us to do realscience in partnership with others who are
leaders in the tune of scientific space.
And then.
Get the output of that science as part ofthe recommendations that that go before
the RFMOs through their science bodies.

(22:49):
Um, gotcha.
I, we talked about thecoordinated science.
There's 36 active coordinatedscience projects going on right now.
We did 34 in-person skippers workshopstouching over 500 skippers, and then
another almost 1500 reviewed lastyear's version of the material online.
'cause I always say to the scientists,if somebody on a boat doesn't do

(23:12):
something differently tomorrow Yep.
Then they did today.
Yep.
We're not having an impact.
So that outreach that we do, that'sreally robust outreach to the skippers.
First we learn from them.
They tell us their ideas.
This their sounding board for thescientists who sometimes say, Hey, I
was thinking about, and the skipperswill either be like, yeah, no, or

(23:34):
you might have something there.
Right.
And, but then also we'rehelping them keep up.
Because let me tell you something.
Vessel companies are also hugeconstituents to governments
when they go to RFMO meetings.
Oh really?
Oh, yeah.
Uh, longer than tuna companies actually.

(23:54):
Wow.
Um, so you do well if you talk tothem a lot in advance and get them
comfortable with your ideas, have themform a part of creating the solutions,
because then when their government saysto them, what do you think about this?
Mm-hmm.
You hope that they say, oh yeah,I've been doing that for three years.

(24:14):
That's a really great thing.
And then it makes it a lot easier for thegovernments to agree to require it so that
skipper's outreach is really important.
Absolutely.
We have almost 2000 vesselsthat have volunteered to be on
one of our vessel lists, whichmeans our third party auditor.
Audits them.

(24:34):
Annual.
So it's like a certificationin a way, right?
Not a certification.
No.
Okay.
It it, because it's an audit, acertification would mean you could only
be on there if you had all, all greens.
It's an informa, it's acredible information platform.
Gotcha.
So it and it, but it isan annual audit Yeah.
That the participating companies use.

(24:55):
Because they can only be buyingfrom vessels that comply with
our conservation measures.
But also we hope that real retailerswould make use of it, other NGOs
would make use of it as they'redeveloping their retail advice.
And then you mentioned our V-C-V-O-S-I.
Yep.
That's V stands for vessel, butin my mind V stands for voluntary.

(25:18):
What are these vessels doing thatthey don't even have to be doing
that are like the next wave?
Are they in an MSC certified fishery?
Are they voluntarily providing data?
Mm-hmm.
Are they participating in trials ofexperimental fad designs or are they
implementing, um, bycatch mitigation?
So again, these vessels undergo auditsto, to demonstrate that they are on the

(25:45):
water implementing these best practices.
Reg Americas is our third partyauditor and they audit our companies
and they audit all the vessels.
That's amazing.
So let me ask this question.
It's probably one of the most importantquestions we're gonna ask today.
Uh, how did you guys figure out howto have more than 24 hours in a day?
Because it sounds like you guys aredoing way more than, than everybody else.

(26:06):
Like how was this?
No, we used, we used the timezones and the international
dateline to our advantage.
I mean, like, and, and to do thosescience, like to do that you said
mentioned 16 peer reviewed, uh, papersthat were, that were published last year.
I know for some people who are not usedto doing these, these peer reviewed
papers or publishing peer reviewedpapers, that is a, a, a, a really

(26:29):
large number even for an organization.
Mm-hmm.
Um, you know, five scientists, uh, and,and I assume there's collaborators in
there as well to, to get that publishedsometimes takes years to get a paper
published, you know, and so to have thosedone, you know, you have to be efficient,
but you really have to know your stuff.
You really have to design.
Those studies really, reallywell to ensure that you have

(26:51):
the, the right information.
There's not a lot of reviewgoing back and forth.
'cause as, you know, as soonas the reviewers see it,
they're like, no, this is good.
Like, we're gonna do it.
Um, how is the, like the setup?
Is it just the five scientists or therea lot of collaborators with, you know,
universities or colleges around the worldor even other government institutions?
And then how does that collaboration work?

(27:12):
Uh, if, if that's so over, like,you know, across, like you said,
time zones and, and, and culturesand, and different professions.
There are absolutely alot of other scientists.
In addition to the five we have onstaff, we have our scientific advisory
committee that has I think nine ish.
Um, and they really are thelead tuna scientist in a region.

(27:34):
So like the Eastern Tropical Pacific,one of their scientific staff from that
RFMO is, is on our science committee,for example, or the Secretary of the
Pacific community who's the scienceprovider for the W-C-F-W-C-P-F-C
in the Western and Central Pacific.
They're on our committee.
Um, we have a bi catch expert whokind of runs the tuna group at

(27:56):
IRDA French Research Institution.
We work very closely with as Din Spain and many, many others.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and so it kind ofstarts with the staff.
Then it goes to the sac, right?
And then it goes to the organizationsthat they work with and through,
and their partner organization.
So there's absolutely a multiplier effect.

(28:18):
I love it, but I love it when you saidsometimes these things take years.
I mean, that is, that is the specialplace where I sit because, um, you
know, scientists, they take yearsand industry expects it to take
like maybe a week if it's hard.
So, you know, we, we havethese kind of, yeah, yeah.
Right.
Um, so that's the balance, right?

(28:40):
I, you always want to get the peerreviewed paper, but you also need to be
putting out a technical report, includessomething in a skipper's guidebook,
and start training the skippers on itso that your science remains robust,
but also you're getting that earlyuptake on the water that you need.
I love it.
I love it.
Now, we, we've talked a lot about sortof like one of the, the, you know, the

(29:01):
things that you've, you've covered and allthe things that you've been able to do.
Let's get a little bit more specific.
So can you elaborate on, uh, key specific,like, scientific in initiatives that the
ISF undertook in, in 2024 particularly,I, I really like the development of the,
of the jelly fad construction guide.
Yeah.
Uh, can you talk a little bit about that?
Sure.
So the jelly fad name wasinspired by watching a jellyfish.

(29:25):
You know, if you go to the MontereyBay Aquarium, I could spend
all day in the jellyfish room.
So Nice.
It is so beautiful.
Yeah.
Um, so fads, for whatever reason,fish like to hang out around them.
Could be a shady spot, could be afood chain, could be the singles bar.
Nobody really knows, but, butit is what it is and we just
go with that phenomena, right?

(29:46):
Fishers realized it way back inthe day when I started in tuna
boats would look for birds.
With a helicopter or binoculars.
Yeah.
And they would, because usuallyunder the birds were a bunch of fish.
Mm-hmm.
And oftentimes in the middle ofthat bunch of fish was a log.
Mm-hmm.
Or a dead animal or somethingthat sort of created this.

(30:09):
So boats got smart and they putlittle radio antennas on those
logs so they can find them.
Again, fast forward humans beinghumans, they started creating
them and deploying them using oldphishing nets and satellite buoys.
And there can be very harmful'cause they never go away.

(30:30):
Right.
So one of the ideas that ourscientists came up with was how to
make them biodegradable so that theylast just long enough to catch fish.
Right.
But not so long thatthey don't ever go away.
And I. This project started before COVID.

(30:50):
I, I can't, you know, COVID does weirdthings to your concept of time, but I know
it was before COVID and we were testing,that was like 45 years ago, I think.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Yep.
We were testing in the MediterraneanSea, different ropes and different
fabrics to see how long they would last.
Mm. And then started using thelongest fabrics that would biodegrade

(31:13):
in the, to look like an old fad,but there was too much stress.
It was, and so they were failing.
And so then one of our scientists said,Hey, what if we do something, look
at the, like, like a jellyfish so itdoesn't have that much structural stress.
Right.
Will it last longer?

(31:33):
But still be biodegradable.
Mm-hmm.
Fast forward years of getting vesselsto do the type of research I talked
about earlier where, hey, you buy thestuff and you buy the buoys and we
want you to, now when you put fads inthe water, put two one like you used
to make and one like a biodegradablefad that we're gonna teach you.

(31:55):
Right.
And we did those trials inevery ocean to make sure that
they traveled in the same way.
Did they attract fish in the same way?
Mm-hmm.
Did they last long enough?
And we got it.
We got the research to a point thatwith, by 2024 we're like, okay, we're
ready to, we're ready to write this up.

(32:15):
Yeah.
Like we've been talking toskippers, we've been trialing them.
But that fad, biodegradable fad guideis the combination of six or seven
years of research and many, many.
Sets and fad deploymentsby, um, cooperative vessels.

(32:35):
Yeah.
And the exciting thing is now everytuna RFMO has implemented a timeline
by which their vessels should beswitching to using biodegradable fats.
So like our scientists came upwith the idea, worked with other
scientists, figured it out, out.
We started advocating for it.
We started working with skippers toget them to understand and accept it.

(32:56):
Mm-hmm.
And including in our advocacy asks.
And the RMOs now havetimelines for requiring.
Biodegradable biodegradability in fats.
When you said like the guide,the construction guide.
Mm-hmm.
So are these fats beingmade by the fishers?
Like by the vessels?
By the captains or, or, orthe deck hands or whoever.

(33:17):
Like they're being actually made.
So this guide teaches 'em how to makeit and what materials they need to uses.
Fabulous question.
And it varies.
It depends upon.
Where, where the home base is.
Right, right.
Okay.
And that is one of the thingsthat our, one of our scientists, g
Moreno, she's still doing is likegoing, talked to her last time.
Different countries.
Right.
And finding what'slocally available there.

(33:37):
Uh, that would work.
Got you.
Because it, you know, you're kind ofruining the whole environmentally friendly
thing if you're shipping something ina container halfway around the world.
True, true.
You wanna, you want them to find localmaterials that will work, that will
buy at degrade, that will be strongenough, um, so that it's cost effective.
Mm-hmm.
As well as having thedesired environmental impact.

(34:01):
Um, sometimes there are some fleets thatmake them on land because they're mm-hmm.
They fish close enough and they comeback and they direct the deliver to,
to factories that are right on land.
So they've found that the fleetsjust go together and they have.
Fad production facility.
But there are others that they put allthe ingredients, if you will, on board.
And, you know, that's what theydo on their steaming days out at

(34:23):
sea is they, they make fads andprobably everything in between.
You know what I like about this?
'cause like, you know, what I wasthinking when I first heard about it
is it's like somebody created this likean engineer and, and, and, you know,
marketed it to the vessels and theywould have to pay for this fad and they
would have to go out and, you know,it get set at a certain price and that
would go into their operating costs.
What I really like about thisis that they make it themselves.

(34:46):
Uh, it's, it's locally done, butwhat I really like is it's like
democratizing the making of this.
Mm-hmm.
And when you, when you start to put allthese different minds together and they,
they're all making a similar device, butmaybe you, like you said, using different
local materials or things like that.
You almost get better and better as yougo along because someone's gonna figure

(35:06):
out something that makes it better.
You know, makes it either last a littlelonger or maybe degrade better, or, you
know, maybe attract a little bit better.
And then share that informationacross, you know, the, the, the network
and be like, oh, okay, let's seeif we can replicate that over here.
So you're allowing, 'cause these,these, these fissures are, are
geniuses in their own right.

(35:26):
They know the world.
Absolutely.
They know these fads.
They know how tuna behave.
Right.
A lot of the times for scientists.
We depend on these fishers totell us what's happening locally.
Mm-hmm.
Because it's all unique.
Right.
And, and I, I think that's such agreat opportunity to make these feds
even better, you know, and work withscientists and so forth and be like,

(35:46):
Hey, we've actually figured out somethingthat catches it a little bit more
efficiently, um, you know, and, and lasta little longer, but then it will degrade
better and all these different things.
I think that's such a great ideato allow, like just empower the
fishers to make it themselves and,and make it even better because
they're engineers in their own right.
Let's be honest.
They've, they've made, they'vefixed boats on the, in, in probably
bad seas and things like that,and they've, they've seen it all.

(36:09):
Um, and I just love the fact that,that, that allows them to do that.
And I'm sure, um, they're,I'm sure they're, they're
enjoying that part as well.
Um, absolutely.
So, so that's awesome.
So let's move on.
I, I think it's, it's, it's really,it's really interesting to, to see
that guide do so well in the devdevelop development of that guide.
Mm-hmm.
Um, now when we talk about, you know,we're always talking, we're looking

(36:30):
at, uh, at Tuna Fish, we talk about.
Bycatch and, and I, I apologize to theelse, we're gonna be switching to a
lot of things because it's, you guyscovered a lot of things last year.
I want to be able tocover as much as possible.
Um, so how did the research contributeto bycatch mitigation, uh, strategies
for species like, like, you know,sharks, modular rays, uh, and seabirds
Because, you know, a lot of thetimes, you know, we see, you know,

(36:52):
shark, uh, populations decreasing.
We see, uh, different things happen, um,with sea birds, but we don't talk a lot
about that in sort of like mainstream meatwise or when we talk about, um, you know,
saving these, these species as, as biatch.
So, so how did that, thatresearch contribute to that mi,
those mitigation strategies?

(37:13):
So with a lot of the, especially longline bycatch mitigation measures,
a lot of those have been known.
And so we were partnering with otherorganizations to get the word out
it, you know, we don't just haveskipper's workshops with per se vessels.
We now have a whole skipper's workshopseries with long line vessels, both in

(37:34):
person as well as online, um, materialsavailable to them so that they too.
Can be learning and refreshing themselvesabout the bycatch mitigation measures.
Um, maybe by the time this airs soon, uh,we'll be adding some new columns to our
VOC that illustrates actual implementationof some of the bycatch mitigation measures

(37:59):
that are more applicable to long liners.
And we're really excited aboutthat new rollout for sure.
Um, on the at sea part, we have beenworking for a couple of years now
with these nets, the large nets andthe hoppers to help large animals be

(38:19):
released quickly and safely for them.
So that's the manta ray work.
Um, also some of the largeshark work, you know?
Yeah.
Part of the skippers, um, outreach.
For years with all gear types is howto safely handle a shark safe for you.
Yeah.
Safe for the shark for sure.
It can be done like you have to motivatethem to want to keep the shark safe and

(38:42):
then you have to demonstrate how to do it.
Mm-hmm.
Um, the hoppers and using the largenets for the large animals, these
are things that are showing promise.
We, this, it, it's hard to dothe absolute research 'cause they
don't encounter them that often.
Mm-hmm.
So you need a scientist on board thatdoes encounter them, that's able to put

(39:03):
a tag on them to make sure that when youtry this technique, they actually live.
Um, these are all the, thefun parts of real science.
Um, but they're showing great promise.
It also would involve some costs onthe part of the boats to, to modify
their boats with these techniques.
But we're happy with how.

(39:24):
Those research cruises have gone andwe've made some good progress in 2024
on, on those large animals as well.
I think you highlight something reallyimportant too, in terms of, uh, you know,
the fishers handling the sharks, it.
There's a lot of stuff thatcan go wrong at sea when you're
fishing just at sea in general.
Yeah, I, I kind of mentioned it before.

(39:45):
Conditions are never perfect,uh, and usually when things
go bad, conditions are bad.
You know, that, that's, that'susually, uh, contributes to that
to handle a shark at sea, I.
Whether you're in large waysor whether it's flat surface,
uh, it, it doesn't matter.
The, the fisher has to protect themselves.
It's like a occupational health andsafety, but you're dealing with a

(40:05):
shark of various size that has a lotof teeth that are very sharp and you
can actually hurt yourself a lot.
So I think it's really important to teachthem like, look, this is, these are the
ways, the best practices to handle sharks,um, the best that you can at sea, and to
protect yourself and to protect the shark.
I think that's really important.
'cause that could lead to just killingthe shark and throwing it overboard if

(40:26):
somebody's not feeling safe and handlinga live shark and trying to save it.
And so I think it's importantto talk about that and to
have that, those discussions.
What's the feedback when you get that,that your staff gets, when they start
to talk about, you know, safety inhandling, uh, sharks or other marine
species that could be dangerous.
What's the feedback tothe fishers at that point?
I think that they understand mm-hmm.

(40:47):
That, that it is definitely important.
A lot of them are alsofishing in areas where, uh.
Shark encounters are,are regulated, right?
Yeah.
And, uh, true, so true.
So they want to do it right.
Um, you have to make sure that theyalso understand there are other, you
know, that it, it's not a low priority.

(41:07):
Don't just leave them sittingover there till you're all done.
Right.
Like you, the faster you get them backin the water and that's where mm-hmm.
Some of the boats, I, I think theFrench started this have almost two,
they have two conveyor belts wherethe, the tuna goes on one and they can
immediately pull out the bycatch andit goes on the other and it goes right
out back in the water immediately.
Right.
Again, that's, that's a, that's a vesseldesign issue that, that's a big thing.

(41:30):
You can't just like bolt one of those.
A lot of the conversationsthat, that are going on.
I, um, I love how you, Iwent shark tagging once.
Fun fact.
This is another greatperk of my, of my job.
Melanie Hutchinson is asuperstar shark scientist.

(41:51):
Right.
Um, and when she was doing her PhDand, and we helped support it, I
was in Hawaii for some meetingsand, and she took me shark tagging
and we tagged a very large shark.
And this is, I, I got so much respect forMelanie, for shark scientists in general.
Mm-hmm.
And really this is when I learned thatif you get your PhD in marine biology,

(42:11):
you're actually seasick every day for likesomewhere between five and seven years.
Because it's like very fine motorskill to tag those sharks while
the waves are going like this.
Yeah.
It was fabulous.
And yeah.
You know, that was in acontrolled environment.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Not on a fishing trip.
No.
Yeah, it's, it's insane.
It's insane.
When you, when you thinkabout the, you know, a lot of

(42:32):
people don't think about that.
When we talk about being in thefield, every, every scientist is
like, I love being in the field.
It comes with, its, its,its challenges, you know?
And, and a lot of that time is, is safety.
Even just like when, I rememberwhen I, just, a quick story here.
When I first went, I, I worked in the,when I first graduated, I worked in
the Gulf of Mexico, uh, and I workedas a marine technician on a boat.

(42:53):
And I'll never forget, I was standing,uh, in, at, on the, on the stern
of the ship and I was just standingin a way where we were tied up to,
uh, an oil rig, just where Gulf ofMexico, there's a lot of oil rigs.
Mm-hmm.
We're tied up to an oil rig, andthere's a line that I'm standing in
line with the line, like with therope that's attached to this rig.
And I remember the captain coming upto me, he's like, you need to move
right now, and I'll explain after.

(43:15):
And he goes, move over here.
I'm like, okay, what's going on?
He's like, if that line snaps,that's coming right back and
that will split you in two.
Just standing in the wrong spot, youknow, if you're not aware, can be deadly.
You know, and I think that's, that,it just kind of, I always tell people

(43:36):
that it goes to show how dangerous,not only from a scientific perspective,
but also from a fishing perspective.
It is to be out there and to be howaware these fishers are and these
scientists are being out there.
Uh, and then being able to develop theseskills to tag a, a large shark who doesn't
want to be outta the water for very long,wants to be back in the water, scared,

(43:56):
is worried, and then you put it in, youput the, you do all your things that
you have to do, and then you put thetag on and you put it back in the water.
To do it in a slickly splitis, is a tough thing to do.
So, uh, like you said, the motor skillsto like tag that on Yeah, it's, it's a.
Definite, uh, challenge in, in itself.
Uh, but that it, it, it's greatto see, you know, you get to

(44:16):
experience all these things.
You get to really understand it from a,um, like, you know, somebody who's the
president of an organization may not beable to do that e every day and, and that
they're able to do that is, is great.
'cause you get that perspective,that scientific perspective,
which I think is important.
Right?
Yeah, absolutely.
That's awesome.
Let's move on to, to electronicelectronic monitoring and compliance.
Mm-hmm.
Um, you know, what progress is made in2024 regarding the adopting of, I'll

(44:41):
call it, em, electronic monitoringstandards for the RMF or RFMOs.
Uh, you know, there it seems that,like that's always a difficult thing.
There was a study that came out, uh,where a lot of the fishing vessels
around the world haven't, aren't tracked.
Um, you know, electronicmonitoring is, is important.
Uh, can you just talk about whatelectronic monitoring is in this
context and then what progressis made in 2024 about that.

(45:05):
Yep.
So electronic monitoring is a set ofpieces of equipment that goes on a boat.
It is absolutely cameras, butit's also other sensors that
measure location and speed.
And if your hydraulics are, are running,so you want to make sure that the cameras
are set up in a way to capture all thephishing activities, but also you have

(45:28):
those other sensors that can help youfigure out what's, what's going on.
Um, there are some fisheries thathave been using electronic monitoring
successfully for a very long time.
It really had not gotten muchtraction in tuna fisheries.
Way back in like 2011, we didone of the first electronic

(45:48):
monitoring trials with Archipelagoonboard a large scale per saner.
Yeah.
To see and large scale per Sandershave a hundred percent human observers.
Right.
But we wanted to investigate, I mean,a human observer is not everywhere.
24 true.
Seven get to sleep sometimes.
Right.
They have to sleep, sometimesthey get sick, they get to
eat, like, you know, yeah.

(46:09):
They can be up above deck andthe cool stuff is happening
below deck or, or vice versa.
So we did a study to see what thingsthat electronic monitoring could
do as well as a person, some thingsthat could do better than a person.
And then what, what do you need aperson for long liners had been, uh.

(46:30):
Successfully using electronicmonitoring for longer than that
because the action's slower.
You know, on a purer, you openthat braille and like Woo falls
down, tons of duna goes right down.
Yeah.
Where a long liner is one by one,you're taking whatever animal
is off the hook, off the hook.
And you've got, you know, here'syour camera, here's where they're
taking them, pulling in the lineand taking them off the hook.

(46:50):
Um, from 2011 through 20 15, 20 16,there was a global environment facility
Tup project, part of which was doingtrials of long liners on board per
se, vessels and long liners on, uh,electronic monitoring on per se, looking

(47:12):
at the fleet in Ghana and on longliners looking at the fleet in Fiji.
Those trials went onfor three or four years.
Still not a lot of uptake.
Hmm.
Um, there's was then a secondand we're now in a second
global environment facility.
Program that was designed to bringthe tuna RFMOs together and get

(47:37):
serious about electronic monitoring.
Most importantly, harmonizing globallythe standards and specifications
for electronic monitoring systems.
Makes sense, right?
You have to say, if you want a governmentor a science body to receive electronic
monitoring, it needs to be like this.
Not prescriptive, but like whatare the characteristics of the

(47:58):
system that make it good enough?
Well, I'm happy to report that between 2022, 21, 22, when the Global Environment
Facility Project presumed three workshopswhere we'd bring and ISF is leading
this work, bring the RFMOs together tostart aligning and harmonizing, mm-hmm.

(48:21):
On these technical specificationsto the end of 2024.
The RFMOs all did it.
They all passed between the endof 23 and the end of 24 basic
specifications for electronicmonitoring systems in their region.
There's still some harmonizationthat needs to be done.

(48:42):
Some say it's voluntary.
Some say it's a trial.
Some say it's only for science.
Some say it could be used for compliance.
Some say it's only for long line.
You know, like there arestill differences to work out.
Mm-hmm.
But the exciting thing about thisis the RFMOs lapped what the Global

(49:02):
Environment Facility Tuna Projectwas thinking they were gonna be.
So we're now looking at thesethree workshops that we'll be
doing over the next three years.
We had the first one last Decemberas accomplishing much more than was.
Originally designed.
Mm-hmm.
And this is because, you know,things, things start slowly

(49:23):
and then it happens fast.
Yeah.
And all of that pre-work and talking aboutit in trials and working with fleets and
other NGOs getting on board and the NatureConservancy has done a ton of work at, at
a national level, reaching out to them toget them to start requiring it on vessels
that fish in their waters, tuna vessels.
Um, and the Tuna Transparency pledge thatthey spearheaded signed first by Walmart

(49:46):
and now others, that by 2027 they want allof the tuna that they sell to be on board.
A vessel that had a hundredpercent monitoring, knowing that
electronic monitoring needed topay, play a large part in that.
Um.
2024 was kind of that, that momentous yearin, in that all four have done something.

(50:08):
Yeah.
Now we need to move it forward andit's, it's a great success story.
'cause this again is the work ofscientists, governments, NGOs,
industry retailers, all kindof pushing for the same thing.
And it's starting tohappen really fast now.
When I think that, like, if you thinkabout electronic monitoring in general,

(50:30):
and, you know, and Fishers, fishers don'tlike, like, they like to do what they've
done, you know, for generations and,and they don't want somebody necessarily
watching over their backs all the time.
They're like, we are doing stuff.
They, you know, they want peopleto know that they're doing
stuff for the good of the ocean.
They wanna fish forever.
They want to be able todo that kind of stuff.
Electronic monitoring, to me would'vebeen a very difficult thing to get

(50:52):
vessels and, and fishers to adoptthe fact that you're able to do that.
You know, through the RMOs acrossthe world, like as you said, there's
still some work to be done, but tolap the GEF in the program and to
say, Hey, we actually got this done.
That's phenomenal.
Like that, that is really phenomenal.
I didn't think when you sortstarted telling this story, I was

(51:13):
like, yeah, no, that didn't work.
That's not gonna work.
And but it is like, it does, it does work.
And I think, you know, as part ofcompliance, as part of like these
rules and having everybody on board asyou just listed off all the different
people, all the different parts ofthe supply chain on board allows
that to be adopted a lot faster.
Uh, allows it to be like,look, this is not just watching

(51:35):
over the work that you do.
This is to make sure that everything isdone properly and, and everybody in the
supply chain is responsible for that.
And I think it's a, it's a, it's agreat thing to do and everybody, it, it
just, it helps with the transparency.
It helps with the say, Hey, look, we'readvocating for the conservation of
these species even though, you know,we're taking some, we're making sure
that we can fish forever and theseare the ways that we're doing it.

(51:57):
I, I really, really think that's, that'sa powerful message, especially when you
have everybody on board across the line,across the supply chain to say yes.
Like, this is what we're gonna do.
Phenomenal work.
Yes.
Thank you.
Amazing.
In, in, I love that.
That's powerful.
Like everything, you're right.
It takes a lot of talking to vesselsof course to vessel owners, you know,

(52:17):
making them understand that this isnot cameras all over the boat, right?
Just where you're fishing.
This is, you know, the vesselowners actually love it.
Really because they ownthis boat that's Yeah.
Way far away from them.
And it, yeah.
You know, yeah, sometimes I, I have some,I have friends that, um, have a house on

(52:38):
a lake and they have a little camera ontheir deck and they, they like to pull
up their camera and watch the sunset.
I mean, there, there is justthis human, um, pleasure.
Yeah.
I, I guess for right, for sure.
So, so, so they can, both the skippersrecognize that it can actually be helpful.
Yeah.
For them, if they get accused of doingsomething that they didn't do, and yep.

(52:59):
The owners same way.
And also the owners, I, I think,really get jazzed about being able
to just take a peek and see what,see what their team's doing today.
Um, so, but it's very scary whenyou first talk about it, for sure.
Definitely takes some getting usedto, but, um, yeah, really, really
optimistic about where this is going.

(53:19):
So powerful.
Now you mentioned at the beginningof this, when we, when I first asked
that question of like, what were thepriorities, what were the highlights
of 2024, you mentioned, uh, anan enormous amount of workshops,
34 workshops to be specific.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, for tuna fishers worldwide in 2024.
I know there's a lot of specifics thatcan go into that, and we can probably do
34 episodes for each, for each workshop.

(53:42):
Um, but today we're gonna be talkinglike, what were the primary objectives
and then like, you know, the outcomes thatcome out of those, of those workshops.
So there's the main curriculaif, if you will, right.
The, that most participate in,which is the bycatch mitigation.
A little bit about RFMOs, the kind of thebasics about, um, regulatory compliance,

(54:06):
some, some issues and ways, ways to fix'em, if it's a per se, and how to make
a biodegradable fad, that sort of thing.
Yeah.
But we had a few topic specifics as well.
One, we worked with, um, tuna Con andWWF Ecuador to bring globally groups
together to talk about fad retrieval.

(54:27):
Um, so if they're not biodegradable fads,how do you get them out of the water?
Right.
And how do you design afad retrieval initiative?
And then we had four other regionaldialogues about fad retrieval,
again with the vessel community.
So, so that was one, um, anotherlongstanding piece of research.

(54:50):
So boats or fads have eco sounderbuoys on them that until pretty
recently just says, yep, there'sa bunch of stuff there, or, Nope.
Nothing on this one.
Right.
Well, WeWork did a lot of research tocome up with the acoustic signature
for the different species of tuna.
Ah.
And then now we're working with the buoymanufacturers to make smart buoys and

(55:13):
then doing training to skippers about whatthese buoys can do and how to use them.
So that's another kind of.
Corridor of those workshop.
Remember gall mentioned lasttime, I wanna into that.
It's hugely exciting.
Yeah.
And it's harder, it was harder to do.
Yellowfin was a tricky one.
Took us a long time to getthe, get the Yellowfin one.
So, so that's another one, right?

(55:33):
Working with the buoy manufacturersand then talking to the skippers.
And, and this will get more robustprobably in the coming years now, right?
Of course.
Of course.
These more sophisticatedbuoys are available to you.
Here's how you make the best use of theinformation that you're being given.
Um, so yeah, it's differenttopics that just like that.

(55:57):
Just like that.
Just like that.
That's awesome.
I think, and I think that's importantbecause like these workshops contribute
to something, you know, biggerinto that broader, sustainable, you
know, tuna fishing practices, right?
Mm-hmm.
Um, and, and so like when you, when you,when you guys plan a workshop, there's

(56:17):
a lot of detail that goes into that.
Um.
How do you measure the success of theseworkshops at, by the end of it, you
know, is it just the, the delivery ofthe curricula, or is it more of like the
sentiment afterwards by the, the vesselowners and the fishers and so forth?
Um, there's a couple different metrics.

(56:38):
Metrics of success.
Uh, first of all, like all goodscientists and professors, they ask
their students for a little feedbackand we have a really comprehensive
questionnaire now, and it's right notonly feedback on the, the workshop
itself, but itself, the ideas presentedtheir thoughts, places for them to, to

(57:00):
talk about issues they're encountering.
So it, it helps the scientists as well.
Okay.
Also, kind of like on a scale ofone to five, how good of an idea
do you think it this is, or howcomfortable are you doing it?
And we can watch thosescores improve over time.
Mm-hmm.
You know, when we first started talkingto the skippers about the notion of

(57:21):
biodegradable fads, it was not popular.
Hmm.
And also, not surprisingly, itwas going nowhere in our advocacy,
but by around year three or four.
When we had more trials going at sea,when the skippers had maybe heard
about this two or three times, had alittle time to noodle it, you started

(57:44):
seeing that acceptance go from redto yellow to maybe light green, maybe
not dark green, but you light green.
And once it hit thatlight Greenpoint point.
No, shocker.
That's right.
The R fm OS also started taking action.
So of course.
So it takes a while, but you, wecan mark progress of an issue.
And then our ultimate definition ofsuccess is if an RFMO is able to get the

(58:09):
needed consensus to adopt a conservationmeasure requiring something that.
Our scientists feel should be required,our scientists and other scientists.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, that's huge.
I think that's really important.
And it is, it's great to be able to trackhow the sentiment is changing over time.
I think that's mm-hmm.
That's really great.
Um, you know, we, we talked a lotabout, you know, from the, the vessel

(58:31):
aspect and from the Fisher aspect today.
Um, but there, in the report, uh,it mentions that, you know, 90%
alignment between the IFFI sfs,you know, priorities with those
nearly 50 other environmental NGOs.
That's a lot.
And, and let's, let's be honest here, likethis, ISSF is a, is a con, is a, is a,

(58:54):
a, a, a collaboration and an organizationthat's formed by corporations.
You wouldn't think, you'd think thatthe big controversy with ISSF is
the fact that it's corporate based.
And so it wouldn't align well withthe priorities of environmental NGOs,
especially when it comes to tuna phishing.
To be able to get 90% inalignment is a huge feat.
How was that done?

(59:15):
Uh, and how does it advanceISS F'S advocacy efforts?
Mm-hmm.
So when ISSF first started there,there was one other factor, uh, uh,
that was kind of pushing everyoneto realize we needed an ISSF.
And that is because the NGOswere all over the place.
Mm. And businesses were afraid to do, tomove in one direction for fear that they

(59:37):
would be attacked by a different NGO.
Makes sense for doing that.
Makes sense.
And, and so it was chaotic.
Mm-hmm.
Um, we had, and it, that wasn't just tobusinesses, that was also to governments.
Like, yeah.
That was just, would you, you know,all, you all go tell us what you want.
Um, so in addition to our scientificadvisory committee, we were, we

(59:58):
created right at the very beginning,an environmental stakeholder committee,
um, world Wildlife Fund, both in theUS and international were founders.
Um, when we started, um, they broughttogether, uh, FishWise and SFP and
Monterey Bay Aquarium, uh, and the GlobalTuna Alliance and TNC, uh, you know,

(01:00:20):
Marine Stewardship Council's on there.
And so.
That sharing and talking intime and starting to work
on projects together helped.
And then the foundation community,uh, started funding that the Monterey
Bay Aquarium started called the GlobalTuna Alliance because as you said,

(01:00:42):
ISSF, um, partners very closely withindustry and there were many NGOs
that were not comfortable with that.
So to get around that problem, we now havea different organization called the Global
Tune Alliance that has 40 or 50 NGOs.
Now, the requirements to join thatare, you either or both have to

(01:01:04):
have a, a retail partner mm-hmm.
That buys tuna, uh, or be an accreditedobserver to one or more tuna RFMOs.
So that too has really helped the NGOTuna Forum works at, you know, what are
the top three, four, no more than fiveasks for each RFMO meeting, getting as

(01:01:24):
many NGOs as possible to align on that.
We participate in that
and more NGOs, I think, have realizedthat having a common voice on, forget
about what your ultimate goal is,what's your goal for this meeting?
What's reasonable to accomplish inthis meeting given the agenda, given

(01:01:49):
the work that has come out in thelast year of their working groups,
focusing on that necessary next step.
Mm-hmm.
That too was, was a lot of work to getthis many groups to realize that yeah, we
can all have our ultimate goals and we canmake statements about the ultimate goals.
Even the N GT uniform hassaid a hundred percent.

(01:02:10):
Observation on all industrial tuna boats.
So that's an ultimate goal.
Yeah.
Um, but being clear about yourtimeline, building upon the work that
the RFMOs are doing in the next stepshas really, so it's not like we said,
Hey, this is what we're asking for.
And 90% agreed with it.
It's that we are actively engagingin a body of work with the NGO

(01:02:33):
community that's working on tunaissues and the whole community is
getting aligned, which is also makingit a lot easier to make progress.
'cause you don't have, if, if peopleare saying five different things, that's
a really good reason to do nothing.
But if everybody's saying the samething, it's really hard to do nothing.
And, and Susan, isn't that amazinghow that, that works so well?

(01:02:55):
When everybody's aligned andeverybody's like, let's, let's, it is
also, it's like, let's be realistic.
Yes, we have these ultimate goals,but let's, what can we do now?
How do we progress?
How do we progress to that ultimate goal?
Uh, let's do it together andhere are the steps that we've,
you know, found successful.
Here are the steps thatyou found successful.
Let's try and amalgamate those,collaborate on those, and

(01:03:15):
let's build it for who knewcollaboration would do so well.
Right.
You know, I think it's, I I love that.
What a concept.
Yeah.
I love that.
Now.
Um, look, transparency is such ahuge thing in fisheries, uh mm-hmm.
And, uh, especially when it's,uh, we look at accountability
in the tuna supply chain.
So now with the proactivevessel register, the PVR.

(01:03:38):
Reaching an all time high.
I think it's, I think in the reportsaid 1,739 vessel registrations.
Yep.
How does this tool enhance transparencyand, and the tuna supply chain?
And let's just before you do that,even to define what PVR is and then
how does it enhance transparencyin, in the tuna supply chain?
So the PVR stands for Proactive VesselRegister, and these are vessels that

(01:03:59):
have signed up to be audited by third,third party auditors for their compliance
with our conservation measures.
ISSF has now 34 conservationmeasures, and if you are a
participating company in ISSF, youhave to comply with them some, um.
Are things that companies only do.
Like for example, they submit oncea quarter to the science bodies in

(01:04:21):
the each RFMO vessel level, speciessize, all their tuna purchasers
that the RFMO scientists use.
That's not somethingthat goes to the boat.
That's a, that's an exampleof a company specific one.
Um, they're all audited on theirtraceability systems annually by
MRA to make sure that they haverobust vessel trip to finished Good.

(01:04:43):
Traceability.
Um, but then there are a number ofthem that do apply to the boats.
The boat has to be flagged to acountry that's actually participating
in the RFMO where they're fishing.
The boat has to have a uniquevessel identifier, an IMO number,
if they're eligible to get one.
Otherwise A two V that the FAOIthink gives out other, uh, so

(01:05:05):
they have to have an IMO number.
They, their skipper has to have undergonea skipper's training workshop with us.
They have to be deployingnon entangling fads.
The PVR audits thevessels on those things.
So the participating company, ifthey're buying from boats that are in
compliance on the PVR, then for at leastthe vessel part of our conservation

(01:05:30):
measures, they'll be in compliance.
Mm-hmm.
Um, so, so that is wherewe are with the PVR.
It, it and of itself.
It doesn't help with transparency exceptthat it is credible transparency to
the practices that the vessels Right.
Are doing.

(01:05:50):
Of course.
'cause it's independentlythird party audited.
Yeah.
And you also know that thecompanies have been audited on their
traceability systems and we publishthe individual company audit reports.
Right.
Also.
So that's where the transparencycomes from, like comes from Exactly.
You're seeing the resultsof this, of these audits.
Yep.
Pass or fail or, you know,needs improvement where you're,

(01:06:13):
everybody gets to see it.
Correct.
Interesting.
And we also, I mean, in additionto our conservation measures being
public, the audit protocols are public.
Right.
So if you wanna know exactly whenMAG audits this vote for this thing.
Yeah.
What, what proof needsto be given it's public.
You can look at it.
Yeah.
To, to just go a little bit beyond that,you know, having an audit is great and

(01:06:35):
being able to, to publish that is great.
Um.
The accountability part of it.
Mm-hmm.
What is like the pass failrate of these, of these audits?
Do you know offhand?
I know I'm, I'm asking a question.
I do.
Okay, perfect.
Because that, that's just the firstthing that comes to mind because you
can do the audits, but if everybody'sfailing the audits, then they're
not really, you know, they showwhere the, the, the industry is at.

(01:06:58):
But if they're not passing them,then we're not getting any progress.
Or maybe we, we get progress inthe future, but what is that rate?
Is it, is it high?
Is it low?
Is it improving?
Well, I'd love to hear that.
It's definitely improving.
If you look at the participatingcompany audits, last year it was 99.3%.
Uh, it was 23 companieswere audited on 33 measures.

(01:07:20):
Okay.
This year we'll have 24companies audited on 34 measures.
When we first started, uh, publishingthese reports in like 20 15, 20 16.
There was a much bigger spread.
Right.
You know, we had a few companies thatwere compliant on all, but we had others
that had a lot of non-conformances.

(01:07:41):
Um, and so it speaks to the seriousnessthat the companies take their compliance.
Mm-hmm.
It speaks to the seriousness thatthe retailers, their customers
take about expecting compliance.
Yeah.
Um, that, that you see thatcompliance improve where it is
solidly in the upper 90% now.

(01:08:03):
So that's for like overall.
Mm-hmm.
So going from like a wide range and thentightening it up, but also increasing
it to like in the ni upper 90%.
Yes.
Yep.
What?
That's awesome.
I know.
And if you, and then, but thensome people say, oh, well then
they must not be very hard.
Wow.
If you look at all the boats onthe PVR, well, first of all, I'm

(01:08:25):
like, yeah, and you're doing what?
Yeah.
And, and any improvement at this point.
Like Yeah.
You know, and not only are you in,and I, and I, and I know you're gonna
say something probably more profoundthan I am, but any, like, if we look
at where people started from, youknow, where they're just kind of
like, if you think about it, evenglobally, they're probably just doing
things as they learned and mm-hmm.

(01:08:47):
And if you have like without.
Bringing together the RFMOs just as ICFhas done and, and all the RFMOs have
done, and, and everybody who's partof it has done, everybody was probably
just doing what they knew was right.
Some things were moreprogressive than others.
Uh, and so like when you start theseaudits, of course you expect that there's

(01:09:08):
gonna be a larger fail rate than whatyou would get after a number of years.
But just the, the fact that you'reimproving to the upper 90% and, and
obviously these things are not easy.
Everybody's gonna say,these are easy things.
These are not, these are expensive.
They're, they're difficultto, to implement.
Some of them more challenging than others.

(01:09:28):
Uh, especially with bringing ontechnology and, and so forth.
And then changing the mindset.
Let's be honest, we humans do not change.
Well, we, we are not easyto change just in general.
Um, and.
And, and to be able to get that is ahuge feat, you know, and especially
looking at what th you said 33 now,34 different types of measurements.

(01:09:50):
I'm sorry.
Anybody who says thatthese are Yeah, yeah.
Any, no, sorry.
You're right.
Measures.
Measures, yeah.
So anybody who says that, you know,these are easy measures best, I,
I highly disagree because they,they don't know fisheries if that's
the case, you know what I mean?
Like, oh, yep.
These are hard to do in the first place.
Uh, and the fact that we'reseeing this improvement is great.

(01:10:10):
I'm sorry, I, I kind of interruptedwhat you were, you were gonna go
on and say, so please continue.
Well, I was, so lastyear for the first time.
We published the same type of aggregatedstatistic for the boats on the PVR
like we've always had by vessel,by measure transparency to the PVR.
But last year we thought we should tryto look at this as a percentage as well.

(01:10:33):
Hmm.
And so of the 1700 plus vessels on thePVR, um, they were, if you took every
measure, every vessel, every measure, theywere at 76% compliance, which is still,
I mean, obviously there's work to do,but also obviously they're doing a lot.

(01:10:53):
First of all, these are the vessels thatare going over and above by getting on
the PVR and signing up for the audits.
But secondly, they are still 76%compliant overall, which also says
more about the participating companies.
'cause it's not that.

(01:11:15):
All boats are doing this.
This, it also shows the amount ofwork that they're doing with their
supplier vessels to help educatethem, to help them do better to, to
not buy fish from that other 24%.
They're making those hard commercialdecisions and also investing
effort to get the bolts up.

(01:11:37):
Yeah.
Um, so I think the, the two statisticsspeak to both a job well done, but
also hard work is still ongoing.
A hundred percent.
A hundred percent.
I love this.
This is such a cool,uh, thing to talk about.
Um, now let's talk about financialcommitment, because these things
don't, aren't free, right?

(01:11:57):
All these things, it, it costsmoney, it costs time, uh, and all
of that, uh, is, is very expensivewhen, when we talk about that.
So nearly half of the budget for ISSF,uh, according to the report, was dedicated
to science, as you mentioned earlier.
Mm-hmm.
In 2024.
So how does this financial commitment.
Reflect is S F's strategic priorities.

(01:12:18):
Yep.
So, uh,
first of all, the board, the ISSFboard is different from the companies.
By the way, it is a community board.
There's only one company person onthere, and that's Oh, interesting chair.
Okay.
But there are scientists on there.
There are NGO representatives on there.
There are former fisheriesmanagement managers on there.

(01:12:38):
It is truly a community board.
Um, and, and definitelyscience is up there.
Um, also the verification piece,you know, these third party
audits, uh, come with a cost.
Um,
the advocacy.
Is basically the people that you're payingthat you know, you're already paying

(01:13:01):
the staff and, and we're advocating.
So that is important work, but it doesn'treally have as large of a cost center.
We have a few consultants and you have alot of plane tickets to go to meetings,
but just by the, by virtue of thenature of the work scientists, science
is gonna be first and transparency andcompliance is, is gonna be right up there.

(01:13:23):
Yeah.
Um, but, but I should point out, becausethis is not a, a minor matter at all.
Um, our budget is roughly$5 million a year.
Mm-hmm.
The dues that the companies pay basedupon their size is last year, 4.2 million.
So a little over amillion in grants as well.
Right.

(01:13:43):
Um, but if you look at those companiesand the investment they have made in ISSF
since we began, it's over $58 million.
These are companies that really,and that's just money to us.
That is not the in kind contributions,that's not the extra staff people that
they had to hire to make sure thattheir purchases were in compliance

(01:14:05):
with the conservation measures.
Um, and then if you look at thevessel side and the, we talked earlier
about the fact that those in kindcontributions range between 30 and
a hundred million dollars a year.
These companies take this veryseriously is important to them that
we are successful and that tunasand tuna ecosystems are healthy.

(01:14:28):
You know, it's, it's interesting when you,you know, again, coming from a science
perspective and, and a conservationperspective where funding is always short.
Right.
Where it's difficult to getfunding, especially in these times,
funding's being cut every which way.
Government now, uh, in a, in anumber of different countries, you
know, we're looking at potentiallya poten, uh, impending recession

(01:14:49):
and, and, and things like that.
We are in difficult times we're,and we need more information.
Mm-hmm.
And we need more moneyto get that information.
And we talk about how theprivate sector needs to pony
up and be able to, to do that.
This is a phenomenal case to show howmuch can get done even within a year.

(01:15:14):
Then of course over the last, youknow, 15 when you have private sector
investment in trying to improve, uh,a, a, an industry that has long been
functioning, um, and has had problemsand has had a, a bad rap and a lot of,
you know, documentaries and, and, and,and reports and stuff to improve and to

(01:15:36):
include everybody and to collaborate witheverybody and to get things done faster.
Mm-hmm.
Obviously, and I say faster over a 15year period to improve things, but every
year you seem to be improving a certainsector or a number of different sectors.
And this goes to show, this is a greatexample of the fact that the private
sector money, when they're willing to putit in and, and let's be honest, they're

(01:15:58):
putting in a, a, a decent amount each,but it's not like billions of dollars.
This is a good amount each, andthey're putting in a, a like 58 million
over that, which is a lot of money.
It is, and to improve not only theconservation and the sustainability,
but also to improve the business.
And I think that's it.
It's, it's just a great exampleof how private sector can do some

(01:16:21):
great things for science, forconservation, fund it, get it done.
Move on to the next problemand solve the next issue.
It's huge.
This is, this is phenomenal caseand a, and a great example of that.
Uh, and it goes to test that everybodyin your organization who's worked
over the past 15 years, includingyourself, who's helped develop this
and push this, this type of, ofwork just to get things done faster.

(01:16:44):
Like, it doesn't happen often.
Government takes forever.
You know, nonprofit organizationsnever get enough money.
The people change over quicklybecause of the money situation.
And, and it's a huge, it's a huge,uh, gap in, in a and to be able to
have this, uh, is, is phenomenal.
And this is why you're on theepisode and I get to, we get
to be able to talk about this.

(01:17:05):
It's, it's the, the amount of stuff thatyou were able to do, not only in this
year, but over the last 15 years or thispast year, uh, is absolutely amazing.
Now, of course.
Thank you.
When I, when I say that, I'm gonna belike, what have you done for me lately
in terms of what's coming up in 2025?
I say it jokingly, of course.
Yep.
Um, but like, what's theanticipated scientific investment

(01:17:26):
for, for the upcoming year?
Yep.
So we have high hopes for continuedprogress on electronic monitoring.
Right.
We've gotta get morefleets using those fully.
Biodegradable fads, you know,those deadlines by which
they have to be using them.
We'll be here before we know it'cause that's how time works.
Yeah.
Um, as well as ongoingresearch to make them better.

(01:17:47):
Right?
Looking for types of wood thatmaybe could be locally sourced
in a good source of flotation or,uh, can the design be improved.
Um, and then I, I talked a little bitabout the new columns that we're gonna
open up on the v oce, uh, and the tuneof transparency pledge and retailers

(01:18:07):
now making specific commitments andlooking to the v oce for that proof.
And I really anticipate that 2025 and2026 will be the year that you will, we'll
start to see a lot more market call for.
Proven implementationof specific initiatives.

(01:18:30):
You know, there are 59 retailers aroundthe world now that somehow in their
commitments may make some reference toISSF by only from an ISF participating
company or only from boats on the PVR.
But it's very high level andit's not really verified.
And now the NGO community isstarting to say, Hey, like TNC did

(01:18:51):
with the transparency pledge, wewant a hundred percent verification
and we want that vote on the VOC.
So we know that it has been independentlyaudited and verified that they do in
fact have a hundred percent observationand, and I think that type of initiative
is gonna be the wave of the future.
I agree.
I agree.

(01:19:11):
Uh, Susan, I wanna thank you so much fornot only coming on the podcast and sharing
this, but being so enthusiastic about it.
You make an annual report exciting.
And that's, thank you.
That's not an easy thing todo because it's a lot of facts
and a lot of information, butwe have good pictures too.
Yeah.
Great picture.
We're, we're gonna share, we'regonna share it in the show
notes so people can take a look.
Uh, I highly recommend peoplego to iss uh, foundation.org.

(01:19:34):
I'll put the link in the show notes.
Uh, Susan, please, I would love toinvite you back, uh, to, to talk next
year, but also any other initiatives.
I feel like, uh, ISSF needs itsown podcast just to be able to
talk about everything and gointo detail about everything.
But you're more than welcome back to ComeBack, love to come back, you know, to, to
this, uh, to this podcast and talk moreabout tuna conservation and sustainability

(01:19:56):
and working together and collaboratively.
Thank you so much.
I, I really do.
That'd be Appreciate it.
Thanks for having me.
Thank you, Susan, for joiningus on today's episode of the How
to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
I'd just love the energy.
I love the fact that we are ableto talk about a 2024 annual report,
make it exciting, make it productive.
Think about how productivethis organization is.

(01:20:17):
A small organization that has a globalreach, that has collaborators around
the world, working tirelessly to makethings better for the tuna industry.
Not only to be able to fishmore, but also to be able to fish
sustainably and fish forever.
I think this is somethingthat is really important.
I know there's people here who are like,no, we need to stop fishing altogether.
That is not going to happen.

(01:20:38):
That cannot happen.
Too many people rely on the protein from.
Fish like tuna from fish, like a lotof different fish around the world.
And we need to make sure that we aredoing this sustainably and there's
organizations that are working this,companies that are working on this
to make sure that it's sustainable.
And Susan brings the heat in terms ofall the work that they were able to do.
And you heard it in the episode.

(01:20:59):
We're looking at scientific innovationsand research, electronic monitoring
compliance, stakeholder engagement andworkshops, advocacy and policy influence,
transparency and accountability in thetuna supply chain, which is huge financial
commitment to science, which is huge.
And looking ahead into 2025 andre-upping that scientific commitment.
When you have organizationsand companies who are like, we

(01:21:20):
want to invest in the science.
We wanna listen to the science, butwe need to get the science information
so that we can listen to the scienceand we need to solve problems.
And with that scientific study.
Causes another problem orhighlights another problem.
We need to solve that problem.
So let's do more science and let'sfigure out the answers to all
these questions that we have andproblems and challenges that we face.
And this is what ISSFis doing and I love it.

(01:21:41):
I just love it.
Absolutely love it.
Just to let you know like I ampropping this organization up.
They don't pay me to come on here.
They ask to come on.
I said yes, let's talk about itbecause I love what they're doing.
This is conservation, this is fisheriesmanagement, this is collaboration,
and this is what we need more of.
So I'd love to hear your commentsand feedback on this episode.
If you do have some, put 'emin the comments down below.

(01:22:02):
If you're watching this on YouTube,if you're listening to this on the
audio podcast and you feel like,Andrew, I need to talk to you
about this, you know, hit me up.
There's two ways to do so.
You can go to speak up forblue.com/contact, fill out the form that
goes right to my email, or you can DM meon Instagram at how to protect the Ocean.
It's at how to protect the ocean.
And of course, if you want to takemore action and you want to be getting

(01:22:23):
guided into taking more action for theocean, you can join the undertow at
Speak Up for blue.com/join the undertow.
Join our community.
There's a bit of a wait list.
We're about to launch momentarily, butjoin the under Speak up for blue.com.
Join the undertow.
Thank you so much for joiningme on today's episode of the How
to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
I'm your host Angela, and from the truenor strong and free, have a great day.

(01:22:44):
We'll talk to you next timeand happy conservation.

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