Emma Desrochers is a freelance journalist based in Waialua, Hawaii, who writes about fisheries and sustainability. She graduated from Yale University in June 2021 with an undergraduate degree in environmental studies and mechanical engineering. She has contributed to the environmental conservation field through internships located in Ecuador, Thailand, and Hawaii.
Author Archive
The Fairness, Integrity, Safety, and Health (FISH) Standard for Crew, a third-party accreditation for labor practices on wild-capture fishing vessels, announced it has applied to the Consumer Goods Forum’s Sustainable Supply Chain Initiative (SSCI).
The SSCI provides consumer guidance benchmarking of third-party audits, monitoring, and certification schemes. It covers sustainability requirements and relevant verification
… Read More
The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) has released its first report on how it is contriuting to the responsible aquaculture portion of the United Nations Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The 17 SDGs make up the overall sustainability goals adopted by 193 U.N. member-states in 2015. Within each overarching goal, there are specific targets to achieve the 17 SDGs by 2030. The new report found more than 80
… Read More
The Marine Stewardship Council’s (MSC) Ocean Stewardship Fund is halfway to its goal of USD 10 million (EUR 9.4 million) in funding to support sustainable fishing globally.
The MSC launched the fund in 2018, with the funding going to small-scale fisheries that need assistance to overcome obstacles to becoming sustainable. The fund has awarded around USD 4.4 million (EUR 4.1 million) in grants, with USD 854,000 (EUR 804,000)
… Read More
London, U.K.-based nonprofit financial think tank Planet Tracker has launched a new database listing seafood supply chain companies. The database allows for comparison of listed companies' exposure to overfishing, illegal fishing, and sustainability risks.
Planet Tracker said its database provides better transparency to investors and lenders, allowing them to more accurately assess the risk and opportunity of an investment in a company
… Read More
A walleye and northern pike fishery in the Canadian province of Manitoba has achieved Marine Stewardship Council certification.
Cedar Lake is the province’s fourth-largest commercial fishery, and the certification was made possible through a multi-year collaboration between Cedar Lake Fisheries Inc., the Chemawawin Cree Nation, Indigenous Services Canada (ISC), and the province of Manitoba. This collaboration and partnership aims to
… Read More
A ghost gear removal competition, hosted by the Azores tuna fishery, has resulted in a plastic-neutral status for the islands' pole-and-line fishery for the 2022 fishing season.
The competition picked up 735 kilograms of marine litter, with 620.65 kilograms of that total being fishing gear, according to the International Pole and Line Foundation (IPNLF). Ghost gear is fishing gear that has been abandoned, lost, or discarded at sea that
… Read More
The 19th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) on 25 November, 2022, ended with increased protections for 95 species of sharks and guitarfish.
According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), roughly one third of sharks, rays, and chimaeras (cartilaginous fish) are threatened with extinction. The number of species threatened is
… Read More
Ryan Orgera, a U.S.-based marine governance expert, has launched Accountability.Fish to spur operational change in regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs).
Orgera said the new movement aims to raise awareness of the politics behind RFMOs, which he said is leading to unsustainable management and poor accountability on decisions made to recover important fisheries. Another goal of the movement is to connect the fishing
… Read More
The California market squid purse-seine fishery, one of the largest commercial squid fisheries by tonnage in the United States, has started the Marine Stewardship Council assessment process.
A completion of an initial draft of the MSC assessment report found the fishery preliminarily qualified for certification. Three seafood companies; Del Mar Seafoods, Silver Bay Seafoods, and Lund’s Fisheries, as well as supplier Sun Coast
… Read More
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has increased commitment to its Agreement on Port States Measures (PSMA) by reaching 100 states committing to the agreement to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
The FAO estimates that globally, one in every five fish caught annually is from IUU fishing. Combatting IUU fishing aids national, regional, and global efforts for sustainable fisheries and is part of
… Read More