Funding for sustainable fisheries

A fisherman from loan recipient Morrow Bay Fishing Co. reels in a catch.

The Environmental Defense Fund in late March launched the California Fisheries Fund (CFF) to support a vertically-integrated sustainable fish-to-consumer supply chain from the offices of Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), a large purchaser of sustainable seafood. CFF plans to make $5 million in loans to California fishing enterprises before the end of 2011. California businesses from the Central Coast area—including a fisherman, a dockside fish buyer and a distribution company—received the first loans and lines of credit from CFF.

The fund does not require loan applicants to adhere to any certification program because the definition of sustainable is a moving target, though eventual certification is the goal, according to Michael DeLapa, manager of the CFF. He defines a sustainable fishery as one that is “fished or farmed in a way that can maintain or increase production in the long term without jeopardizing the structure or function of affected ecosystems.”

“There are a whole variety of different certifications,” he says. “But the recent work on management programs is not always incorporated into the different sustainability measures. ... Consumer demand...[is] imposing sustainability measures on fish that they buy. Each piece of that chain needs to be strong enough to deliver sustainable fish.”

DeLapa cites a fishery management program called catch-share as a sustainable one. One fisherman they are working with in a catch-share managed fishery is experimenting with different techniques, hook-and-line fishing and new technologies to catch groundfish species such as Black Cod that have healthy populations but small existing markets.

The buyers and distributors in the program may not use loan funds for purchases of more sustainable equipment, since so much of what they use is very specific to its function, DeLapa says. They do have a desire to support sustainable fisheries and the communities around them however, which helps create a sustainable supply chain from sea to table.