Challenges in seafood traceability & sustainability in the South China Sea

The South China Sea is home to some of the most diverse marine life. With 12% of global wild catch and 88% of global aquaculture production, it plays a vital role for nutrition, income and livelihoods of millions of people in... [ view full abstract ]

The South China Sea is home to some of the most diverse marine life. With 12% of global wild catch and 88% of global aquaculture production, it plays a vital role for nutrition, income and livelihoods of millions of people in the region, but it is often exploited at the expense of vulnerable communities and marine environments. Overfishing of resources and poor working conditions, due to unregulated or illegal harvest, are enabled by lack of monitoring. An incentive to increase legal practices is foreign market pull for traceable products from sustainable fisheries. Voluntary ecolabelling initiatives, such as the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), setting standards for sustainable wild and aquaculture harvest, respectively, require that every actor in the supply chain is certified according to MSC Chain of Custody Standard. This lays out a framework for businesses to effectively segregate and trace products from harvest to final consumer. Here, we present lessons learned from use of MSC traceability framework in 99 countries, about key challenges in enforcing verifiable sustainability claims throughout the supply chain. We discuss the case of certified Vietnamese shrimp aquaculture, where risks of mislabelling, volume and origin substitution were identified. We then propose how recent technologies for product authentication and digital traceability may provide new solutions to address traceability issues at local and global levels, improve industry practices, and achieve greater transparency, thus driving much needed change towards more sustainable use of marine resources.