●Origin of FIP

　　

With increased attention paid to environmental protection issues in the international society, and in order to mitigate the depletion of fishing stock and diminish the impact on ecological environment, consumers begin to care about whether the fisheries products they are going to buy are originated from sustainable fisheries that would not do harm to the natural environment. In response to the growing public demand for such products, efforts have been made to seek various solutions internationally, such as the adoption of harvest rules, limit of fishing quota and certification of eco-labels, among which, eco-labeling is one of the most popular approaches in recent years.

Eco-labeling is a market-based measure for sustainable fisheries, certified by independent non-governmental certification bodies. Such bodies will follow the standards set forth by reliable and worldwide prestigious eco-label organizations to carry out assessments of the producing scenario and approaches of the fisheries that voluntarily join the program. Once the fisheries pass the accreditation, their fishery products can be marked with the eco-label, suggesting such products are produced in a sustainable and environmental-friendly manner. In this way, consumers can easily identify the origins of the fishery products when making purchases and hence support the certified sustainable fishery products.

At present, Dolphin Safe, Friends of the Sea (FOS) and Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) are the most well-known eco-labels in the fisheries globally. While these eco-labels enjoy widespread popularity in the market, their standards are also stricter, with higher accreditation fee and not necessarily applicable to various types of capture fisheries. As a result, it is difficult for many fisheries intending to move towards sustainability to obtain the eco-label certification due to their nature constraints or the inability to bear the accreditation cost and other factors.

Having said that, in recent years, in order to encourage various types of fisheries to operate in a sustainable manner, an alternative approach named “Fishery Improvement Project” has been developed, aiming to enabling all fisheries willing to move towards sustainability to improve its own fishery in a progressive manner.

●Fishery Improvement Project

Fishery Improvement Project (FIP) is developed to offer guidance to fisheries that are interested in the concept of eco-label but not yet qualified for the accreditation. FIP aims to jointly work toward to sustainable fisheries with all stakeholders, including fishermen, service wholesalers, processing plants, fish trade agents, fish product retailers, restaurants, food suppliers, non-governmental organizations, and fishery management authorities.

Like the mentioned eco-labels, FIP is launched by non-governmental third parties. Through following the standards established by the MSC, FIP strives to make impact on the operation of the fisheries with the bottom-up approach and ultimately lead the fisheries to be qualified for the MSC certification. Currently, the majority of FIPs are registered on a website named “FisheryProgress,” managed by the FishChoice. The company is responsible for overseeing the improvement progress of each FIP. FisheryProgress serves as a platform for consumers to inquiry FIPs worldwide.

●How to launch a fishery improvement project?

Before launching a FIP, the fisheries need to decide whether they want to conduct a Basic FIP or a Comprehensive one. The key difference between the two is that the Comprehensive FIP needs to follow the accreditation standards of the MSC, go through a pre-assessment of the fisheries conducted by the MSC certified technical expert, make improvements according to the work plan drafted by the MSC certified technical expert, and be audited by the MSC certified technical expert every 3 years, while for Basic FIP, participation of the MSC certified technical expert is not necessary for the pre-assessment, and the fisheries can change their improvement objectives freely themselves. The detailed differences are as follows:

	Basic FIP	Comprehensive FIP
Scoping	FIP completes a needs assessment and scoping document based on the MSC standard to identify related challenges. The needs assessment must include at minimum a subset of indicators from each of the 3 principle areas of the MSC standard. The needs assessment and scoping document must be made publicly available.	FIP completes a pre-assessment and produce scoping documents and workplan with an MSC certified auditor. The pre-assessment and established documents must be made available to the public.
Objectives	FIP defines timebound objectives for addressing a specific set of the fishery’s environmental challenges to improve its performance against the MSC standard.	FIP defines timebound objectives for addressing all the fishery’s environmental challenges necessary to achieve a level of performance consistent with an unconditional pass of the MSC standard.
FIP Verification of Progress via Audit	Basic FIPs are encouraged to conduct an independent, in-person audits of activity results and performance against the MSC standard.	Every 3 years, comprehensive FIPs must arrange an independent, in-person audit of activity results and performance against the MSC standard by a certified MSC auditor.

After deciding to launch a FIP, there are 6 stages of implementation ahead.

Stage 0: identification
If a fishery decides to launch a FIP, its priority is to identify which fishery and what target species are covered in the FIP. It is also crucial to understand the stakeholders involved in the fisheries, which normally includes fishers, vessel owners, fishermen’s associations, the supply chain (traders, refrigeration plants, etc.) and government representatives, etc.

Stage 1: development
FIPs conduct a pre-assessment, analyzing the impact on target species, bycatch species, endangered or protected species and the surrounding ecological environment brought by the fishery. After completing the pre-assessment, FIPs should draw up a workplan and define timebound objectives according to the issues identified in the pre-assessment. The detailed content is as follows:

Working Item	Content
An assessment of the fishery’s environmental performance	●Basic FIPs: conduct a needs assessment that must include at minimum a subset of the indicators from each of the 3 principle areas of the MSC standard to determine environmental challenges and improvements needed in the fishery. Basic FIPs are encouraged to include all MSC indicators in their needs assessment if possible and consider conducting an MSC pre-assessment as their needs assessment if they anticipate transitioning to a comprehensive project in the future. ●Comprehensive FIPs: conduct an MSC pre-assessment to determine where the fishery falls short of the MSC standard.   All FIPs are encouraged to use the Social Responsibility Assessment Tool (SRAT) to assess the social risk in their fisheries.
A scoping document	A scoping document summarizes the results of the needs assessment/pre-assessment and recommends strategies for addressing the fishery’s challenges. The scoping document must be made public. For comprehensive FIPs, the scoping document must be examined by a certified auditor.
A stakeholder mapping and engagement process	To identify which parties are the most relevant to the FIP and determine who needs to become a participant in the FIP (government representatives, industry, NGOs, and scientific community). FIPs are encouraged to make the process for adding participants transparent and to collaborate with other FIPs within the same fishery at this stage.

Stage 2: launch
FIPs agree with the objectives that need to fulfill in the early stage, approve budgets that support all improvement actions to be made, and make the pre-assessment and workplan available on FisheryProgress. The details are as follows:

Working Item	Content
Confirmation of project participants	A list of FIP participants is compiled and a memorandum of understanding is signed by all participants.
Arrangement of the participant meeting	The FIP participants meet in person to determine a course of action.
Development of the workplan	Based on the environmental assessment, scoping document, and participant input, the fishery improvement project develops a workplan (for Comprehensive FIPs, the workplan must be examined by certified auditor). The workplan must include: ●Objectives: ○For basic FIPs, objectives will address a specific set of the challenges identified in the needs assessment to improve the fishery’s performance against the MSC standard. ○For Comprehensive FIPs, objectives will address all the fishery’s challenges necessary to achieve a level consistent with an unconditional pass of the MSC standard.   ●A list of actions: activities that must be completed to fulfill the identified objectives. ●Responsible FIP parties: organizations/people responsible for completing each action. ●Timeframes: developing a workplan of 5 years or less is recommended. ●Budget: a budget should include main expenses and revenue sources, and be updated annually.   The workplan must be updated annually and made public; the budget must be adopted in the FIP meeting, although the budget details need not be made public.

Stage 3: implementation
During this stage, the objective is to implement tasks identified in the workplan. The progress on workplan actions should be reported every 6 months to FisheryProgress. Comprehensive FIPs, additionally, must arrange an independent, in-person improvement audit every 3 years.

Working Item	Content
Implementing actions and/or tasks in the workplan	Implement the workplan.
Tracking and reporting on progress	FIPs report progress on workplan actions every 6 months and update FIP indicator scores every 12 months, which will be reviewed by FisheryProgress. Comprehensive FIPs must arrange an re-audit conducted by a certified MSC auditor every 3 years.
Course correcting if needed	If a FIP cannot achieve the actions in its workplan within the specified timeline, the FIP should provide the reasons and improvement measures to be taken.

Stage 4: improvements in fishing practices or fishery management
After implementing the workplan, FIPs demonstrate improvements in fishing practices or fishery management to FisheryProgress.

Stage 5: improvements on the water
The objective of improvement on fishery operations and management is to promote the sustainable use of fishery resources and ecological conservation. In this stage, it is expected to see the impact of human behavior changes on the natural environment.

What need to be emphasized here is that Stage 4 and Stage 5 are not necessarily sequential. After reaching Stage 3, the FIP will run in the continuous loop among Stage 3, 4 and 5, until the FIP completes its progress report or suspends its planned work in Stage 3 due to no progress achieved.

●Tool for Evaluating FIP Progress

Five progress ratings (A~E) are used to differentiate progress made by the FIP, where rating A indicates advanced progress, B for good progress, C for some recent progress, D for some past progress, and finally E for negligible progress. The rules used to determine progress ratings A through E are shown below:

When was last Stage 4 or 5 result?	≦12 months	Comprehensive?	Yes: Advanced Progress (A)
			No: Good Progress (B)
	≧12 months	Stage 3 ≦12 months?	Yes: Good Progress (B)
			No: Some Recent Progress (C)
	≧24 months	Some Past Progress(D)
	30~36 months	Negligible Progress (E)
	Never (for FIPs younger than 12 months)	Stage 3 activity?	Yes: Some Recent Progress (D)
			No: Negligible Progress (E)

 

Explanation of the aforementioned rating system:
‧Advanced Progress (A): Reserved for comprehensive FIPs that have a Stage 4 or 5 result within the past 12 months.
‧Good Progress (B): A FIP that has acheived a Stage 4 or 5 in more than 12 months AND Stage 3 activity in the last year; OR a basic FIP that has achieved Stage 4 or 5 achievements within the past 12 months.
‧Some Recent Progress (C): A FIP that has achieved a Stage 4 or 5 result in more than 12 months (but less than 24) months but has not generated a Stage 3 result within the past 12 months OR a FIP younger than a year that has never achieved a Stage 4 or 5 result but has completed a Stage 3 activity.
‧Some Past Progress (D): A FIP for which the most recent publicly reported Stage 4 or 5 result is more than 24 (but less than 30) months.
‧Negligible Progress (E): A FIP older than a year that has not reported a Stage 4 or 5 result in more than 30 months (but less than 36 months); OR a FIP younger than 1 year that has not reported a Stage 3 activity.