The Philippines' First Ever Sustainable Seafood Week Furthers Commitment to Healthy Oceans

Rare's Fish Forever Program Joins Other Groups for an Impactful Week in February

Arlington, VA (PRWEB) February 11, 2016

This month, Rare Philippines, a grantee of Bloomberg Philanthropies Vibrant Oceans Initiative and USAID, are joining with others to launch the first-ever Sustainable Seafood Week in the Philippines. This effort works to reverse the trend of overexploited or depleted fish stocks in the Coral Triangle.

The week-long celebration, from February 15-21, features events that highlight the key role of restaurants and hotels in ensuring that the seafood they serve is being sourced from sustainable wild-caught and farmed fisheries. Importantly, these hospitality partners are committed to sourcing those species that are available and sustainable, rather than those that may be traditionally served. This necessitates creative chefs practicing a new paradigm for seafood sourcing and consumption. The week's events include technical workshops, cooking demos, and buffet presentations at the participating hotels and restaurants.

While the waters in the Philippines are rich with marine life, more than 90% of Philippine fish stocks are seriously plundered or diminished, due to overfishing, pollution and destructive or illegal fishing practices. Rare, the non-government organization that has been working with over 35 municipalities in the Philippines, is helping local leaders set up better fishery and protected area management systems, and inspire behavior change among fishers and their communities.

"It's hard for fishers to change their behaviors---the pressures of earning a living daily are just too great," said VP for the Philippines Rocky Sanchez Tirona. "But with support from private companies, their customers, and ultimately, the diners who patronize them, we hope to create better incentives for fishers to do the right thing."

In one of the featured workshops during the week-long event, Rare Philippines will showcase just what it will take for a community of small-scale fishers in Antique to become more sustainable. Hosted by the Marco Polo Hotel Ortigas and The Café at Hyatt City of Dreams, ‘From the Fisher to the Diner' will demonstrate the challenges faced by artisanal fishermen all over the Philippines, and the kinds of conservation solutions they need to implement in order to reverse the decline in their fish stocks. Recognizing that the market will have an important role to play in encouraging fishers to fish more sustainably, Rare and its partners will lay out a vision for the future---one in which buyers support fishers who fish the right species and sizes, use the right gear, and fish in the right places, and where fishers and traders earn more when they comply with these new criteria.

Proponents of Sustainable Seafood Week include the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, USAID, Meliomar Inc., Blueyou, Center for Sustainability, Greenpeace Southeast Asia, PEMSEA, Rare, Fish Forever, and Bloomberg Philanthropies, together with leading hotels and restaurants such as the Shangri-La Hotels, Hyatt City of Dreams Manila, Marco Polo Ortigas, Marriott Manila Hotel, The Peninsula Manila, Fairmont Raffles, New World Makati, Le Club, Catch, Hooch, Vask, Disciples Escoffier, and Enderun. In a joint statement, they shared the objective of Sustainable Seafood Week:

"We, the participants of the Sustainable Seafood Week, come together to declare our commitment to improve the health of our oceans by pursuing responsible business practices in the sourcing of seafood products from more sustainable fisheries and aquaculture.

"The future of seafood is in the hands of people preparing the fish while ensuring that fresh sustainable seafood is available for their valued customers to enjoy. And we call upon consumers to do their share by being vigilant and conscious about the seafood that they are eating."

#SustainableSeafood, #FishForever

ABOUT RARE

Rare is an innovative conservation organization that looks for proven conservation solutions and trains local leaders to inspire communities to adopt them through its signature Pride campaigns, so named because it inspires people to take pride in the species and habitats that make their community unique, while also introducing practical alternatives to environmentally destructive practices.

With Rare, employees of local governments or non-profit organizations, receive extensive training on fisheries management, campaign planning and social marketing to communities. They are equipped to delivery community-based solutions based on natural and social science, while leveraging policy and market forces to accelerate change. Aside from the Philippines, Rare works in Indonesia, Mozambique, and Brazil— to implement a targeted strategy to address overfishing by empowering near-shore fishing communities to sustainably manage their fisheries while increasing food security, improving livelihoods, conserving important marine habitats, and building coastal climate resilience.

For more information about Rare's efforts in the Philippines, visit https://www.rare.org/fisheries.

ABOUT THE VIBRANT OCEANS INITIATVE

The Bloomberg Philanthropies Vibrant Oceans Initiative supports a groundbreaking approach to reform both local and industrial fishing simultaneously. The initiative integrates financial strategies to ease the transition to more sustainable fishing. The Vibrant Oceans Initiative is a partnership of Rare, Oceana, and Encourage Capital and is working in Brazil, Philippines, and Chile. http://www.bloomberg.org/program/environment/vibrant-oceans/

In the Vibrant Oceans Initiative, Rare is the partner engaging with local leaders to lead nearshore fisheries reform. Rare's nearshore fisheries reform model is called Fish Forever, a partnership that combines the deep experience of three organizations (Environmental Defense Fund, Rare, and the Sustainable Fisheries Group at UCSB) into a global initiative designed to protect and recover nearshore fisheries, curb overfishing and safeguard the food security and economies of thousands of communities in the developing tropics. Its goal is to achieve lasting, scalable conservation solutions across multiple communities and countries. Learn more at http://www.fishforever.org.

For media inquiries, please contact:
Julie Langlie, 410.353.4587, julie.langlie(at)bullseyecomm(dot)com
Heather Marohn, 908.268.3770, heather.marohn(at)bullseyecomm(dot)com

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2016/02/prweb13211280.htm