A majority of the world’s fish stocks are fully exploited or overexploited at a time when 37 percent of the global population (~2.8 billion people) lives in coastal communities. Many of these communities depend on the health of the oceans for their livelihoods, and the issue of overfishing is as much a human problem as it is an environmental one. Reducing overfishing requires both better business practices and natural resource conservation.
Our work happens where people, technology, science, business and finance collide. With deep knowledge of the seafood industry, we build collaborations of stakeholders. And with them, we identify and plug gaps in the system, leverage existing resources and build actionable platforms that incentivize engagement.
Our approach centers on making connections. On bringing fishing communities, funders, seafood businesses and others to the table to tap into the freshest ideas out there. For us, innovation never manifests as a silver bullet. It means carefully crafted solutions that are rooted in system forces, strategic alignment and scalability.
We are a diverse group including design thinkers, entrepreneurs, business consultants and scientists. Together, we’re more than the sum of our parts. Our work is sharpened by our diversity—in experience, in background, and in thought. As a team, we’re thirsty for a challenge and thrive when tackling some of the world’s most complex problems.
Workers in small scale fisheries make up over 90% of all seafood employees. These small fisheries, spread from Chile to Belize to Vietnam, catch 50% of the seafood eaten around the world. Small scale fishing can be a hard life — long days on the water, stock fluctuations due to climate change or overfishing, and often low prices. Still: fishing is a lifestyle, a living, a tradition, and a way to support families and communities. For small scale fishers who want to improve their practices, modernize their operations, or make changes to ensure they’re fishing sustainably, support and resources can be hard to come by. We’re out to change that.
Luis Solís, born and raised in the commune of Renca, is a tireless worker and champion for his community, dedicated to working with small scale producers and businesses to improve food supply chains and access to nutritious food for all Chileans. Over the course of his career in both the private and public sectors, he observed a lack of connection and organization between workers causing inefficiencies in the food supply system, as well as a growing concern over the declining nutrition, health, and wellbeing of his fellow Chileans. Luis’s passion for finding solutions to these two issues drive the work he does today.
Fishers are the stewards of the ocean, and their decisions directly impact the sustainability of the environment and community’s livelihood. Because of this role, fishers should be well-positioned to access different sources of support and capital for projects, which can incentivize sustainability and resilience and support many UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). But in Peru, that’s not the case. Peru’s small-scale fishers are often locked out from accessing the financing that would make the biggest difference. In this post, we dive into the current funding landscape and the challenges to financing small-scale fishers.
When it comes to tackling the social and environmental issues of our time, no one organization has all the expertise and capacity needed to solve these complex challenges alone. But together, we can move mountains—or, in the case of fisheries, turn the tide. A recent Partnership Agreement between Future of Fish and One Earth Future Foundation’s two programs, Secure Fisheries and Shuraako, builds on this ethos, and seeks to collectively develop the mechanisms needed for scalable projects that benefit coastal communities and ocean ecosystems. Together, we hope to combine our strengths across capital coordination, creative financing, technical assistance, systems design, and community engagement to support fishers and coastal communities as engines of resilience, peace-building, and food security.
