Joining Hands Across Borders to Protect Marine Resources in Asia（Part 2）
IUU Fishing・Human Rights Issues
Efforts to address human rights issues in the seafood industry come up against demands for harmonization with global standards. At the same time, Japan has issues of its own that require solutions. In particular, as a major marine products importer, Japan faces expectations to contribute to ensuring transparency throughout the supply chain and to using its market power to effect improvements.
In Part I, Ryusuke Tanaka of the ILO* and Wakao Hanaoka of Seafood Legacy Co., Ltd. exchanged views on the current state of human rights issues in the fisheries industry. In Part II, the discussion delves into specific approaches to the mainstreaming of sustainable seafood and the outlook for 2030, touching on technology for amplifying the voices of workers, the roles of financial institutions, and dialogue with consumers, exploring the path toward realizing sustainable fisheries.
Tanaka: At TSSS2024, the development of on-board Wi-Fi* came up as a topic. I’d earlier heard an NGO talk about this, and thought at the time it was a really new idea. I was asked for a meeting, and expected to hear some harsh things about the effectiveness of ILO treaties and crackdowns on corporations. To my surprise, though, the priority issue was on-board Wi-Fi.
Hanaoka: It’s surprising that on-board Wi-Fi would be the top priority.
Tanaka: Digging into the supply chain, it’s possible to arrive at only a fraction of the sought-after information. Vessels and workers change frequently, too. As a result, assessing the status of workers is said to be especially difficult in the fisheries industry. That’s where grievance mechanism for relief from human rights violations are important. I was stunned to hear that workers were speaking out directly to name on-board Wi-Fi as a necessity for obtaining relief.
Hanaoka: It would be good if Japanese seafood products companies and supplier companies were to make active use of on-board Wi-Fi in their supply chains to communicate that they practice the use of grievance mechanism.
Tanaka: I agree. Improving the communication environment also leads to enhanced quality of life for workers. The most difficult thing for workers at sea is the inability to see their families, so even just the ability to make video calls via Wi-Fi would provide immense psychological support.
Hanaoka: Calls for action from the financial industry have also increased in recent years. Until three or four years ago, there was talk about the risks of investing and financing in seafood businesses, which involve risks of human rights violations and which face decline as seafood resources are depleted. But this has changed dramatically.
Tanaka: Contributions of sustainable financing have increased rapidly over the past seven to eight years, and the number of organizations signing the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) has exceeded 5,000. What I hear from people in the industry is that long-term investment holds a high share in financial investment markets, and that in pension management and other long-term investments that look 10 or 20 years ahead, addressing issues in environmental and social terms is a key element in investment decisions such as considering whether a company will survive. This is because of the view that companies that are unable to flexibly read and adapt to social issues will be unable to survive amid upheavals in society. It’s only natural that companies facing threats to their survival won’t readily be selected as long-term investment targets.
Hanaoka: Companies strengthening their sustainability initiatives through approaches by the financial industry is something I’ve been sensing in the seafood industry over the past three years.
Hanaoka: The supply chain ends with the consumer. People tend to take for granted that fish are available for consumption, and the reality is that there are still a lot of consumers with little awareness of issues such as seafood sustainability and human rights violations. Seafood Legacy doesn’t reach out directly to consumers, but it does help B-to-C sector companies in communicating with consumers. What’s the standpoint of the ILO in reaching out to consumers?
Tanaka: That’s an interesting question. And it’s a difficult point. In the end, I think business operators will have a tough time taking action if consumers don’t change their awareness. Giving consumers what they want, with limited resources, is in the DNA of companies. So, companies want consumers to change, but there’s unevenness in consumers’ purchasing power, and there are groups of people who want sustainable things and those who don’t, all of whom are consumers.
I think what’s important is whether consumers have choices. Toward that end, it should be possible to reach out to consumers by disclosing information on whether the price paid for a product covers more than its material value and extends into activities that give rise to social value.
Hanaoka: That also connects to talk about transparency. Seafood Legacy’s original aim is a society in which consumers don’t need to be concerned with whether the fish they buy in everyday life is sustainable or not. Awareness on the part of consumers is a key part of achieving that, but it’s important that such a market exists, which is why we came with the approach of raising consumer awareness by changing business, rather than by directly engaging with consumers.
Hanaoka: In the EU, the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) has come into effect. Even in the seafood industry, we’re seeing companies starting to establish human rights policies and undertake human rights due diligence. How do you view these global movements over the past few years?
Tanaka: This tide of legislation and mandates has been called a “wave” in reports by the United Nations, and is seen as unlikely to readily disappear. Moreover, human rights due diligence is starting to take up not only forced labor and child labor but also new areas such as living wages, reproductive health*, and the intersection of AI and human rights. Compliance requires ongoing response to these rising demands, but I think it’s necessary to identify the essence of what’s causing this great wave and why it’s coming.
What’s of particular importance for companies is accountability. Rather than simple disclosure of information, this means understanding what’s happening throughout the supply chain and explaining how a company is appropriately addressing the root causes of issues. This sort of initiative leads to enhancing corporate value by meeting the expectations of society. I think that explaining what a company recognizes as its issues and how it’s facing those is viewed as foundational under human rights due diligence legislation, the CSDDD, and other trade-related measures.
Hanaoka: Will Japan also see a wave of mandates?
Tanaka: I think that will definitely happen in the long run. That’s because, as societal demands arise, legal mechanisms have always been readied to keep up. Economies are connected globally, so I think this great wave is going to wash into Japan as well, regardless of the scale of companies.
Hanaoka: As a goal for 2030, TSSS2024 named making sustainable seafood the mainstream.
Here sustainable seafood includes not only environmental aspects but also human rights and social aspects. As I mentioned earlier, mainstreaming refers to making products, the ones that consumers buy as a matter of course, products that are good for the environment and for society, without customers having to think about whether or not every product has some certification. What’s likely to be needed to make this happen?
Tanaka: That’s the most difficult question. There are really a lot of different factors that hinder mainstreaming, so it’s hard to come up with an answer.
I think one requirement is the suppression of IUU (illegal, unregulated, and unreported) fishing. It’s a fact that stores offer catch from IUU fishing at low prices, and I’ve heard from many quarters that this eats away at the motivation of people making hard efforts. So, I think that strict regulation here is an absolute necessity for mainstreaming.
On the other hand, there are also extremely unstable markets in which no formal contracts exist, wages are the barest minimum for maintaining a living, and national protections have no reach. If such informal economies are crushed one after another, the local populace won’t be able to live. This would force people even deeper into an opaque, underground world beyond the reach of relief, just to get by. While eradicating IUU fishing is of course a worthy goal, the ILO needs to prevent the loss of impoverished people’s livelihoods and the worldwide loss of decent jobs in the process.
Hanaoka: That’s true.
Tanaka: That’s the reason why we want national governments to make efforts to formalize informal economies. Here, too, I think it’s important to grow the industry while adding value to it. That’s a difficult thing to do in the seafood industry, so it’s a worry for me.
Hanaoka: People’s livelihoods include, for example, setting out on a small boat from a dock that’s no more than a thin plank deep in the jungle in Indonesia, and catching, selling, and eating fish that are given no value as resources. Such places have no rules to begin with and are uncontrolled. How we manage these livelihoods and allow them to continue is an important matter, I think.
If we manage resources under the Western model, we’ll eliminate fisheries that we can’t control and leave only large-scale fisheries standing. I don’t want to do that.
To date, movements in sustainable seafood have been a matter of Japan having to keep up with movements in the West. Over the next decade, what does Japan want to do, and what do we want to do with Japan? It’d be good if we could create a way to make small-scale coastal fisheries managed and sustainable, and offer that as a model to Asian countries in similar circumstances. Stepping off from there, by 2030 I’d like to build a society incorporating sustainability through managed small-scale coastal fisheries.
Tanaka: That would be great. It’s why we need to build up the surrounding environment. An example is microfinancing (small-scale lending). This allows access to financing that small-scale fishermen can use to borrow without having major capital on hand. Another example is market environment development. It’s also necessary that the government, while performing thorough food hygiene checking, be able to prevent overfishing and provide support that includes market development and business matching. In these areas, I think that the power of development cooperation is considerable. JICA and other parties are tackling similar concepts, so I’d like to see more light shone on this area.
Hanaoka: Here, too, I think transparency is the key. I believe what’s important is how to make the process of certification transparent, not an all-or-nothing matter of either gaining certification or not, and how to grow the number of people who support those efforts while expanding the market.
Tanaka: As ways to grow the number of supporters, I think actions like shooting video are effective. Going back to talk of reaching out to consumers, for example, whiteleg shrimp is a name well known in the Philippines. The story of what sort of people work where the shrimp is farmed, and what sort of issues exist there, is a difficult one to communicate in words. I think that communicating the voices of producers through video and audio would steadily yield effect.
Hanaoka: Heading into 2025, with fewer than five years remaining now to achieve the SDGs, I’d like you to offer readers a message on attaining those goals.
Tanaka: The SDGs are goals that were agreed upon in 2015. From the preamble to the goals, these words really struck my heart:
“We can be the first generation to succeed in ending poverty; just as we may be the last to have a chance of saving the planet.”
We face a time limit in bringing our efforts to fruition. If we put off until tomorrow the efforts that we should be making today, disparities will only widen, affected peoples will increase, and these conditions will become institutionalized. On the path toward 2030, the globe has already passed the crossroads. It’s now 2025, and if we fall behind even one more step, we’ll be at the point of no return. Our own selves from back in 2015 are speaking out to us today, asking us to make the earth sustainable by 2030. Their words are laden with weight.
Hanaoka: They truly are profound words. To wrap things up, please share your resolutions for this year.
Tanaka: I intend to meet with as many people as I can. Staff members of international organizations are in a good position to enter and exit the international political arena, which is why I aspired to work at the ILO. In my current position, I hope to meet whom I can and share with others whatever requests and ideas I pick up.
Hanaoka: I have three resolutions for the new year. The first is to make market transformation in Japan a driving force behind further policy shifts. The second is to work with stakeholders to establish a system by which small-scale coastal fisheries can survive. The third is to share these Japanese initiatives in East Asian and Southeast Asian regions. They’re all big challenges, but by sharing our vision with our many like-minded colleagues and stakeholders, I think we can achieve them. I hope to keep moving forward without ever forgetting the excitement of creating a bright future together with colleagues.
Thank you very much for your time today. In 2025, let’s keep on promoting sustainable seafood from our respective positions!
Ryusuke Tanaka
Born in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, Ryusuke Tanaka graduated from Keio University and holds an LLM degree from the New York University School of Law. After working as an attorney, he took his current position in 2016. Currently, he is engaged in activities aimed at the proliferation of international labor standards in the context of the SDGs, business, and human rights, and is responsible for the formulation and implementation of projects related to global supply chains. Collaborating with the Japanese government, employers and workers’ organizations, and civil society, he serves as a liaison with the embassies of numerous countries, and has also served as a member of a working group involved in the National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights of Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as a member of a study group for the Guidelines on Respect for Human Rights in Responsible Supply Chains of Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
Wakao Hanaoka
Wakao Hanaoka majored in marine environmental science and marine biology at a university in Florida, U.S.A. He subsequently worked on marine environmental conservation projects in the Maldives and Malaysia, and since 2007 has planned, launched, and led sustainable seafood projects at the Japan branches of international environmental NGOs. After going independent, he founded and became CEO of Seafood Legacy Co., Ltd. in Tokyo in July 2015. Setting the goal of “passing on an abundance of seafood, a symbol of the connections between marine ecosystems, economy, and society, to the next generation (legacy)” as his purpose, he is now tackling a system shift that connects domestic and overseas fisheries industries, financial institutions, governments, NGOs, academia, media, and other diverse stakeholders to ensure that mainstream seafood distribution in Asia pursues environmental sustainability and social responsibility.
Original Japanese text: Chiho Iuchi
Photographs: Nobuyuki Aoki
share
