World Wildlife Fund
Partner No. 11: World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
WWF is the largest multinational conservation organization in the world. Established in 1961, WWF works in 100 countries and is supported by close to 5 million members globally. WWF’s unique way of working combines global reach with a foundation in science, involves action at every level, from local to global, and ensures the delivery of innovative solutions that meet the needs of both people and nature. Consistent with its mission to conserve nature, WWF saw in aquaculture a tool to reduce pressure on many wild fisheries while providing sustainable livelihoods to millions of households. In the last decade WWF implemented several projects on responsible aquaculture. In 1999 WWF entered in partnership with FAO, NACA and the World Bank to form the Consortium Program on Shrimp Farming and the Environment which led to the development of the international principles for responsible shrimp farming. Since 2004, aquaculture dialogues involving a wide range of stakeholders including producers, retailers and other members of the market chain, researchers, NGOs, government officials and others were initiated. The goal of these dialogues was to identify and address the main impacts associated with the farming of key aquaculture commodities. In early 2007, WWF scaled up significantly its involvement in responsible aquaculture and engaged in the development of certification standards for the responsible production of major aquaculture commodities including shrimp, tilapia, pangasius, channel catfish, salmon, trout, bivalves and seaweed. As part of this scaling up, the WWF Greater Mekong office also established a cross-cutting aquaculture program to coordinate the Pangasius Aquaculture Dialogue and to support other global dialogues (primarily on shrimp, tilapia and bivalves) by engaging with Asian stakeholders and ensuring the relevance of the dialogues to small-scale producers. WWF also participates to the development of the FAO guidelines for aquaculture certification. WWF Denmark will be the active contact partner in this project in collaboration with other country programmes, especially those working in Southeast Asia
Main tasks attributed
The involvement of WWF will therefore be essential to:
- Provide input for the identification of key impacts needing to be addressed to tackle the sustainability of the aquaculture sector
- Through the aquaculture dialogues allow the exposure of the project processes and findings to a wide range of stakeholder directly involved with sustainable aquaculture and with a declared interest in certification, therefore enabling both dissemination and feedback gathering
- Allow the inclusion of project findings within the aquaculture dialogue mechanism and potentially within the certification standards being developed through the dialogues
- Provide updated knowledge on the status of certification schemes applicable to aquaculture and on the mechanisms to be adopted to ease the inclusion of the project findings in aquaculture certification schemes
- Discuss the project findings within the forum for the development of the FAO guidelines for aquaculture certification and exploring the inclusion of the project outcomes in a key intergovernmental guidance document designed to be applicable to both public and private certification schemes globally.
Key personnel
Dr Christoph Mathiesen, Programme Officer, Marine and Fisheries, WWF Denmark is the main contact person in the organization and has a wealth of experience in standards setting and certification.
Dr. Flavio Corsin is the coordinator of the aquaculture program for WWF Greater Mekong – Vietnam Programme. Having worked for 3 years for the Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific (NACA) on sustainable aquaculture and the development of government-supported certification schemes across the Asia-Pacific region, he continued his involvement on aquaculture certification by providing inputs on certification issues to intergovernmental organizations such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) and the Asia-Pacific Fisheries Commission (APFIC). His role within WWF is to promote sustainable aquaculture throughout the Asian region, focusing particularly on operating within the WWF aquaculture dialogue mechanism and using market-driven certification needs as a tool to achieve broad compliance to ethical standards.
