New funding for fishing sustainability nonprofit Ocean Outcomes

Portland, Oregon, U.S.A.-based nonprofit Ocean Outcomes (O2) has received new funding for its work on tuna sustainability in Northeast Asia, and has added a new member to its international team.

The new funding is a USD 1.9 million (EUR 1.68 million) grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation dispersed over three years, which follows on from a 2016 grant from the foundation for USD 571,388 (EUR 506,003). Other major sources of funding for O2 include the David and Lucile Packard foundation, the New Venture Fund, and the Walton Family Foundation.

“We have already brought about 10 percent of Northeast Asian longline tuna vessels into projects working towards improved practices for the first time. This includes helping one of the world’s largest tuna traders, FCF, move their entire supply chain into certification,” O2 Vice President of Strategy and Impact Daniel Suddaby said. “Our vision, with generous support from the Moore Foundation, is to build on this success, tripling the number of vessels in improvement projects in the region.”

The organization has also newly hired Doohyun Park as a fisheries expert and tuna industry advisor. Based in Seoul, Park will work directly with fishing fleets and their industry associations in Northeast Asia. He has five years’ experience with WWF-Korea and nearly four years with South Korea’s Ministry of the Environment.

Ocean Outcomes is an offshoot of the Wild Salmon Center, also based in Portland, Oregon. It works with commercial fisheries, the seafood industry, local communities, government, NGOs, and other fishery stakeholders to develop and implement solutions towards more sustainable fisheries. These solutions include fishery improvement projects as part of a stepwise approach toward Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification.

O2’s current areas of focus are Japan, China, and Latin America, with stress on FIPs and tuna. Its goals for future work in Northeast Asia include: Supporting the development of improved national fishery management in mainland China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan; Establishing better catch and bycatch monitoring systems on hundreds of longline tuna vessels currently engaged in fishery improvement projects (FIPs), with the goal of obtaining MSC certification for more fisheries; and facilitating collaborative mechanisms to harmonize tuna-improvement actions among involved large-scale tuna companies in the region.

In Japan, Shunji Murakami has worked with O2 on fishery improvement projects as Japan program director for the Wild Salmon Center, and then for Ocean Outcomes as Japan program director. O2’s program in Japan was later merged with Seafood Legacy, which brings businesses, like retailers, together with suppliers of certified sustainable seafood. In June of 2021, the fishery and science departments of Seafood Legacy, which provided consulting to fishery or aquaculture producers, became independent as UMITO Partners, with Murakami at the helm, still engaged in promoting FIPs and certification.

Photo courtesy of Ocean Outcomes