G.U.L.F. assesses U.S. state fisheries by benchmarking them against internationally recognized standards of sustainability. Comprehensive information on the fishery was gathered through interviews with management and industry representatives, public documents, and research publications, and compared to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (CCRF) in a G.U.L.F. Sustainability Benchmarking Report (SBR). The CCRF is the foundational document for the FAO Ecolabelling Guidelines, as well as many sustainability certification standards currently used in the marketplace. “A Checklist for Fisheries Resource Management Issues Seen From the Perspective of the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries” known as the “Caddy Checklist, ” was used as the basis for the SBR based on its functionality as an operationalized version of the CCRF. The Caddy Checklist focuses on the sustainability of management measures by addressing five key areas of the fishery: fisheries management, fishing operations, integration of fisheries into coastal area management, post-harvest practices and trade, and fisheries research. By taking clauses of the CCRF and transforming statements into questions, it is possible to quantify and score the system used to manage the fishery, measuring the robustness of management and sustainability.
The scope of the Alabama Shrimp MAP includes the shrimp fishery management and operations in Alabama state waters and federal management and fishing operations in U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) waters in the Gulf of Mexico for the three primary shrimp species (brown shrimp (Farfantepenaeus aztecus), white shrimp (Litopenaeus setiferus), and pink shrimp (Penaeus duorarum)) taken for human consumption. Primary gear types are otter and skimmer trawls. The Alabama shrimp fishery is part of the larger Gulf of Mexico Shrimp Fishery which includes Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida. The fishery is managed by the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council (GMFMC) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries), with each state retaining management authority within state waters (and therefore, addressed in separate MAP reports).
The SBR has been reviewed Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (ADCNR) staff for completeness of information and audited by Global Trust Certification, LTD (GTC), a third party sustainability certification organization. GTC verified that the justifications provided for scoring met the approval of a certifying organization. The SBR contains a set of recommendations provided by G.U.L.F. and GTC for potential areas of improvement to increase the scoring of responses that did not meet a GREEN rating. A summary of commercial industry interviews and recommendations made by industry are also provided in the SBR.
The SBR and verification evidence can be provided upon request.
