Aquaculture and Fishing

• Since 2019, the Rafto Foundation for Human Rights and IHRB have been gathering relevant industry experts and stakeholders to improve respect for human rights across the seafood producing industries. 
• This work sits under the banner of the Ocean and Human Rights Platform, a joint Rafto and IHRB initiative.

Fish and other seafood are a hugely important source of food and protein, and for some, critical to food security. The demand for ocean-derived food will continue to grow as the global population and incomes rise. Yet, many of those resources are already under severe threats from overfishing, climate change, habitat degradation and pollution. 

• Businesses involved in the seafood value chain respect human rights standards across a wide range of issues including labour conditions on fishing vessels. 
• Responsible seafood companies recognise and work in an ecosystem of actors to support sustainable outcomes for their business, the health of global fisheries and local communities.

• Ocean Platform Regional Partner, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), has produced a Toolkit for Ocean Human Rights Defenders. The guidance, which can be adapted for human rights defenders in any field, provides a step by step guide to effective community mobilisation, advocacy and defence of human rights for community peoples and grass roots activists.
• FUTURE-PROOF, a Rafto initiative, has looked at human rights in the seafood industry generally, following on from a DIHR sector-wide impact assessment on human rights in the salmon industry in Chile, and a Rafto report on Human Rights in the Salmon Farming Industry. 
• IHRB has also hosted a webinar and published a meeting report on preventing forced labour and trafficking on distant water fishing fleets. It has also produced a commentary on Forced Labour in the Taiwanese Fishing Industry (May 20).