Developing an International Standard for the Trade in Live Reef Food Fish - SEAFOOD Ecolabelling: Principles and Practice - page 175

Targeted consultations
An informal network of individuals with various expertise and exposure across the
industry and the standards as well as the certification-type approach to conservation
and management was used to formulate the preliminary standards document. A
comprehensive round of consultations was carried out by members of the drafting
team and the key partner group to engage as many relevant governments, NGOs,
industry peak body representatives, industry participants, and research personnel
as was possible.

Technical workshops
Before the wider public dissemination of the draft Standard, input from a range of
key industry participants and researchers was used to refine the preliminary stan-
dards documents. The intention was to bring people together in formal settings, to
scrutinise the content of the Standard, and amend it from both a technical and practi-
cal standpoint before wider distribution. For this purpose, two technical workshops
were convened: one focusing on the resource assessment, monitoring and man-
agement in capture fisheries; and one focusing on management and operational
best practices for LRFFT-related mariculture production activities. The contribu-
tion of these workshops to improving the Standard are summarised in Boxes 8.1
and 8.2.

Box 8.1 Outcomes from the Resource Assessment, Monitoring and

Management Workshop
This workshop produced a number of outcomes and recommendations in relation
to Part 1 of the Standard, the Capture of Wild Live Reef Fish including:

expanding the number of requirements from 12 to 26 principles, resulting
in a more prescriptive set of requirements (this number was subsequently
reduced to 21 principles);

restructuring Part 1 into three key sections covering: (i) resource assessment
and fishery viability for new fisheries; (ii) fishery management and planning;
and (iii) fishing operations;

improvement of the Standards structure to reflect the obligation for opera-
tors and agencies in source countries to recognise the holistic nature of the
standard;

the need to develop 'tool kits' to guide practitioners (at all levels of govern-
ment, regional agencies) to facilitate the application of the standards;

recognition that the principles should stipulate an achievable target in light of
capacity limitations in source countries, particularly with regard monitoring
programmes to: