« November 2008 Table of Contents 
Point of View: Mike Boots
Director, Seafood Choices Alliance, Silver Spring, Md.
November 01, 2008
A few words: meaningful, multilateral industry
partnerships.
There is no debate about the very real partnerships that
have emerged during the first phase of the sustainable seafood
movement between conservation groups and seafood companies. All
are starting to have an impact on the broader industry, but
it's clear that no one company can solve this problem alone.
It's going to take industry-wide cooperation to begin solving
the challenges of seafood supply and to demonstrate real
change.
The key to the future of this movement is to leverage
partnerships, but not to rely on them alone. We need to have
collective, sweeping action. Companies need to put competition
aside in order to work together to find solutions. One company
or organization is simply not enough to ensure the future of
this -- or anyone else's - business.
The challenge we face is large, global and
complicated. To actually make improvement, there needs to
be a fundamental change in doing business that allows companies
to harness their collective power across the supply chain. We
need to be working together in targeted regions, and with
specific fisheries - as some already are - to put the right
incentives in place, to jointly pull the right levers
throughout the supply chain and to make the case for change
both in the marketplace and in government. The good news for
those companies ready to act is that many of their colleagues
are increasingly willing to make that leap with them.
If this industry can successfully harness their collective
power, the positive changes will be felt economically,
environmentally and politically. Until then, we're just
playing around the edges of what needs to be real change.