Thai Union and Nature Conservancy partner for transparency

Thai Union, the world’s largest tuna company, will partner with The Nature Conservancy to achieve full transparency in its supply chains by 2025 in an effort to protect the oceans, workers and fight illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.
The commitment from Thai Union “has the potential to push the entire industry in a more sustainable direction by addressing widespread illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) fishing practices,” The Nature Conservancy said on its website.
In the past few years Thai Union began reforming its practices and Greenpeace, and other environmental groups have praised the company, while the Thai government has taken decisive actions to clean up its fishing industry.
Over time, Thai Union and the Thai government have both been sustaining and increasing their efforts to create an even cleaner, more sustainable approach to business and the industry.
A chief cause of concern for Thai Union has been its supply chains. While the company is confident that its own fleet does not engage in IUU activities, the firm still sources catch from independent operators and vessels to meet demand.
Tracking and monitoring independent vessels on the high seas is an enormous challenge and one that has confounded many companies and countries.
Thai Union’s agreement with The Nature Conservancy will require the company to install electronic monitoring on all of its partnered fishing vessels in their supply chains, including onboard video cameras, GPS, and sensors to track what is happening onboard automatically.
It would also employ human observers, it said in a press release. Thai Union has also pledged to institute a fish-aggregating device (FAD) management plan by 2025 that mitigates environmental risks.
Photo courtesy of https://www.thaiunion.com/en/newsroom/press-release/1306/sea-change-the-nature-conservancy-and-thai-union-partner-around-game-changing-transparency-pledge