Community Development Fund
Investing in coastal communities
As part of our work with industry and government to build more equitable supply chains, we established the Community Development Fund to support projects that improve quality of life in small seafood-producing communities—creating incentives for environmentally sustainable practices.
The challenge
In many countries, small-scale seafood producers are vulnerable to poverty, climate change impacts, economic shocks, and debt cycles and face major barriers to accessing lucrative global seafood supply chains.
The issue
Realizing no direct benefits from the sustainable production of seafood, they have little to no incentive to fish and farm in environmentally responsible ways.
Our approach
The Community Development Fund allows businesses to contribute directly to small seafood-producing communities outside of initiatives tied directly to their supply chains. The fund is managed by the Monterey Bay Aquarium; however, it is wholly independent of Seafood Watch assessments.
Incentivizing environmental improvements in small-scale fishing and farming communities
Traditionally, we have forced problems down the supply chain while the benefits remain at the top. The Community Development Fund turns this notion on its head by bringing benefits into communities while highlighting the role businesses can play in being part of the solution.
Offering communities an opportunity to take care of the ocean environment and support their families helps open the door for us to work with the farmers and fishers to adopt more environmentally sustainable fishing and farming practices.
With support from the Fund, the community using Vietnam's Kênh Tắc Ông Thây bridge replaced the unsafe crossing, spearheading a project to improve local infrastructure.
Local contractors and community leaders celebrating the opening ceremony of the bridge.
How it works
We work with in-country partners to identify a small-scale fishing or farming community where seeing benefits to the community could incentivize improvements to the environmental performance of fishing or farming practices. Businesses that contribute to the Fund can earmark the funds for a specific country, but the community decides how to use the funds, using community input to select a project that is most likely to improve quality of life for local residents. The Fund is managed by Monterey Bay Aquarium, but is wholly independent of Seafood Watch assessments.
By securing the commitment and buy-in of all supply chain actors as well as governments, the Fund is helping to build an equitable, environmentally sustainable supply chain.
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