Name: Empowering Small-Scale Fisheries: The Community Catch Certification Standard
Uploaded: 2026-09-09T15:16:13.346Z
Duration: 56 min 48 s
Description: Empowering Small-Scale Fisheries: The Community Catch Certification Standard

Transcript for "Empowering Small-Scale Fisheries: The Community Catch Certification Standard": Hello, everyone, and welcome to NSF's webinar. My name is Paul Mosner. I'm the business development manager here at NSF seafood team. I'm delighted to welcome you, to our webinar today where we're gonna be joined by our partners at Community Catch to explore how their standard is empowering small scale fisheries. I'm delighted to be joined, today by Linda Wood, CEO, and Carlos Sonderblom, head of Fisheries Outreach at Community Catch. Later on during our q and a session, we'll also be joined by some of the technical team from NSF. Over the next hour or so, you'll learn about NSF seafood services, which includes, of course, assessments against the community catch standard. I'll hand over to Linda and Carlos, who are gonna tell us more about the community catch standard. And later on, we'll open the floor to an interactive q and a session. We encourage you to submit your questions into the q and a chat function, and we'll try to get to as many of these as possible a bit later on. For those of you unfamiliar with NSF services, we are a global health and safety organization specializing in the provision of testing, inspection, and certification services. In the seafood sector, we are most widely recognized as an accredited certification body, providing audits and assessment services against globally recognized third party certification schemes. Our services extend across the entire seafood supply chain from wild capture fisheries, fish farms, and through seafood processors and distributors. CommunityCatch, which was launched last year, is a fishery certification scheme with a particular emphasis on small scale fisheries operating globally. We are delighted to be an approved assessor for the community catch scheme. And earlier this year, we led the assessment of the Orkney crab fishery, which has become the world's first certified fishery against the community catch standard. I'd now like to hand over to Linda and to Carlos, who are gonna tell us a bit more about the community catch program. As we go, you can enter your questions into the q and a chat box, and we'll come to these later on in the q and a session. So over to you, Linda. Thank you very much Paul, my name is Linda Wood, I'm the Chief Exec of CommunityCatch. Today I'll introduce you with my team the CommunityCatch Standard. So we launched in May 2025 and we are a new wildcatcher seafood certification scheme. We are specifically focused and developed to support small scale fisheries around the world and we want to help them get the recognition they deserve for their social responsibility and their environmental sustainability. Demand to Catch offers a accessible, affordable and credible alternative for small scale fisheries which are often data poor and capital limited. These are fisheries where their practices have struggled to be evidenced in the past and so these fisheries can miss out on market opportunities because they are not able to demonstrate their credentials when required and so we've developed this scheme to be able to help get them on a level playing field. The importance of small scale fisheries should not be underestimated, approximately 40% of the global catch is coming from small scale fisheries with the majority of fishers employed 90 around the world so a huge number of people in coastal communities all over the world including The UK, Europe, Southeast Asia, African nations, North America, everywhere, every country you would associate with seafood would have a significant small scale fishery fleet and we're here to support those people. We've developed a standard which is, a holistic standard, it's very comprehensive, we believe strongly that we cannot separate environmental responsibility from social responsibility so when we were developing our standard we made sure to not just look at the environmental impact and the ecosystem impact of a fishery but also look at the labor rights and the health and safety so we care as much about the community and the fishers going out to sea as we do the fish stocks and the environmental impact they're having. We also have an element of animal welfare in there and climate change as well so this is a very holistic standard which is fit for the future, which is absolutely appropriate for a small scale fishery where all these components are interlinked. It's important that community catches seen as credible by the marketplace and we've recognized that from the very beginning so when we wrote the standard we've written the standard in line with the FAO code of conduct from responsible fisheries and the voluntary guidance during sustainable small scale fisheries. In order to evidence this we also need to go through benchmarking exercise so we are doing that with GSSI and we are on our path with them as we speak and we are aiming towards completion of our GSSI benchmark which will benchmark our environmental and ecosystem side of the standard on track for spring twenty twenty seven for that to be completed. In addition to this, we also want to ensure that people are confident with the social elements of our standard as well so this is a labour rights and their health and safety and so we are after we have completed our GSI benchmark we will be pursuing benchmarking with SSCI as well which would give us the recognition we're looking for in the social elements of the standard and then to finalize our benchmarking we'll also be embarking on our journey with iCEAL in approximately a year's time to gain recognition there alongside other very credible standards across the industry. I'll now hand over to Carlos who is our Head of Fishery Outreach who will take you through the process our fisheries will go through. Okay. Thank you, Linda, and thank you, Paul and and Chris and NSF for the opportunity. I'm Carlos Sonderblom, head of Fisheries Outreach, with CommunityCatch, and I will I will pass now to to move from the design of the standard and the credibility part that, I mean, they had introduced, to to explain you how we are engaging until now with fisheries, around the world. No? Because, in our outreach, in a in a daily practice, we try to make certification understandable and accessible since the first conversation we we have with with the potential fishery client, the people interested. Particularly on fisheries, as you may know, that have limit data, are does have, good access to finance, let's say, or or they lack technical capacity, structures on. So we we try to to make the understandable our standard from day one, let's say. So so the in our, standard, we have the our first very first fishery certified in in July 2026 is the Orni, krill fishery in Orni Island in Scotland. And beyond that certification, we have 14 fisheries currently engaging in the process at different levels of development. Together in total, they cover around 23 species, from crustacean, big pelagic, there is, demerstiles and different resources in very different contexts. So not important until now that we have been able to work in in very different regions and local cultural context that is, showing our standard proving our standard to work in in such a different, diverse environment, let's say. So so I I will take you to our fishery and belay field process to explain you how, you can start to engage with community catch. No? Because we have designed the process to be progressive in in stages. So fishery can first people interest can first understand our requirements and identify their gaps before making a major step going to to an audit, let's say. So the process start to defining the client and, the group that is the first steps, you know, the first two steps. Basically, we can provide provide guidance during this process to make you understand how to define the fisheye group. And we have also all the resources available in our website in the section resources. No? The the key feature on on our process is that we started with the self assessment. No? The self assessment is basically a comprehensive initial review of of the fishery where we're gonna ask more than 100 plus questions on the different section of our standard. And, these are our features to be understanding, our sections of our standard, compiling the evidence, and understanding what is necessary before to move to evaluation or to to contact a certificate conformity assessment body. So certification is not necessarily sometimes the end of the process. No? Particularly when we have, gaps and and improve our our need. No? So we have after we we complete this process, we move to the to the cap decision that analyze your evidence and and give you a result. No? So if the fishery meets the target and minimum requirements, that are the two type of requirement that we have in our standard, can get direct certification, and can claim, that this is had achieved the community capture standard. Otherwise, if we're just meeting the minimum and not the target, we you can go to efficient improvement project. No? That the gaps are identified, the requirement that are missing, and then it's, an action plan is developed together with with the conformity assessment body. And then the progress will be reviewed annually. Our feeds will be displayed not only in future progress as many all the feeds, worldwide. Also, we'll be displaying our website in community catch where our standard metrics will be displayed that are quite different to the normal FIPS. So while doing the the action plan, normally, we are interacting with the fish egg line in order to find, to provide guidance on on the action plan and and connection for service providers that can help or collaborate to solve the issues that have been identified during the the audit. No? So I will show you in the next slide, we have a section in our in our website. It's, where we have the all the contact of the system providers that are joining community catch, and this is updating in a monthly basis. So we had people that can help with traceability, with, bycatch, with, mitigating impacts on the sea floor or observer programs, as well. So it's basically to provide a diverse network of of service provider on a small scale fishery and to try to develop capacity building together with the fishery client. So, now I will will hand back to Linda to introduce the community community culture membership model and collaboration. Thank you. Thank you, Carlos. Yeah. So just to carry on from where Carlos, was talking about the fishery process. So the fishery process, it really will take you approximately four to six months as a fishery to go through the evaluation process so that involves establishing your fishery group and going all the way through to getting a final result from the cab, so four to six months is a period of time that it will take to do that and we have many fisheries that have achieved it within that time, the cost of that as well will depend very much on the cab that you use but based on all of the alpha beta trials that we did during the trial prior to launch and subsequently fisheries that have gone through this process, the cost of that is approximately 12 to 15,000 uk pounds so it will vary by cab so you must get your own quotes but approximately that's the cost of going through the full evaluation process for a fishery. So that cost is paid to the cab so there's no income that comes from that into Community Catch so it's completely free to benchmark up until the point of instructing a cab and then it's 12 to £15,000 roughly and that will depend on the size of the fishery. One man in a boat, one woman in a boat will be slightly cheaper we would expect than a large fishery with much more vessels. So once a fishery has completed the evaluation process and has a result, so if you're certified it means you've achieved all of the requirements of the standard which is fantastic news but if you're not certified and you've had to go into a community catch fit you can still be recognized for being in a community catch fit. So we would really very much like our markets to advertise at fact that they're sourcing from a community catch fishery whether it's a certified fishery or it's a community catch fit and so part of that is about holding chain of custody for that supply chain, so we want our supply chain to hold chain of custody so that they can trade that product and use logos as they are available so just to explain that a certified fishery would have a certified logo for that fishery which will be traceable back to the fishery with a unique identification code which traces them back to the exact fishery. If you want to trade that product, every business handling that product would need to hold chain of custody and demonstrate to a cab for chain of custody that they're holding chain of custody and maintaining the integrity of that product through the supply chain. And that will allow them to use a logo on pack or at point of sale, if they want to sell the product. And they can do that for certified fisheries. You can use our logo for free, there's no logo licensing and we're very proud of that fact. If you also want to trade some Community Catch fishery product which is in a CC fit, there is not a logo for that but there are backup pack claims that you can make but again we would want you as a supply chain member to hold chain of custody and maintain the integrity of that supply chain to be able to trade that, you'll be able to talk about it on your website so we would expect you to join as a member and hold chain of custody, So the list you can see here are our early early followers as members so we have a nice selection of top tier retailers here with Marks and Spencer in The UK, Woolworths South Africa, Migrow Switzerland, we also have a couple of people who are trading very high end canned grocery products in Fresh Forever and World Wise Foods, we have some food service customers in there with Shield Foods who are trading into Michelin star restaurants and we have a North American member in there with AquaStar who not only have their brand they're also trading into US retailers and then in addition to that because of bringing on board fisheries such as Orkney Crab Fishery we also have a few members now joining those who are in that supply chain so Scottish Shellfish are taking the Orkney Crab and trading that into UK retail, and very recently we've had Sailfish Jids join us who are working really hard at the moment to promote increased sales of grocery canned goods so very excited and this list is growing on by the week so watch this space and watch our website to see who's coming up. So in terms of to become a member how you would do that, there is a cost to that, it's a small cost, it's a cost based on your turnover of seafood sales so if you are a small business and you're trading this in a million UK pounds of seafood sales, the membership to us every year is £200 going all the way up to a big retailer trading more than £150,000,000 and the membership there is £10,000 a year so most of our members are sitting around the £2,000 £6,000 mark so please do speak to us if you want to trade some Community Catch product. In addition to our membership we've also had fantastic support from a variety of key stakeholders around the world so we want to work in collaboration with people, it's very important for us so we've had fantastic support and collaboration so far from SFP so Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, Monterey Bay, Marine Conservation Society, WWF, Fisheries Progress, Carlos has already mentioned that all our FIPS will be shown on Fishery Progress and we're collaborating as well with GSA. In addition to that, our chain of custody is being, the chain of custody that we will be using is a unified chain of custody which is held by CSI, so we've been collaborating with them as well. So so we are collaborating, we're open to conversations, we welcome the opportunity to speak to you all, whether you're a fishery or a market or a supply chain, and thank you for the time today with the presentation. I'll just pass back to Paul. Thanks, Linda. Thanks, Carlos, for giving us those insights. If you're interested in learning more or you'd like to begin your community catch certification journey, don't hesitate to reach out to us here at NSF or contact the community catch team, and we'd be delighted to speak with you. It is time now to begin our q and a session. So in a moment, I'm going to invite all our panelists back onto the virtual stage and some of my colleagues from our technical team, and we'll kick off the question and answer session. Great. I see some, some questions coming in here from the audience. Thank you so much for your engagement, and for, continued attention to the q and a. I'm just gonna come first, well, I'll come first to Linda. I see you're on stage. I'll invite Carlos to come on as well because I'll I'll come to you, just after Carlos. But, Linda, yeah, we we had a question there about, kind of access into different markets. The question in particular mentioned from, trading products from Somalia, for example, across international markets. But maybe it'd be interesting to hear a bit about how CommunityCatch can can facilitate that, you know, access to wider markets. You mentioned some of the members that are involved, some well known, recognized names there. Can you just tell us maybe about how CommunityCatch can help, fisheries across the world get get access to markets? Yes absolutely Paul, thank you for the question and thank you for the question Mohammed as well. So just in answer to Mohammed's question, Mohammed I think you're talking more about the land based operation of processing seafood products in Somalia, I think I've met you before and discussed this with you, so I think that's slightly outside of scope for community catching that we're a fishery certification standard so we take the product right away up to the point of landing, but I will put a note in the chat and we should connect offline for that query particularly Mohammed but back to the question Paul on on coming to catch, so yes we are trying to provide a solution to small scale fisheries and connect them with the market, so these might be markets you're already trading with who are starting to ask you questions to be able to demonstrate improved due diligence on the supply chains they're sourcing from, so they might already be asking you for assurances as to why you could claim that's responsibly sourced and they might already be doing that or you might be looking to develop new markets that you've not had before and break into new territories so often one some of the first questions there is how does officials score on a risk assessment tool, so that this might be a seafood watch score or a sassy score or a MCS score, well it might be asking you if you're already in a FIP or are you in a comprehensive FIP or are you on a fishery progress. So there's becoming more and more questions from the markets whether that's retail or wholesale or food service globally for fisheries to prove their credentials really and so CommunityCatch aims to help you just evidence what you already do in that fishery and identify if there are any areas that you need to improve so that may be around your interactions with bycatch, you may need to reduce interactions with bycatch, you may be fishing in some sensitive areas and be finding it difficult to evidence your impact on the environment and ecosystem, you may have some stock challenges in some of the species that you're fishing but you need to start working on try and bring them back up a little bit or you might have some challenges around health and safety of the crews going to sea or labor rights for the people fishing every day. So we can really help you sort of establish where you are just now and then if there are some gaps and there's some improvements you need to make we can help support you with our range of assistance providers to be able to help you through that fishery improvement stage. We expect 80% probably of the fisheries we work with to have to go into a fishery improvement plan because a lot of the fisheries that we are talking to are fisheries that have either never been in a fit before or never gone down this route before so it's all quite new. So we really are here to help you through that process and then allow you to become visible by going through the process to the markets. So as soon as you engage with Community Catch and go through the evaluation process whether you come out in a FIP or certified you will be publicly visible on our website and if you're in a FIP from Fishery Progress therefore the markets wherever they are will be able to see you and reference you and check the data about your fishery which they may not be able to do right now if you're not in any of those programs. So we're seeing some success with this already, we're seeing fisheries in The UK actually who've already been contacted by some American buyers who had never, they'd never met each other before, they'd never heard of each other before but because of them both being committed to committing to catch they were able to connect and create some new market opportunities so we're very excited about that prospect. That's great. Thanks, Linda. I think as well, obviously, I think you mentioned that the community cash standard was only launched, last year. Obviously, there was work a lot of work going into that in the in the years before that, I would imagine. Nevertheless, it's it's a significant amount of work, I think, to get something live like this within, space of a year and to see the fisheries coming through already. Could you maybe tell us about what the biggest challenges were, if if any, about bringing, like, a new standard to the market, and, Yep. generally, how this has been received? Yeah. Thank you again Paul. Yeah. So probably for both sides. So from a fishery perspective when we've been speaking to fisheries and whether that's been governments, you know, in Somalia, in Indonesia etc, when we've spoken to fisheries directly in fishing communities they've really understood and been very appreciative of the fact that CommunityCatch exists, many of them have told us that they've always wanted to be able to verify their credentials and they've just not been able to do that before and mainly, well for two main reasons, they've either not been able to afford to go down a certification route before, they just do not have the resources or they don't even make that profit level every year to be able to afford it or they find that actually the existing schemes just now are overly complex for small scale inshore fisheries and it's just too big an ask and a lot of the management requirements around those standards is you know very heavy lift for very small, sometimes dateable fisheries so we're finding when we speak to fisheries that actually they're very glad that Community Catch is here now and they can really connect with that and they really appreciate the fact that we focus on community and we also focus on the labour rights and health and safety of the crew because this is about communities staying in coastal communities all over the world and being able to make a living so that's I guess fisheries it's been very good and very interesting but we're trying to do that all over the world so one day we're talking to Indonesia, the next day we're speaking to Uganda, the next day we're speaking to South Africa so it is globally appealing. In terms of the markets, I guess we have a, we have probably a split of how we've been received so there's the members that you'll see already are already operating and trading at that top end of the marketplace so they're already sort of quite enlightened in terms of how they source seafood, they already do quite a lot themselves and get very engaged with the fisheries so retailers and processors like that welcome choice in the certification scheme. I've knew they're used to having choice in aquaculture, there's been three to choose from in aquaculture for a very long time and well the main three to choose from and they welcome choice now in for small scale fisheries so we are finding that there's some first movers there as well and then there's also a percentage of markets who have based their sourcing policy on GSSI recognized schemes so therefore it's important for us to continue our journey to get the GSSI recognition which we'll complete in spring next year and once we have that we would fit within their sourcing, existing sourcing policies. But the list I've shown you already of our members has already doubled actually since we did that slide so you know it is progressing well and people are really eager to start trading CommunityCatch product by the end of this calendar year. So yeah, we've been received very well, people are interested, they're curious, I think maybe one of the challenges being to help people understand that we're different. We are fit for purpose for small scale fisheries, we're more holistic, we've got the social element which is new, the cost is very important to people and people find that quite appealing that we're significantly cheaper than other options which is great but there's always a little bit of a suspicion around the new kid on the block so you know there's well established schemes out there and you know we're just a year old so you know but word-of-mouth is very important and we're making good traction and I think if you follow our fisheries and follow our membership you know it shows that people have confidence in us and that's growing so very happy with how it's gone, how it's going. Great. Yeah. It's been a great journey to be involved in, with you. I'm gonna come Carlos, we're gonna get a bit more technical here. Obviously, the term small scale fishery, I suppose, is somewhat the the the focus, of course, of, of your scheme. But, really, what is the definition for a small scale fishery? And if I'm, I'm looking to get involved in this scheme, how how will I know if my operations will qualify? Okay. Thank you, Paul. Thank you for bringing to the conversation. Yeah. Well, the... Our definition of of the small scale is is is available in our resources page. It's not only measured by the boat size. We have a more comprehensive understanding, let's say, on the small scale fishery based on FAO guidelines, mostly of them. But we have a definition matrix that is available. You can download it in our website, in the section resources. Basically, you can... You have to score eight criterias from both sides. Normally, a boat for community catch and a small scale will be below 20 meters. But it's not a strict rule, let's say, because you can be over 20, but you can be still consider the small scale. The other criterias you are scoring is a matrix that you are scoring from zero to three. And at the end of the scoring exercise, if you are below 20 or equal to 20, equal or below 20, you are considered small scale. The other criteria that are available in this matrix is the engine power, how is the vessel powered, the fishing vessel powered, the thinking that the small scale operation should have, let's say, an engine below in horsepower of 400 horsepower, but it's not a fixed rule either. So depending also on the fishing gear is the other criteria. It is a passive fishing gear that is deployed on the seafloor without so much impact, or it's a a labor intensive gear that is a new classification that we we are adding to the... To this classification metric because, for example, the most common example is to show you to show the people that the polar line, fisheries across the world, normally, they have larger boats. And they still classify as small scale due to the labor intensive fishery that represent and also the other fact... The criteria. Now that mostly are boats that can be wider and bigger because they they need to to have a space for enough amount of fishermen on the deck to be able to to do the fishing technique, not the polar line. But... So both sides is not a is is not a limiting factor. Power of the engine, the distance from the coast that that you're operating, how many days if you... If daily trips, as we expect from a small scale operation, can be up to few days. But it's not industrial fishing that can stay for longer period or longer longer period offshore. And and, well, if if we can... If you feel that you have a curiosity, if, any fleet will fit into our community catch program. The first thing to do is go to the... Our section resources, download Excel, and make the exercise. It's very simple, and and I'm always available to help or to scope features with this tool. Right. Okay. Perfect. Yeah. That kinda reminds me as well. There was a just a question there about, sharing the the presentations and that probably worth mentioning at this point that the recording will all be available, to to rewatch on demand. So if you wanna have another look, slow things down, look at specific slides, or share it with someone who wasn't able to make it, then, we'll, we'll we'll be making it available online afterwards. Carlos, another question for you then. CommunityCatch focusing on the small scale fisheries, and within that, what we what's been mentioned is data limited or or sometimes some data poor fisheries. How what are the what are the challenges that are presented by sometimes a a bit of a lack of data or or data that's typically a bit more hard to find or not as readily available maybe? What are the what are the kind of challenges, and how do you navigate that in in the community catch scheme? Yes. Paul. It's a... As you know, and and and people involved in the small scale fisheries know, it's a very common situation. No? We we are working with this sector that is one of the most challenging in terms of, you know, organization, structure, data management, traceability, and so on. So the the the advantage, I would say, of community catch that we had been fit for purpose. We had been developed exactly for this kind of situation. So, you know, when when there is no conventional stock assessment or completed scientific datasets, that is is very common, especially in the global South. We we can use always the risk based approach that are are developed in the context of of of particular fishery, you know, depending on on on each case. But, so we have developed our own methodology on risk assessment. Basically, we have a risk... Environmental risk assessment. Also, we have the social risk assessment that is for the other side of of the the standard because our standard, it is holistic. It's including the labor rights and and health and safety. But the the... In terms of... On on, for example, on a stock assessment, we can always use the environmental risk metrics. Also, in our guidance, we provide several tools because it's not... We we recommend, of course, using our risk assessment metric. But depending on each case, we can accept as well community catch standard is even indicating in our guidance to use tools like the risk assessment metrics from a Monterey Bay Aquarium or anyone that is more fit for purpose or one that... When the cap and and the auditor find that is the most adequate, apply or the consultant that is doing the self assessment. So, basically... Also, it's it's not about the risk assessment. No. It's Basically, our our logic is to simplify the process and to don't penalize the fisheries even though they they they can be doing great or they are trying to improve, but they they are lacking the data that is, you know... And the and the stock data, for example, is is a challenge because, normally, when we need the stock assessment, we need the data, you know, and to start to collect data and the stock assessment to realize probably in in few data series that... At least few data point, at least some years. So until we get into this... Reach this level, time had been passing, and you cannot certify your fishery. So, basically, we have been developing this risk based approach, but we are also open in our guidance to use expert consultation, data statistics from that fishery that can prove that the catches and the production have been, let's say, relatively consistent, and there is not a declining pattern. But, yeah, we recommend to, in those cases specifically, depending on the section, to use our risk based approach, and we are providing all the guidance online. And, also, we can always arrange calls and and discuss what is the best approach. Okay. Great. Yeah. Thanks so much, Carlos. I'll just I'm gonna just invite, Bev to come on stage because I'm gonna have a question, just shortly now for for Bev. So Bev is, one of our assessors for NSF. She was recently involved in, the assessment of the Orkney crab fishery. So, Bev, it's been mentioned here a few times about the, the social element of community catch. Can you, yeah, can you just tell us about that? How information, like, social information and and data is gathered? Yeah, that'd be a really interesting insight, please. Yeah. Hi there, everyone. So, yeah, fundamentally, at the start of the process, you have to have a a proper in-depth look at this self evaluation form that the client sends. So when you look in there, you have all of the questions that the client has had to answer about the fishery in relation to the the social responsibility part of the standard. So once you look into that, then you start linking it up with the, underpinning social legislation that there is in place in that country, or in that region. So maybe the ILO c one one eight one eight eight or national legislation, like minimum wage laws, things like that. And then you start when you go to the site visit, you start triangulating all that information with, what you can find out from agencies that are there in the country. So there might be government reports. For instance, here in The UK, I'd contact people like the fisheries office, local to the area, Marine Scotland, Fair Work Agency, organizations like that. We'd also then look at, things like newspapers that are local to the area, or sites like off, government, sites like looking at accident reports for the fishing industry in that area and in that fishery, and also things like the fisher voice survey that, CommunityCatch have. So and then also at the site visit, you're also trying to ask questions to people on the ground who actually, are very local to the fishery. So that might be the fishery itself, the fishermen, also, people like in unions or, organizations close to the fishery. And then also looking around you when you're on-site, just to understand the kind of fabric of, social networks in the in the area. So for instance, in Orkney, it's it's quite small. So you're actually really close to things like the local hospital. It's, a five minute drive or there's a five minute walk to the fisheries office on the main island. So it's, it's just trying to understand the kind of locality of the place, which affects the social, part of the standard. And then finally, you're looking at things like, over looking at those higher risk vessels maybe. So where there's, for instance, overnight trips, and you're just trying to take a bit more of a deep dive into the information available for those higher risk parts of the fishery. That might be through the, site visit, investigations and interviews, and also online, information available. Yeah. So that's the main kind of parts of where we would look to for the information. But just also importantly on that, regarding the confidential information, you know, we'll say at the site visit, if if there's some sort of confidential information just to let us know. For instance, there might be, issues around sharing personal data for fishermen. So, we would make sure that we follow the the legislation there. But also, if any agencies, if they feel uncomfortable about sharing something, they can just talk to us about that. So at least we can go on from there and understand what we do with the information. Great. Thanks, Wilma. I have a really thorough, answer. And you've you've probably answered a a bit more about the the kind of cab evaluation steps, too, and what that looks like from the from from our side, from the cab side. We're there there that it's that's a a bit of a coincidence because we have a question as well about, training and qualifications for for auditors for, this standard. Obviously, maybe that's something, Linda or Carlos, you could give us a bit more information about for for assessors who wanna become involved in the community catch scheme. What what's the process there? What's the training like? And and, basically, how can they get involved, I suppose? Thank you, so you wanted, that was about the cabs was it Paul? Well, about the cabs, I suppose about, assessors who who who might be interested in in getting to to work on the community catch standard, Sure, who may have qualifications in other certifications and that. Yeah sure, so to help keep this, the cost reasonably sensible for community catch, you know this is very much a self assessment which is completed by the fishery. Now many fisheries have somebody already who understands quite a lot about the fishery and is able to get their hands on lots of the data however that's not always the case so there is an opportunity for fisheries to employ independent consultants to help them complete and gather together that information for the self assessment so on our assistant provider page you will see a couple of companies there that may be employed to help them complete that self assessment. So that is one way to get involved if you want to offer those services to a fishery to help them. Alternatively if you are already engaged as a cab in evaluation processes because bearing in mind Community Catch we're a standard setter so we set the standard and you know really we you know the fishery has to take itself through this but if you are interested in from a cab point of view we currently work with six cabs NSF is one of them, it's you know it's been our first one, it's the first fishery we've got so got a very close relationship here and and really what we've done all along is we had to develop the standard we had to then create training which we had to do with the the members of the team Jem and Bev were two of them who you know went through that training with us so they understood how to interpret that reading the guidance we are different to MSC, I think that's probably one of the big points here is that you kind of have to delete anything you've known before with MSC and look at Community Capture with a fresh pair of eyes, it's a different standard, it's a different thing we're looking for, we're looking for fisheries to be very empowered and do a lot of this themselves so we're quite creative in the way that we look at data that can be used as evidence. So yeah if you're already attached to one of our six cabs, again they're listed on our website, then that's fine you'll probably already be involved. If there's something that you're doing as an individual where you're maybe a consultant and you maybe want to help some fisheries with either fishery improvement plans or completing self assessments then you can contact us through the assistance provider tab on the website and you could contact us there and we could potentially list your business there and so that's if you want to get involved and connect with us so that we can hook you up with them officially if they need help. Now we don't endorse your business, we're just really a shop window to make it easy for people to find somebody who might be able to help them with whatever challenge they have at the time. Great. And and... You meant. I, I. would like, to. add, Yeah. Go ahead. yeah, I just would like to add that we are open also to... Because we we we keep close contact with all our official clients, and we are trying always in a in a in a normal basis to have communication with the auditors like NSF had been doing. We had been also in other part of the world working with different people. So we are always providing, the the first step assistance, let's say, but it is something more formal that we are also open to to collaboration and and to discuss ideas for training and and and improve that to have more more service providers that can help all the features across the world, basically. Great. Yeah. Thanks, Carlos. And, Linda, you mentioned actually Gemma there, so I'll invite Gemma to to come on stage as well. Gemma is also one of the assessors here at NSF, and she was likewise involved with the first assessment of the the Orkney crab fishery. So, yeah, well, obviously, the the process here with the self evaluation has been described, and the role of the cab is then to, I suppose, in a sense, assess that self evaluation from the fishery, or the fishery client. Gemma, can you tell us a bit what that kinda how that looks like, maybe how it's a bit different to to other schemes, and maybe what are what are some important steps, that the the client takes when when they do that self evaluation? So... Yeah. Hi, everyone, and thanks. Yeah. So our experience here from doing, other assessments with other standards, It's mostly... And I think the most important thing is the self evaluation from the fishery. We saw that that was absolutely key. So once this is, done in a really robust proper way, then it's much easier for us as a rep to, assess that self evaluation. In the sense that... For example, in our case with Orkney, we had a great client, really thorough, very robust, answers. So, basically, what we have to do is, like, check all their answers. To me, it was like a a technical review or a peer review sort of thing. And then just, you know, just pointing out where the gaps were, if there were any. Then there is a stage, in the assessment process that you can go back to the, to the client, and you can ask them further questions before the site visit. I fully recommend doing that, like, really properly because then you can go back to the client, get those questions answered. And in case there is anything also missing, then you just prepare, like, all those questions ahead of time from the site visit. And then once you get to the site visit, basically, you just... It's much easier, and then you just really can go into that... To those more, tricky questions or more difficult questions maybe to answer or things like that. So, yeah, really robust, detailed self assessment. That's the key that we sell. Yeah. Good. Okay. I'm gonna move we've obviously did a lot of the questions have been based on the the the fishery side of things, but let's move just briefly to the the the rest of the supply chain, chain of custody. Linda, you mentioned that, in the presentation, but could you elaborate a little more on that? You mentioned CSI. Yep. So if I'm a processor, I'm handling products from a a community catch certified fishery. What what's the story there? Do I need an assessment, and how does that work? Yeah. Thanks, Paul. Yeah. Absolutely. So, you know, there's two sides to our what we're trying to do. There's a fishery going through the evaluation pros going through the process and going through the evaluation process and hopefully coming out either in your fishery improvement plan or a cab or or sorry certified fishery and the cab will decide that. So we set the standard, the cab decides whether the outcome from that. Once they've got that product, we're able to market that product so certified products can be marketed with a logo on front of pack if you like, you don't have to do that and then, if you're in a community catch improvement program, you'll be able to use claims on back of pack. So we do have a logo for the certified products and you can use that or not use that we don't mandate that, it's a free logo we don't charge a free logo license fee for that but if you're really, then the responsibility flips over to the supply chain. So if you imagine you've got product being landed in Orkney, use that as an example, the first business that would own that product which would be Orkney Crab would be expected to join as a member of Community Catch and they will be expected to join up and put in place chain of custody in that organization and that means that they will be able to verify the integrity and keep separate that stock from that Community Catch fishery. So to do that when we were scoping out how to design a community catch we could have invented our own chain of custody but there's already a couple out there on the market and you also have to go through a GSI process to to bring forward a new chain of custody process so we decided to collaborate and partner with CSI, so Certified Seafood International, so they already have a chain of custody in place called Unified Chain of Custody and that's been in place for a number of years, it's GSSI benchmarked, so we are partnering with them and we're just in the final stages of finalising the paperwork where our logo will actually be on that as well. So what that means is if you're a factory and you want to trade product you would need to contact CSI through their chain of custody, through their website and there's a link on the website to the chain of custody, you contact them through there, you would then contact one of the certification bodies that that they work with for the chain of custody, so there's four at the moment so they're not the same four as our six for the fisheries but there are four on there just now, you would reach out to them, contact them directly as a factory and they would organise with you to come and visit your site. You will need to put in place practices mainly around segregation, labelling, and mass balance control, so if you're handling for instance four different products on-site and only one of them is CommunityCatch certified or CommunityCatch FIP you would need to keep it separate in the factory and you need to be able to account for the full mass balance of that, so you cannot buy one tonne of CommunityCatch certified product and sell two tons of that product, that can't happen, you have to maintain the mass balance all the way through, it's very very important the integrity of that. A chain of custody audit would happen by one of those tabs, they would come to your site and they would do that on an annual basis and they will be checking the robustness of your controls in the factory and your traceability all the way through. There's a cost to that process, I'm not familiar with the exact latest cost but it's around £700 approximately I think but again the cabs will vary so you would need to reach out to them separately but we do require anybody who wants to trade the product to become a member of Community Catch and then put in place the chain of custody through unified chain of custody. If you're the primary site and you do that and then you sell to another factory or you export the product to another factory again you would expect that factory to do exactly the same all the way to the final final customer and that's where our membership comes in and that's where use of logo can happen or use of claims unpack. One of the slides, again it's on our website but if you are interested in becoming a supply chain partner and someone who wants to sell and access CommunityCatch products then please do reach out to us directly and we can connect you and you know we try and be very helpful to our supply chain partners as we do with our fisheries, so our fisheries we help them find markets so we will introduce people and likewise for our supply chains and markets if you're looking for a particular product and we're working with one of those fisheries we will connect you. So we we will you know there are significant benefits to being a member where we can help connect you to different fisheries around the world that you might not have heard of before. Great. Okay. Brilliant. Thanks so much, Linda. Just we're we're kinda getting to to the end of the webinar here. I can't believe almost an hour has gone by. But, just maybe as a last question then, what does if you can tell us, Linda, the next year ahead, what does that look like? What are the kind of visions and and aims for the community cap scheme then in the next, in the next year or so? Yeah absolutely, well number one on the list is, well number one on the list it really has to be getting our gssi benchmark and the reason that's important is for many reasons but really it's a question of credibility, you know, we are here for the long term, we're just a year and a bit old now, you know, we're here for the long term and I think once we have the GSSI benchmark completed people should be viewing us in exactly the same way as other existing wild capture fishery standards and we will be benchmarked for exactly the same standard. After that we'll go for the SSCI to benchmark the social side but that will take a little bit longer but once we're GSSI benchmark we really do expect that the majority of markets globally will be able to accept product from community catch fisheries straight away because they've already stated that they will accept product from GSSI benchmark schemes. So in terms of opportunities for our fisheries actually really open up markets that they just have never talked to them before so we're really excited about that so priority number one. I think as well in the next year it will be fantastic and I feel pretty confident that we will see a logo on a pack somewhere actually, I'm not sure if that will be in a own label retailer, particularly not in The UK necessarily because there are quite a lot of logos there but I think some of the brands are really quite enthused about our logo, I think some of the people who are trading live and fresh into Europe are interested in the logo and I think that there's quite a lot of species that have had quite a hard time and not you know maybe they've been in FIPS for a long time and they've just not been able to move forward and there's a lot of people now who are really desperate to shout it from the rooftops that they're working with a nice responsible, fishery with good social standards so I think we've got a lot of enthusiasm about marketing that particularly in Europe, UK so I would like to see the logo unpack within that year as well and we're also continuing to develop our regional hubs so Carlos is one human being, a very capable human being but he is one human being and then we need to, you know, it's very difficult for us to be having a conversation in the morning with Indonesia and then at night speaking to Mexico so we have to develop regional hubs all over the world where we have people who understand the country, understand the context there and the cultures who can be on hand to those fisheries to lend support to help them through the process. We already are doing that in Africa at the moment and we've just recently started that in Indonesia and Japan as well so we expect to increase our regional hubs but by the end of this year I think we're on track to have eight fisheries having completed the process which is fantastic, we're really really grateful for that and so eight fisheries across multiple cabs you know we'll have our application submitted to GSSI, we're across five continents, lots of different species and we've got members, you know some significant members coming on board now so another busy year, but I guess it'll, I think by the end of this year it will change into an organisation where everything's been done once now, so now it's about scaling and repetition and this year has very much been about the first fishery, the first cab evaluation, the first, you know, everything so we've been learning as we go but as we get into 2027 and it really will be about scaling up so we need to make sure that our infrastructure is robust enough to be able to cope with that and cope with that ability to scale, and we rely on really strong partnerships with our cabs such as yourselves and other stakeholders to support us through that but yeah very positive and just keep doing more of the same. Sure. Yeah. Sounds like a busy year ahead. And. NSF, we're obviously delighted to be, working alongside you, and we look forward to the the year and hopefully many more years ahead of that. That's great. Well, Linda, I'll just ask you to to take yourself off the. stage. there. From my side, that pretty much concludes, the webinar today. As mentioned, the, this recording will be available on demand. We're gonna share that through, our usual kind of communication channels. There's a few questions that we didn't get get to speak directly, but I see, there's been lots of people typing away answering the questions in the chat box. So thank you very much. I'd obviously like to say a huge thanks to, to Linda and to Carlos, to Abby who joined us, earlier, to all the CommunityCatch team, for being here today, telling us more about the scheme. Thanks to my team, my colleagues for, jumping on, giving us some more technical insights. And finally, thanks to you, our audience members, for joining us, for interacting with the q and a session. And, yeah, we hope you'll you'll join us again for the next one. Thanks very much, and take care.