Our Values

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Trust

Moving at the speed of trust builds deep and trusting relationships with community based fishermen, crew, fishworkers and allies.

Community Led:

Small and medium scale community-based fishermen bring high value to marine ecosystems, coastal communities, working waterfronts, local and regional economies, and our food systems and must be the leading voice at the core of our movement.

Dignity for All People:

Marginalization of any peoples is rooted in a long history of racism, exclusion, and oppression. The wisdom of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other people of color, women, LGBTQI+, and immigrants is integral to a just and sustainable seafood system.

Economic Empowerment:

All those in our seafood value chain and fishing communities must be in control of the price they are paid, be paid fair wages, and afforded lives with dignity.

Human and Environmental Issues are One:

Sustainability measures must include the inexcusable damage of modern day slavery, loss of fishing traditions, and inequitable food access.

Equitable Access and Fair Markets:

Market strategies must not threaten the continued survival of small and medium-scale community-based fishermen, and equitable access to seafood.

(Sea)Food Sovereignty:

All people should have the right to healthy, culturally appropriate foods that are produced and procured through ecologically sound and sustainable methods. Food providers, distributors, and eaters, not markets and multi-national corporations, are central to healthy systems. (Adapted from Declaration of Nyéléni, the first global forum on food sovereignty, Mali, 2007)

Our Vision

A powerful network of community-based fishermen, crew, fishworkers, and their allies that are organized effectively toward:

Marine ecosystems are protected from industrialization, privatization, corporate takeover, and over-exploitation.
Vibrant and viable fishing communities are thriving and supporting community-based fishermen.
Scale of fishing operations, and the gears used to fish – both commercial and recreational – match the scales of the ecosystems within which fishing occurs.
Fishermen are economically empowered as the compensation for their catch is meeting their true cost of operations. Fishworkers along the seafood value chain and crew are paid fairly, have safe working conditions free of threats, racism and intimidation, and have a voice in the workplace.
Diversity of species that reflect fishermen’s true catch is moving into local and regional food systems first.
Transparent, participatory, and localized decision-making processes are in place to govern and manage fisheries. Scientific research genuinely includes community-based fishermen.
People of all races, incomes, cultural backgrounds, and ethnicities can afford food from the ocean.