Management and sustainability efforts within the wild Alaska Pollock fishery have been recognized by the Marine Stewardship Council, which awarded its 2021 Ocean Champion Award to the Association of Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers.
Bob Desautel, GAPP’s chief executive officer and sustainability committee chair, accepted the award Jan. 20 during the National Fisheries Institute’s Global Seafood Marketing Conference in Orlando, Fla.
The award, established in 2017, recognizes fisheries and companies engaged with MSC who show continued leadership on sustainability exceeding MSC fisheries or chain of custody standards.
Mikel Durham, chair of the GAPP board of directors, said the association feels so strongly about conserving its fisheries that they self-funded an industry-wide, third-party-verified assessment last year to increase the transparency of its ecological footprint.
According to Craig Morris, GAPP’s chief executive officer, the fishery ranks as having one of the lowest carbon footprints of any protein on the planet.