The draft standards presented in March will be the product of the Dialogue’s 16-person Global Steering Committee. The committee members’ decisions on what to include in the draft standards will be based on their own experiences and expertise, as well as feedback received from the 400-plus people who have attended shrimp Dialogue meetings. Committee members also will incorporate what they have heard during outreach meetings with small-scale shrimp producers, industry leaders and other stakeholder groups.
“Creating standards that address environmental, as well as social, impacts is challenging and complex,” said committee member Dr. Sian Morgan of FishWise. “To make it happen, the large and diverse group of people involved in the shrimp Dialogue must continue to listen and be innovative. That’s what we will do at the March meeting and until the day the standards are finalized.”
The draft shrimp standards are expected to be posted for the first of two 60-day public comment periods a few weeks prior to the Jakarta meeting.
The goal of the Dialogue, which began in 2007, is to create measurable, performance-based, global standards. The Dialogue seeks to follow the international guidelines for standard-setting developed by the International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labeling Alliance (ISEAL). World Wildlife Fund, which coordinates all of the Aquaculture Dialogues, is the only ISEAL member working to create aquaculture standards.
