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Partnership aims to enhance transparency in global tuna supply chain

Responsible Seafood Advocate

Partnership will share data and tools to help buyers identify tuna vessels that use sustainable practices and follow international rules

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Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP), Global Fishing Watch (GFW) and the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) have announced a new collaboration to improve transparency in global tuna supply chains. Photo by Isaac Mijangos.

Three leading organizations in sustainable fisheries – Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP), Global Fishing Watch (GFW) and the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) – have announced a new collaboration to improve transparency in global tuna supply chains.

The partnership aims to help seafood buyers more holistically evaluate the environmental and compliance performance of their sourcing, drawing on the groups’ extensive data platforms.

Supported by a grant from the Walmart Foundation, the initiative will integrate key data tools from each organization, including SFP’s FishSource and Seafood Metrics, ISSF’s Proactive Vessel Register (PVR) and Vessels in Other Sustainability Initiatives (VOSI) and GFW’s Vessel Viewer and Marine Manager.

“We aren’t reinventing the wheel,” said Kathryn Novak, biodiversity and nature director at SFP. “We’re making it easier for tuna buyers to utilize all of the valuable, existing data and resources by putting them together on a platform they’re already familiar with and connecting it with their sourcing.”

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Buyers will be able to use the shared data and tools to identify vessels that follow sustainable practices and comply with international fishing regulations. With greater visibility at sea, stakeholders can identify risks sooner, coordinate responses and develop evidence-based policies.

The effort reflects a growing demand for sustainability indicators that extend beyond stock health and management measures. It aligns data transparency with evolving market expectations for responsibly sourced tuna.

“Verified transparency is the cornerstone of credible, science-based sustainability,” said Susan Jackson, president of the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF). “By contributing vessel-level insights to this collaboration, we’re helping to close information gaps that have long challenged stakeholders seeking to evaluate seafood sustainability.”

A persistent challenge to managing tuna fisheries and protecting ocean wildlife is the lack of transparency at sea. Many fleets operate with limited monitoring, and data on their activities remains sparse. In longline tuna fisheries – known for their impact on sharks, seabirds and other marine species – observer coverage often falls below the required five percent.

Information on vessel-level bycatch practices and the risk of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (or IUU fishing) is also limited and fragmented, making it difficult to assess environmental performance or enforce accountability across global supply chains. Strengthening vessel-level monitoring and making data openly available can help illuminate what actually happens at sea.

“By integrating key data sources into a platform already familiar with industry, we’re helping build a broader and more inclusive understanding of vessel-level activity – including data gaps and key risk indicators,” said Charles Kilgour, director of program initiatives at Global Fishing Watch. “This enables industry to better target risk mitigation efforts and strengthens accountability and cooperation between government and industry, in a way that is driving a shift to more sustainable and transparent policies.”

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