For instance: Support of regional fishery

Many fishermen in Asia and elsewhere can barely survive in the shadow of large international fishing fleets and the environmental damage caused by unchecked urbanization. A lack of education and educational standards rob them of economic alternatives. Many families are no longer able to cope with the economic hardship. In response to this situation, the Consortium is working on the planning and implementation of a project together with fishermen on the tourist island of Mactaan, near Cebu City, in the Philippines. The fishermen there can no longer survive from their traditional source of income. The fishermen’s hope rests in their children and yet they cannot afford the time and costs involved in investing in training and education,
making external support necessary. It would also be inhuman to remove them from their traditional home, the water, and let them degenerate into beggars or trash pickers.

In cooperation with international and local NGO’s and the public authorities, land will be leased to set up shrimp farming ponds. The local Mangrove ecosystem is still intact and offers ideal conditions for commercial shrimp farming. The local community has been very cooperative and has provided co ntact to the local tourist industry where there is a large demand for edible crustaceans from inter-national hotel chains, especially those catering to tourists from Japan, Korea and Hong Kong. Working together with the University of San Carlos, the eco-tex Consortium is defining production standards for aquaculture which can be integrated into the CSM 2000 Management Standard. The quality of the shrimp can then be guaranteed, for HACCP for example, as well as providing guaranteed standards in social and environmental areas.

The hotels will guarantee minimum purchase quantities so that the family-based economic activity is secured in the long-term. The quality of the products will be regularly controlled and optimized.

The initial investment in the project will be paid back by the fishermen into a revolving fund, from which they will then be able to fund necessary investments in production and social projects themselves.