News

Value Rescue in Fisheries

Do you know of fisheries that have considered or implemented Value Rescue?   Your knowledge can help others scale fisheries’ enterprises with positive social, economic and environmental impacts. We are researching fishing groups, including businesses, associations, co-operatives and similar entities that have tried improving the value of their catch or production while also improving their […]

West Coast Pilot – Culinary Workshop

To discover how local fish can create a winning combination of flavor, presentation, and affordability for chefs in corporate dining, our partner Changing Tastes arranged a culinary workshop in California. More than a dozen chefs and several sustainability managers from the same or similar groups joined us in mid-November at a test kitchen in the Bay Area to develop the recipes and messaging needed to successfully bring back Californian West Coast Groundfish.

The Finance Gap in Sustainable Wild Capture Fisheries

Over the past few years, three broad strategies have evolved to address the challenge of achieving sustainable wild capture fisheries. These consist of: Addressing governance, regulation and policy Providing preferential access to markets via certification mechanisms and Fishery Improvement Plans Aggregating mission aligned capital While each of these strategies have merits in and of themselves, […]

Just Relased: Capitalizing Conservation Report

From Clarmondial: “Clarmondial and the WWF Landscape Finance Lab have produced “Capitalising Conservation”, a new report exploring how conservation organisations and their partners can mobilise private investment in conservation.”

Leverage the Middle for Improved Fishery Management and Revenue

The New Middleman: Service Provider and Quality Assure “Middle man — the very term itself is associated with extra hoops to jump through, farmers being cheated, and limited value being offered to farmers and value chains generally. The idea of cutting out the middle man is frequently thought of as a selling point, casting these […]

The Wild Blue Crab Investment Model – a case study

Industry stakeholders understand that overfishing undercuts long-term value and prevents realization of full economic potential in local communities. The question is, what to do about it? Wilderness Markets and Blue Star Foods collaborated on a pilot program to develop one potential solution. Problem Rising demand for seafood combined with limited public spending on fishery management systems […]

Coral Reefs and Ocean Health

Every so often, we run across reports that force us to stop and question our assumptions. Recent papers on global warming and the impact on oceans is a topic we have been monitoring for a couple of years now, with each new paper more depressing than the last. It is our view that the role of […]

Implementing a Lead Firm approach – Lessons Learned – Indonesia Blue Swimming Crab

Wilderness Markets has recently completed a “lessons learned” document regarding our experiences working with a lead firm in Indonesia to develop and implement sustainable fisheries practices for the Blue Swimming Crab fishery in Lampung Province. The presentation provides an overview of our theory of change, our focus and goals and the key lessons learned during the […]

Governance or a Markets Approach? Both. Adopt a Parallel Approach to Fisheries Reform

In our previous posts, we’ve discussed reasons and ways for involving private capital in fisheries reform, including taking a lead firm approach. This post about the parallel approach is a direct follow-up to the three models we propose for investment sequencing; we recommend checking out that post first. Overview Is there only one way to make […]

West Coast Groundfish Pilot: What’s Next for Developing Local Markets?

A previous post outlined the results of the recent market demand research for West Coast groundfish. This post follows-up with more detail on the proposed West Coast groundfish pilot. Purpose and Intent And now what? That was our first question after learning the results from the market demand research. Those results indicated that next efforts […]