Fishing Community Goes Hi-Tech in Hunt for Sustainable Goals

Canadian company Vericatch is cracking the code currently challenging the global fishing community to achieve a sensitive balance with nature without sacrificing its future. The software solutions provider is helping to revolutionize fisheries management with flexible catch reporting and seafood traceability software. In so doing, they are empowering the ability to fish smarter and improve seafood traceability across the supply chain. 

The company, headed by Julian Hawkins, has worked alongside fishermen to design affordable, easy-to-use configurable fisheries management products that are as effective for commercial fishing fleets as they are for artisanal fishery pilot projects in emerging economies.

Mr Hawkins said: “We continually evolve and innovate sustainable business practices to help stakeholders strive to make better choices for people, planet, and profit.”

Vericatch’s FisheriesApp is a highly flexible data collection platform that helps even the most complex fishery begin collecting data. It is utilized for Canadian ELOGS, Vericatch’s electronic logbook, simplifying catch reporting for Canadian fishermen.

It’s KnowYour.Fish is a dynamic tool that helps businesses verify their sustainability claims while reducing unintentional purchases of illegal, unreported, unregulated catch and seafood linked with human rights and labor abuses.

Their solutions support many initiatives, from enhancing traceability through QR codes for Albacore Tuna in BC to providing catch reporting and data visualization tools to empower local spiny lobster fishery management in Belize and the Bahamas. It has also simplified catch reporting for rapid data collection in Chile’s mackerel fisheries.

“Our products can be adapted to the unique requirements of various projects and species anywhere in the world,” added Mr Hawkins. “By fishing smarter and adopting end-to-end seafood traceability, suppliers can increase trust, accuracy and value along the supply chain.”

Combined with location, gear and other information, the tech enables communities to see if catching the same amount of fish and seafood is getting easier or harder. It is an initial step by Vericatch to ensure livelihoods and sources of protein will be there in the long run.

Vericatch has partnered with organizations such as Ocean Wise, the Environmental Defence Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and the Global Dialogue on GDST. The FisheriesApp catch reporting software has helped to revolutionize Indonesia’s blue swimming crab fishery.

Vericatch is also driven by the United Nations’ 2030 sustainable development goals, one of which was SDG-14, “life under water”. He added: “The oceans are not something most people see and think. It’s been ‘overlooked’ by too many, even though millions of people rely on seafood to survive.

“How can oceans become more sustainable? The answer isn’t simple, and whereas aquaculture has helped increase the production of seafood, it ignores the issue of wild capture fishing, which is still at least half of seafood harvesting. What can be done on wild capture begins with data, and we are helping to put that decision-making into the hands of CEOs, entrepreneurs and fishery managers.”

The issue is driving the implementation and deployment to scale and putting Vericatch’s tools that enable data collection into the hands of fishermen and fisheries managers globally.

“Scaling happens when regional leaders share the vision of a better tomorrow and leverage  expertise from fisheries experts and businesses able to offer proven products at scale. We must ensure we can harvest actionable data to ensure the oceans remain a productive part of our world. Our apps operate just as well for single-person canoes to ocean-going trawlers.”

Clients of Vericatch have spoken of their praise of its technology solutions. Fraser MacDonald of Goodfish Seafood, sharing his experience with the KnowYour.Fish software, said: ”Using the software to show where our seafood comes from proves through a third party that we’re doing what we say we’re doing and helps build consumer trust.”

Melissa Grandy, a Newfoundland enterprise owner, has found the Canadian ELOGS to be a game changer: ”I have been recommending this program to everyone. The simplicity of getting it done at home in the evenings instead of at the wharf won me over.”

Bagus Santoso, an enumerator from Indonesia, said: ”FisheriesApp made it easy and fast for me to input and submit Blue Swimming Crab data. The arrangement of the data form was more efficient than an Excel sheet.” For more on Vericatch: https://vericatch.com/

Have you read?
Most Fashionable Countries. Best Countries For Business Expats. Best Non-Native English Speaking Countries. Countries With the Largest Household Size. Best Countries For Older People To Live In.