Speaker 1: This is a C. N. A podcast.
Speaker 1: All right,
Speaker 1: welcome back to the climate conversations with me julie you
Speaker 1: of late, we're seeing the twin terrors of supply chain
Speaker 1: disruptions and climate change, affecting something very important to human
Speaker 1: survival food. In this episode. We want to talk about seafood,
Speaker 1: specifically fish. Where do our supplies of fish come from?
Speaker 1: Especially since fish prices have risen from our traditional sources
Speaker 1: in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Speaker 1: And as waters get warmer and the weather gets more unpredictable,
Speaker 1: how can the world better protected seafood supplies? What does
Speaker 1: it mean when businesses talk about sustainable seafood and what
Speaker 1: are the biggest problems we face? And how do we
Speaker 1: do better
Speaker 1: with me to dive deeper into the issues as Chester Gun?
Speaker 1: The responsible seafood Program officer at WWF Singapore. Hi Chester
Speaker 1: welcome hi judy. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So, was there a particular moment that inspired you to
Speaker 1: get involved in tackling the issue of sustainability and seafood? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good question actually. I've always been interested in
Speaker 1: marine conservation has always been my main interest in terms
Speaker 1: of my educational background. My background as a marine scientist.
Speaker 1: I was trained in environmental science, I have a Master's
Speaker 1: in oceanography, but specifically on seafood, I was taking opportunities
Speaker 1: as it came
Speaker 1: before I joined up W. F. I was doing research
Speaker 1: for Shark and Ray supply chain looking at Singapore, trying
Speaker 1: to figure out where it's coming from. But with that
Speaker 1: particular study on shark and ray, there's actually one image
Speaker 1: that kept sticking in mind. A huge part of that
Speaker 1: was having interviews with your web market stall owners of
Speaker 1: your fishery merchants and the first few times I went
Speaker 1: down to the porch. I remember very clearly, still in
Speaker 1: my head right now, having this conversation with an old
Speaker 1: uncle about his stock and right next to me was
Speaker 1: a massive power of
Speaker 1: stingray carcasses up to my mid tie, maybe 203 100 portions.
Speaker 1: And only then it really struck me the enormity of
Speaker 1: what I'm working with. This is a small country we have, right,
Speaker 1: Our consumption is about 22 kg of seafood per capita.
Speaker 1: It's not even compared to Korea like 70 plus kg
Speaker 1: per capita.
Speaker 1: And just like on a daily basis, this amount from
Speaker 1: one store for domestic consumption. So if you just multiply,
Speaker 1: that just feels like the oceans are definitely trouble at
Speaker 1: some point here. Exactly like you said, you know that
Speaker 1: Singapore is a seafood loving nation. Yet over 90% of
Speaker 1: the seafood are actually imported from overseas.
Speaker 1: Could you perhaps walk us through how fish or seafood
Speaker 1: get on their plates? Is it a lot different from
Speaker 1: other forms of food supplies, like meat or vegetable? Well,
Speaker 1: we do go through the same agrifood cultural systems. We
Speaker 1: largely import from the region. I think about good, 60%
Speaker 1: are coming from Thailand Vietnam Malaysia Indonesia.
Speaker 1: It could be either wild caught or farm Indonesia is
Speaker 1: the second largest exporter of seafood in the world. Singapore
Speaker 1: is just getting that from these areas and going through
Speaker 1: the fishery ports, going to the web markets or directly
Speaker 1: imported to your retailers and restaurants and that's how it
Speaker 1: gets to your plate. We do have a domestic sector
Speaker 1: for agriculture, we don't really have a significant one for
Speaker 1: wild caught fisheries.
Speaker 1: So most of our domestic production is from the agriculture side.
Speaker 1: About 110 c based farms adding land based farms will
Speaker 1: be 100 and 30 140. But like you said, the
Speaker 1: production volumes at this point in time are still very small.
Speaker 1: Although with the Singapore Food Agency, 30 by 30 go,
Speaker 1: there's a lot more push to expand that to three,
Speaker 1: More than five years ago. I think it's 2016 to
Speaker 1: be exact report by WWF revealed that 75% of the
Speaker 1: seafood consumed in Singapore is unsustainable and they're irresponsibly fished
Speaker 1: or farmed. Can you tell me a little bit about
Speaker 1: the difference between a sustainable farm and one that's not
Speaker 1: okay when it comes to sustainability, there's a common misconception
Speaker 1: that we just look at species, it helps to really
Speaker 1: boil it down to species is easier as a piece
Speaker 1: of knowledge for consumers. But unfortunate fact is that when
Speaker 1: you're looking at city of seafood, it includes the production methods.
Speaker 1: So in terms of wild caught fisheries is how it's
Speaker 1: being caught, whether it's using devices that increases bycatch or
Speaker 1: decreases bycatch, which is catching non targeted species, which is
Speaker 1: obviously not some
Speaker 1: something that we want. The production method is important. But
Speaker 1: also the location itself because fish stocks of the same
Speaker 1: species could differ widely in the health three different areas.
Speaker 1: So when we look at systemic or seafood is a
Speaker 1: combination of these factors, how it's produced in farms, Whether
Speaker 1: you are taking into account whether you're mitigating environmental impacts,
Speaker 1: whether in mitigating social impacts and that could differ on
Speaker 1: farm to farm level. So looking at species specifically is
Speaker 1: a little bit too general.
Speaker 1: That's the lens we need to look at even as
Speaker 1: a consumer when I'm looking for stable products, I need
Speaker 1: to consider these other factors. Okay, so has the situation
Speaker 1: improved since then? It's hard to tell. There's one huge
Speaker 1: challenge that we face in Singapore. That's data. So data
Speaker 1: transparency with one problem, we need to know this metrics,
Speaker 1: but unfortunately it is not just a Singapore based issue regionally,
Speaker 1: there is this opacity in the data supply chain. That
Speaker 1: awareness is also missing because that data is missing.
Speaker 1: Singaporeans are born and raised in Singapore at seafood my
Speaker 1: whole life. Unfortunately I'm one of those who wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to tell, especially if it's in a fill a
Speaker 1: form and I didn't buy it myself what species it is.
Speaker 1: So that's the same kind of problem that consumers face.
Speaker 1: You don't know what you're eating half the time.
Speaker 1: No, it's fish and then you're just eating it. Our
Speaker 1: national food to spell curry fish head sambal stingray woven
Speaker 1: into our identity. But unfortunately on the consumers and because
Speaker 1: of the lack of data that we have awareness is
Speaker 1: just a big issue. So if I just want to
Speaker 1: know where is it from, If you look at the label,
Speaker 1: you could say product of Malaysia,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't tell you whether it's well caught or farmed.
Speaker 1: It doesn't tell you whether it's just imported from Malaysia,
Speaker 1: but it could possibly be landed in Indonesia and then
Speaker 1: send that. So you don't actually know the particular fish
Speaker 1: stock it's from or the farm that it's coming from.
Speaker 1: When I was talking to wet markets, store owners was
Speaker 1: asked them why they don't have this information, Why maybe
Speaker 1: they know the country. But even then it's a 50% chance.
Speaker 1: They say, oh, I don't know India Malaysia likely that's
Speaker 1: coming from, but they are not certain about it. There's
Speaker 1: no credentials, there is no proof behind that
Speaker 1: and ask them. Do you not ask these questions? Is
Speaker 1: this is not your concern? And for them, most common
Speaker 1: response I get, which really drove it home is that
Speaker 1: the customers don't ask if the customers don't ask, why
Speaker 1: would I want to possibly jeopardize this business relationship, it
Speaker 1: doesn't give me any profit margin, there's nothing gained on
Speaker 1: my part is extra. But what we
Speaker 1: see is some optimistic signs that there is a push
Speaker 1: from the business side from the consumer side in having
Speaker 1: more interest. So customers asking and collectively if we do
Speaker 1: have a consumer base that's asking these questions then it
Speaker 1: starts sending that signal up the chain so the situation
Speaker 1: will improve, interesting given Singapore
Speaker 1: is highly dependent on imports for its food requirements, but
Speaker 1: you certainly have very vulnerable to fluctuations and food supply
Speaker 1: prices and food safety. Tell us about what W W. F. S. G.
Speaker 1: Is doing to ensure sustainable supply and market demand for
Speaker 1: responsible seafood.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great question. What we're trying to do
Speaker 1: to forge a more responsible seafood future for Singapore, we'll
Speaker 1: tackle in the supply side, Seafood work is complex. You
Speaker 1: need to look at different details. There's so many species,
Speaker 1: there's so many products processing involved. Supply chains are very
Speaker 1: fragmented and very different. As I mentioned, these sf. A
Speaker 1: 30 by 30 goal includes a huge planned expansion of
Speaker 1: the local agriculture sector so that we can get a 30%
Speaker 1: of Singapore's nutritional needs on that front. We try to
Speaker 1: work
Speaker 1: with the local farms in order to expand their capacity
Speaker 1: and ensure that while they're expanding this sector is done
Speaker 1: with sustainability principles in mind. So this could be, for example,
Speaker 1: we facilitate that move through what we call agricultural improvement
Speaker 1: projects or A I. P. S. For short A. I. P. S.
Speaker 1: Not a new initiative network. Marine conservation organizations across the
Speaker 1: world are working on A. I. P. S. Because they're
Speaker 1: very general catchall phrase that look at how to improve
Speaker 1: the farm
Speaker 1: and for WWF we use this project to work closely
Speaker 1: with them to look at various aspects like fish feed,
Speaker 1: fish health, energy use on the farm, what the impact
Speaker 1: is on surrounding ecosystems and to help them become more
Speaker 1: environmentally and socially responsible. And with the benchmark it uses
Speaker 1: the aquaculture stewardship council standard which is the S. C.
Speaker 1: Certification itself. So we try to prepare them because this
Speaker 1: is a rigorous, globally recognized standard. It has very strong
Speaker 1: and very detailed metrics on how to move towards responsibility
Speaker 1: really producing. So we use that certification as a benchmark.
Speaker 1: We develop a gap on where their current practices are
Speaker 1: to those standards. We help them develop an improvement plan
Speaker 1: that is specific to the farm itself. To bridge that gap.
Speaker 1: And throughout this whole process is very collaborative effort, A
Speaker 1: very close partnership where we provide expertise, we provide assistance,
Speaker 1: we do progress monitoring so that we are sure as
Speaker 1: well because we are an NGO when we
Speaker 1: looking at conservation we are sure that the farm is
Speaker 1: moving to a sustainability for those of us who are
Speaker 1: not so familiar with aqua farming in Singapore perhaps. Can
Speaker 1: you tell us how many are out there what kinds
Speaker 1: of species are grown domestically and blood volumes. Yes, we
Speaker 1: actually just completed a study. I will need to look
Speaker 1: at it again, fully familiarized myself with the actual volumes
Speaker 1: but we have around 100 and 10 C based farms.
Speaker 1: We have also up and coming farms on land. They're
Speaker 1: using RS systems recently spoke to a farm that is
Speaker 1: trying to farm salmon cohort of species in the tropical
Speaker 1: climate like Singapore and that's possible because of these closed
Speaker 1: containment systems, it's actively growing is a very fluctuating ecosystem. So,
Speaker 1: but we have largely in Singapore produced barramundi so that
Speaker 1: your agency best we produce coral trout. We have shrimp
Speaker 1: farms in Singapore, there are quite a few different species,
Speaker 1: But they're mostly locally consumed. So part of our study
Speaker 1: that we did recently was to look at how they
Speaker 1: were selling their products and which sectors about 3%. We're
Speaker 1: going to exports and a lot we're going to your retailers,
Speaker 1: your restaurants, so that's the current state of fun. But
Speaker 1: it's going to change drastically in the next 10 years
Speaker 1: with the plans that the Singapore government has in the
Speaker 1: way it's being restructured agriculture sector. So what I'm saying
Speaker 1: might be completely obsolete in a couple of years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but if we look at right now, rising inflation
Speaker 1: from feed to fuel, is that having any impact on
Speaker 1: local fish farms? Yes, definitely. The fish farms need input, right?
Speaker 1: They need farm, they need seed stock to grow out
Speaker 1: and be able to sell it as well. So rising inflation,
Speaker 1: all cost considerations for them, which is why to help
Speaker 1: them move to sustainability, especially for smaller farms, they need
Speaker 1: that support either from industry or from government to try
Speaker 1: and transition to practices
Speaker 1: more sustainable, but for them causes a huge factor. They
Speaker 1: are competing not just locally, highly competitive market, competing with
Speaker 1: agriculture farms that are obviously with cheaper inputs from Malaysia
Speaker 1: from Indonesia. So it's a highly competitive environment because they
Speaker 1: recognize the need for it. And recently we had a
Speaker 1: workshop with agriculture farmers in Singapore. They talk about water quality,
Speaker 1: how it's affecting you. They know environmentally they need to
Speaker 1: consider these things. It's just that cost considerations is still
Speaker 1: a key factor for them. Survival is still a key
Speaker 1: factor for them.
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Speaker 1: I remember there was a controversial netflix documentary. See Spirit
Speaker 1: C which had a single call to action for its viewers,
Speaker 1: which was stop eating fish. So where do you stand
Speaker 1: on that for me? It's a personal opinion. I think
Speaker 1: that call for stop eating fish was a little misguided.
Speaker 1: There are huge portions of the global population that depend
Speaker 1: on fish as the active protein, that most essential protein
Speaker 1: in Indonesia. It doesn't account for some underground realities and
Speaker 1: we live in a region where a lot of those
Speaker 1: communities are like that.
Speaker 1: So just saying stop eating fish and what's the alternative?
Speaker 1: That's difficult to answer amongst most of the mainstream meat products,
Speaker 1: fish in general, it is actually more resource efficient.
Speaker 1: The feed conversion ratio and this term is used to
Speaker 1: see like how much feed you have to put in
Speaker 1: to gain like one kg of animal weight. Feed conversion
Speaker 1: ratio is the lowest. So on some level actually, fish
Speaker 1: is a better protein, but it needs to be consuming moderation.
Speaker 1: It needs to have these considerations or whether it's impacting
Speaker 1: the ocean health, whether it's impacting social communities need to
Speaker 1: know the local context of where you are consuming
Speaker 1: in Singapore. We do have a little bit more choice.
Speaker 1: So we do look at moderation in diet, we also
Speaker 1: look at plant based diets is something that pushes Yeah, moderation.
Speaker 1: That's hard to define. Right? Is there a limit to
Speaker 1: the amount of fish we should eat per week? Keep
Speaker 1: the oceans replenished maybe once a week.
Speaker 1: Does that sound about right? Yeah, It's hard to put
Speaker 1: a number like you say, what I was looking at
Speaker 1: is more less excessively eating, for example, your seafood buffets
Speaker 1: or one of those where you're just basically getting more
Speaker 1: and more lobster just for the sake of it and spending.
Speaker 1: So that's what I was looking at. So not so
Speaker 1: much quantity of how much you eat a week,
Speaker 1: but just knowing that are you consuming just for the
Speaker 1: sake of consuming at some point. So that's what I
Speaker 1: mean by moderation. Okay, so if we are to consume seafood,
Speaker 1: are there some other species that are at risk of
Speaker 1: becoming unsustainable? That we should think twice about before eating?
Speaker 1: What are the preferred sort of eating choice would you say?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why I said we focus on certified products
Speaker 1: because looking at species level is kind of problematic. I
Speaker 1: could be telling you, yes, you can eat this particular muscle,
Speaker 1: but perhaps if it's sourced from this different area, it
Speaker 1: actually causes a lot more problems than some other areas.
Speaker 1: So you need to know the other metrics before you
Speaker 1: can make decisions based on what you can consume. But
Speaker 1: there are a couple more broad
Speaker 1: based ones that are just threatened worldwide and obviously should
Speaker 1: avoid one example being your shark and ray species. Ru
Speaker 1: CN just last year released a huge reassessment of their
Speaker 1: red list where they're looking at the assessment of the
Speaker 1: species at the global level how threatened it is basically.
Speaker 1: So there are different categories to that being no concern
Speaker 1: to critically endangered or even extinct
Speaker 1: and what they found was for sharks and rays, we
Speaker 1: had roughly one third of the species of sharks and
Speaker 1: rays currently in danger of extinction. And that's the second
Speaker 1: highest animal group behind amphibians. And then the second thing
Speaker 1: is in the critically endangered portion. We had a tripling
Speaker 1: of the number of species and a lot of that
Speaker 1: in race species. So shocked, scared a lot of attention generally.
Speaker 1: And that's a good thing in some way, even though
Speaker 1: we still see a decline but raised, especially in Singapore
Speaker 1: we do consume, but a bit of race, they get
Speaker 1: a lot less attention. They're not commonly consumed in other countries.
Speaker 1: They also something that we don't know as much information about.
Speaker 1: So these are species you should just avoid at all
Speaker 1: costs at this point in time. So there are certain
Speaker 1: things that you can avoid completely, but just looking at
Speaker 1: species itself is not sufficient. You need to know how
Speaker 1: it's called, how it's farmed. Okay Chester. So before I
Speaker 1: let you go, what do you think
Speaker 1: the next 10 to 20 years of aquaculture production might
Speaker 1: look like? Well the composition farmed species, do you think
Speaker 1: it'll shift globally within the next two years it's going
Speaker 1: to be aquaculture and the expansion because of fish stocks
Speaker 1: that we have and how we're already almost at the
Speaker 1: maximum limit of fishing that it's going to be aquaculture
Speaker 1: producing at the global level in Singapore, it's still a
Speaker 1: little bit fluid. I can't really say for sure the
Speaker 1: next 20 years it has a lot of focus on
Speaker 1: high tech farming
Speaker 1: and also obviously on more profitable products for your luxury items.
Speaker 1: But there are farms that I've spoken to. They want
Speaker 1: to cater to the local market as well. So your
Speaker 1: wet markets, they want to funnel to the basic consumer
Speaker 1: rather than your hotels and restaurants. Your bigger markets, it
Speaker 1: could change quite a bit, there could be more fish
Speaker 1: that you see that you're buying for the wet markets
Speaker 1: for the farms in Singapore, but it really depends at
Speaker 1: this point in time. I know the
Speaker 1: the government also wants to push for domestic consumption, right?
Speaker 1: So there is a factor that they also want more
Speaker 1: species that are consumed locally right now that is the case,
Speaker 1: but it's also more for the higher end markets. So
Speaker 1: there could be a shift for consumers. One of the
Speaker 1: key things we really can do is start to create
Speaker 1: the bus collectively we have purchasing power, we vote with
Speaker 1: our wallets, so not just supporting companies that are investing
Speaker 1: sustainability, have robust activity policies, but also certified products, right?
Speaker 1: Certified products, They have gone through the whole process, they
Speaker 1: are being ordered that the certification scheme does everything for you.
Speaker 1: It looks at the metrics, you don't even have to
Speaker 1: bother about that if you need to know and they
Speaker 1: ensure that the products with that label actually came from
Speaker 1: the fishery or the farm itself. So certified products. So M. S. C. S. C. Products,
Speaker 1: you look at them
Speaker 1: and you use that if you can afford it of
Speaker 1: course support because there's sometimes there's a gap because the
Speaker 1: lack of supply in the local sphere, so that's why
Speaker 1: WWF wants to create more certified farms in our local
Speaker 1: culture sector, because with the logistics change, it might also
Speaker 1: be comparable in price and easier for them for consumers
Speaker 1: to take it up by using our wallet to buy
Speaker 1: like certified products in supporting that. But also asking questions,
Speaker 1: sustain the information is key to us making smart purchasing
Speaker 1: decisions that we want to know that
Speaker 1: And why I say that as well as we did
Speaker 1: a study in Singapore and essential last year, looking at
Speaker 1: the consumer base in Singapore, looking at how they view sustainability.
Speaker 1: It was not just on seafood is generally on sustainability
Speaker 1: across a wide various sectors, but what we found was
Speaker 1: that not only 41% of them identified themselves as devoted
Speaker 1: to the environment and that's pretty strong term, but 75%
Speaker 1: said
Speaker 1: they want to behave more sustainably, they just like the
Speaker 1: avenues and options. So there is this gap between current
Speaker 1: behavior and where they seem to the attitudes to sustainability
Speaker 1: and so bridging that gap could really help to build
Speaker 1: momentum to transforming the whole seafood industry. Alright Chester, thank
Speaker 1: you very much for your time. It's been so insightful.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much julie as well. That's great chatting with
Speaker 1: you
Speaker 1: special. Thanks to my guest and thanks to all of
Speaker 1: you for tuning in, we hope you enjoyed this episode.
Speaker 1: Do remember to subscribe and like this podcast so, you know,
Speaker 1: when a new episode drops, you can find CNN's climate
Speaker 1: and sustainability coverage online at CNN dot asia. The team
Speaker 1: behind this podcast is Audrey one Jacqueline chan Danieli and
Speaker 1: Christina robert, and I'm julie you signing off.