1. Capital Effects in Fisheries
The Challenge and Opportunity

2. Ecotrust Canada’s Fisheries Program
» Our vision is that fisheries and marine resource use meet
the social and economic needs of adjacent communities
without compromising ecological integrity or the ability of
future generations to meet their needs.

3. Ecotrust Canada’s Fisheries Program
» We work with the fishing industry and the communities
reliant on fishing to build solutions to the challenging and
complex issues facing them.
» Our work on social finance for solution building have been
a part of trying to help address these identified challenges.

4. Looking back…
» Fisheries were complex and had challenges that required
change, but it was an enviable lifestyle choice, decent
living, full time work, respected by the community, and
steeped with culture and tradition.

5. Keystone of Culture and Economy
Canadian wild capture seafood industry is worth 3.5+ billion
but that is just one layer of value
T Buck Suzuki,
Ecotrust Canada

6. Keystone of Culture and Economy

7. Who Fish is Gifted to for Food

8. Still a Keystone of Culture and Economy
Seafest Prince Rupert 2010

9. Challenges Facing Fisheries Today
» Shifting allocations and licencing policies
» Failing infrastructure
» Access loss to communities
» “Arm chair fishermen” or Corporate consolidation
» Fluctuating market prices
» Rising costs (lease fees, equipment, monitoring, fuel)
» Competition for ocean space and resource use
» Succession
» High cost of access (licences, quota, season start up)
» And…

10. Challenges Facing Fisheries Today
» Limited or no access to capital due to:
» High or variable risk nature of industry,
» Lack of credit history and/or low financial literacy
» Minimal capacity to build proposal for financing
» Low understanding of industry by financers
» Those with the greatest access to capital have the
advantage; small boat fishermen or small rural
communities typically don’t have it.

11. Why Does This Matter?
» Loss of economic benefit to adjacent communities
» Loss of capacity and infrastructure that support other
community needs
» Migration away from community and/or high poverty levels
» Many spin off negative impacts on health and welfare of
communities and citizens on our coast, traditionally reliant
on their local ocean resources.
» Increased costs to society
» And because, there is still hope and opportunity

12. Turning the Tide
SMFCA Visioning Workshop

13. Turning the Tide – Building Solutions
» Licence banks/cooperative governance and financial
models
» Community fisheries strategic planning
» Market levers – traceability, labeling and branding
» Innovation in management and monitoring tools

15. Fisheries
Diversification
Database
Community
Objectives
Decision points
Historical/
Ecological data
Revenue
data
Socioeconomic &
Cost data
Risk/Future
Indicators
Multiple
Scenarios
Basket
of Fish
Long term fisheries/PICFI
planning and economic
independence
Minimize exposure to risk/
Vulnerability for fishery
Policy Change
INPUTS
OUTPUT
S
Building Solutions – Community planning

16. Building Solutions – Connecting to Markets

17. Lots of Work to do
» Supportive policy environment
» Supportive and diverse markets
» Educated seafood buyers and eaters
» Local business development capacity
» Aware and informed financial institutions and financers

18. Need Access to Capital!

19. Types of Social Finance,
and Current Reality
Reality of what
is available
What is most
often needed to
make the desired
change

20. Need Capital For a Range of
Enabling Activity
» Season start up
» Fishery start up
» Infrastructure development
» Business and market development

21. Necessary Conditions to Enable Financing
» Must have security of access to leverage investment from
both outside financers and fishermen.
» Need collaboration and economy of scale to acquire and
maintain markets and improve business case
» Good governance and management plans designed to
achieve triple bottom line objectives.
» Complimentary regulatory environment
» Need capacity and facilitation to connect the opportunity
to those willing to consider innovative social finance.

22. The Opportunity
» Reverse current trends and regain benefits back to the
community and to fishermen.
» Coordinating assets through broader collaboration, can
reduce risk, and maximize benefit.
» ROI for fishermen, communities, and financers can be
greatly increased by building local viable and sustainable
fleets.
» Social finance is designed to address just such an
opportunity; fisheries can be a great example of how to do
social finance right with high triple bottom line returns

23. Thank you for listening!
For more information contact
Tasha Sutcliffe at tasha@ecotrust.ca