A new Australian programme that offers subscription-based investments in fish habitat restoration and assisted breeding hopes to build on its current activities to eventually generate tradeable biodiversity credits.
The OneFishTwoFish programme was launched this week by Seafood Positive, a start-up founded by marine biologist and ocean conservationist Chris Gillies.
Based on an ambition to put two fish back in the sea for every one fish that gets eaten, the programme offers individuals and businesses a subscription-based service, which helps fund marine restoration projects.
“OneFishTwoFish helps seafood restaurants, businesses, retailers, and consumers balance their seafood consumption by replacing each fish they serve, sell, or eat with two more in the ocean,” Gillies said in a press release.
“This solves an ethical dilemma for sustainability-conscious seafood consumers and provides a way to positively connect seafood consumption with ocean health.”
So far, OneFishTwoFish is helping fund seagrass nurseries for fish habitat enhancement in Queensland, the Sydney Institute of Marine Science’s Operation Crayweed, the Corner Inlet Fishers Habitat Association in Victoria, and a snapper seeds scheme in Western Australia.
Gillies, who is also involved with fund managers Carbon Growth Partners, has invited along an advisory committee with representatives from the seafood industry, marine conservation groups, public service, and business to ensure projects meet or exceed global biodiversity offset standards.
“The idea is that this is a precursor to tradeable biodiversity credits,” Gillies told Carbon Pulse.
“In the future we hope to be able to add to or modify our current approach. Right now, though, we can test the approach and develop some of the methodologies which would lean into a proper biodiversity credit in the future,” he said.
Building on a blend of methodologies from the voluntary carbon market and biodiversity programmes, Gillies has developed a list of 10 principles and 17 project criteria to address issues such as additionality and leakage.
That list will be used to select future project involvement.
“We are piloting here in Australia, but are setting up to expand to US, EU, UK, and Asian markets. It’s a very simple concept and a lot of the principles and methods are transferable to any market,” said Gillies.
Sydney’s Taronga Zoo, Melbourne’s Stokehouse restaurant, Stomping Ground Brewing Co., and the Happy Apple supermarkets are among the early sign-ups to OneFishTwoFish’s corporate subscription package.
By Stian Reklev – stian@carbon-pulse.com
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