Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs) are a multi-stakeholder effort that aims to address the challenges in a fishery, especially those towards environmental sustainability. However, FIPs are starting to include other issues. These projects use the power of the private sector to incentivize improvements in fisheries. FIPs are increasing worldwide and their goal is to improve the sustainability of the fisheries, while maintaining access to markets interested in sourcing more sustainable seafood. Although they do not necessarily pursue certification, FIPs use the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) Fishery Standard as a benchmark tool to track FIPs environmental performance. This session will consist of a brief FIP overview, followed by a plenary talk where several stakeholders will share their experience collaborating in a FIP and how their work is driving their fisheries to sustainability in Latin America and the Caribbean region. Stakeholders will be answering questions such as, how are they collaborating within FIP? How FIPs are increasing fisheries knowledge? How FIPs are driving changes in fishery practices and management?

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