Target 14.b: Access for small-scale fishers
Provide access for small-scale artisanal fishers to marine resources and markets
Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
Why shareholder democracy is helpful
Access for small-scale fishers is a matter of national zoning and enforcement. Global Fishing Watch research presented in June 2026 found that industrial vessels generally respect African preferential access areas. The areas, though, are misaligned with where small-scale fishers operate, leaving those fishers in direct competition with industrial vessels. Listed seafood buyers and fleet owners influence this through sourcing and fleet deployment. Investor-driven traceability at Thai Union illustrates that buyers can be moved on sourcing standards. The corporate lever is real but marginal. Owners help at the edges while governments decide access.
How this was scoredHelpful
Helpful. Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Coordinates a multi-phase investor engagement pressing global seafood companies to implement and disclose full-chain traceability systems.
Co-launched an investor collaboration to engage the seafood sector on overfishing, illegality and habitat conversion, with full-chain traceability among the practices sought.
Investor Coalition Targets Seafood Sustainability Risks, World Wildlife Fund, 2023-02
2 campaigns on record
Commit to comprehensive supply chain traceability systems and disclose implementation strategy and progress with third-party verification.
Result: Phase 2 involved 50 investors with more than 16.9 trillion US dollars in combined assets and closed in February 2026
FAIRR published a Phase 2 progress report, Traceability in Seafood Supply Chains: An Imperative for Investors, and moved to Phase 3 for 2026 and 2027.
Eliminate overfishing, illegality and habitat conversion from seafood value chains by adopting full-chain traceability, reducing bycatch and discards and meeting recognised standards.
With FAIRR Initiative, UNEP FI Sustainable Blue Economy Finance Initiative, World Benchmarking Alliance, Planet Tracker
Result: not stated in source
Investor Coalition Targets Seafood Sustainability Risks, World Wildlife Fund, 2023-02
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.