ICA Director-General Chuck Gould celebrates World Fisheries Co-operative Day

ICA Director-General Chuck Gould celebrates World Fisheries Co-operative Day:

Over two hundred co-operators attended the World Fisheries Co-operative Day celebrations held in Da Nang, Vietnam today.

Fishing has been in a real crisis in recent years due to over exploitation, declining numbers of fishermen and commercialisation.

In 2010, the International Co-operative Fishing Organisation (ICFO) created the Seoul Declaration and agreed to hold an annual World Fisheries Co-operative Day each year to raise awarenesss of the crisis facing sustainable fishing; this was the second annual WFC day.

The event was hosted by President of the ICFO and last year’s winner of the Rochdale Pioneers award from the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA), Mr. Lee Jong-koo.

Chuck Gould, Director General for the International Co-operative Alliance, attended both of the annual WFC days. He said the industry has always had a co-operative tone to it because of the nature of danger attached to it and the recognition that they all have a shared resource.

He added: “It has always been a very poor industry, even today fishermen are some of the poorest of the different sectors, poorer even than farmers.”