User’s Manual of the Electronic ASEAN Catch Documentation Scheme, Part 4: Statement of Catch and Catch Certification

Abstract

The ASEAN Catch Documentation Scheme (ACDS) is a management tool to prevent the entry of fish and fishery products from IUU fishing to the supply chains in the ASEAN Region. Towards the improvement of the traceability system for marine capture fisheries, the manual's overall objective of the ASEAN Catch Documentation Schemes' electronic system is to guide relevant stakeholders along the supply chains to understand the step-by-step how to implement the eACDS applications. The eACDS User’s Manual consists of 6 parts described along with traceability system processes from catching to landing, purchasing, transferring of catch to processing, using raw materials in processing, issuing the certification, and exportation. Besides, some countries in the ASEAN region implements transshipment at sea. The eACDS applications, therefore, include the transshipment at sea in a separate part. There are six parts of the manual as follows: Part 1: Introduction of the eACDS;Part 2: Issuance of the Catch Declaration (CD); Part 3: Issuance of the Movement Document (MD); Part 4: Issuance of the Statement of Catch (SC) and Catch Certification (CC); Part 5: Transshipment at Sea; and Part 6: System Administration. This manual focuses on the Statement of Catch (SC) and the issuance of the Catch Certificate (CC) because these two processes, in the practices, are closed link in the processing plant, in which fish products are the final process. The processes for issuance of the Statement of Catch (SC) to the processor are to assure that fishes as raw materials stored in the processing plant are utilized and could be monitored and traced back to the origin of fish. Due to the complexity of the fish processing processes, where the fishes or raw materials come from different sources. Using the manual method without the electronic system would make the burden works to enhance the seafood traceability. In other words, the SC will support the fisheries authority on monitoring and regulating the raw materials used in the processing plants. The Catch Certificate is another documentation for exportation to the international market which is linked to all information via the SC, MD and CD QR-Codes attached to the documents. This is a power tool to ensure that fishery products for exporting to the international market do not come from the IUU Fishing activities