The approval of the ASEAN Tuna Ecolabelling (ATEL) policy during a meeting of the ASEAN Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Oct. 12 and 13, has brought exciting news for the fisheries sector in Southeast Asia 

With this approval, the ATEL becomes the first regional seafood ecolabel scheme in the world and a major achievement by ASEAN to support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

Indonesia needs to use this momentum to send a message to the world that it is against slavery and it also supports sustainable development, particularly in the fisheries sector. Indonesia has been proposing the ATEL concept at tuna working group level since 2012. ATEL is an environmentally friendly tuna certification initiative based on the principle of sustainability and socially responsible practices.

Its purpose is to encourage the...

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