Over the past quarter century, the members of OFI have worked hard to build up a trustworthy reputation. This reputation is based on two things: OFI members are expected to follow the OFI Code of Ethics, and on the experience gained with OFI members in 25 years of practice. As a result, nowadays many non-OFI members also select their suppliers or customers based on OFI membership.

In daily practice it is also the fact that dubious businesses will never pay the membership fee, as they are not very willing to invest in aspects such as membership in a trade association and in the future of their trade. Basically there is no voting process for new members and everybody who supports the Code of Ethics and pays the membership fee is welcome. 

Quality
Nevertheless, there is an increasing demand for a method to ensure the quality of companies active in our industry, especially those dealing with live fish. This quality demand not only focuses on the quality of the fish sold by the exporters as assurance for the importers, but also on animal welfare issues promoted by animal protection organisations, on fair trade by customers and on sustainable use by conservation organisations. Furthermore it would result in good PR for this industry as well!

Previous attempts
Until now, thoughts of developing a method of certification or recognition have usually not developed beyond the stage of round-table discussions over a good beer or glass of nice wine. The problems are immense if we want to develop a perfect system, especially when it comes to controls.

In the three-year plan running from 2005 to 2008, a new Code of Conduct was one of the items listed. Below we have described an initial stage of arriving at a Code of Conduct as a first step towards a quality assurance system, based on practical realism. In our view this approach is certainly not the perfect system, and must be developed further. It provides a system with which OFI members can set themselves apart and present themselves as companies investing in providing the high quality and trustworthy business partners one would expect from OFI members.

What type of companies
In this first Code of Conduct we will focus on those segments of our industry dealing with live animals. These are the sectors in which animal protection and conservation organisations in several parts of the world have shown the most interest, and the quality of the fish is of the utmost importance to the companies involved. We will first focus on collectors of ornamental fish, breeders of ornamental fish, exporters and importers.

Level
With a Code of Conduct where all demands need to be met in order to be certified, we will not achieve our objectives as some of the demand cannot be met in some parts of the world and are standard in others. For this reason, a point system has been devised. Every company can earn a maximum of 100 points by getting points for each demand met. The minimum number of points to be listed in the OFI website is 60.  Companies are stimulated to increase their position over time.

The data provided by the companies must be updated or reconfirmed once a year in January. If companies do not update their data, the data are removed from the OFI website.

Controls
One of the hot issues in the previously mentioned round-table discussions  has always been how to check whether the companies involved meet the demands. To do it properly, these checks should be performed at least once a year by an independent team of official OFI auditors. The extreme high costs involved in such an annual check due to the diverse locations of OFI members all over the world, will make such checks in fact impossible. Only very few of the members are able to pay for the annual costs, which would be substantially higher than the current annual OFI contributions.

For this reason we have devised a system involving a declaration which could be openly published in the OFI website. The company can hire a local official auditor from independent certifying institute to certify that the declaration has been filled in correctly and accurately. If it is not available or more convenient, the OFI member involved could also request the official Veterinary Authority of his country to certify the validity of the declaration. If none of these options are available, the Declaration can still be published on the OFI website, however, without the annual control of such an auditor. Visiting colleague OFI members, however, could also serve to validate  the accuracy of the declaration.

The declarations should also state who checked the validity and the more independent the auditor, the more points for this aspect.

Sanctions
The sanction for false declarations will be the removal from the list of companies in these special pages in the OFI website (of course not from the Members' Directory). Repeated false declarations, however, can lead to expulsion of the members from OFI membership, as false declarations can be considered a violation of the OFI Code of Ethics.

Back to previous page