Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to join you this afternoon and share some of our experience with your group.
As you mentioned earlier, I am a chair on the board of the Shorefast Foundation. We're a federally registered charity. Our work is done pretty much exclusively on Fogo Island for Fogo Islanders. We're been doing that work now for about 15 years. Two years ago, we started this new organization called Fogo Island Fish. It is a social enterprise, so it's very much a part of our charity's work. All the proceeds and benefits of Fogo Island Fish return to Fogo Island 100%.
Fogo Island Fish is a very small organization. It consists of me and my wife. We operate it on a volunteer basis. Along with all of my comments this afternoon, I want you to bear that in mind. To describe our community a little, Fogo Island has 10 fishing communities. We have 2,700 people or thereabouts. We have approximately 100 fishers on the island. It's interesting to us to hear Tony's previous comments. We've been fishing on Fogo Island for about 400 years. I'm an eighth-generation Fogo Islander. I'm the first generation not to fish.
Fogo Island Fish was designed to essentially reinvent the fish business to serve the community. Let me talk about that very quickly. I've issued the deck that's in front of me, and you're welcome to follow along. I know that some of you might want to read ahead, but if we could go through it together, I think that might help. It's about sustaining communities.
We have 10 communities on the island. We have been fishing on Fogo Island for some 300 years. I think that the lessons we have learned, we have learned well. We have to bear in mind that when you do something for 300 years, you learn a thing or two, and that should carry a lot.
With regard to a bit of history, 1968 was the time that the fishery was changing on our islands from a salt fish product to a frozen product or fresh product. The fish merchants back then did not make the transition in the change to the fishery.
Fogo Island had the good fortune to have the National Film Board come and make some films, and those films became collectively known as the Fogo Process. Out of those films, we formed the Fogo Island co-op, and we still have the Fogo Island co-op with us today. It is our processor. It's community owned. It's a co-operative. It's owned by the fishers and our plant workers. It will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year.
We have to remind ourselves about economics. For us, it's about economics as if communities mattered. As I said, we've fished sustainably in a small part of the ocean. From within sight of land, you could see your house from where we fish. Where we fish cod today is in the very same waters, so the waters that are populated with fish around our island are still within sight of land. We have fished it in small boats. Usually a trip is three or four hours in length, and we land our fish right away.
There's a tremendous amount of talk in the world about sustainable fish. There are many different definitions of “sustainable fish”. I would like to propose to this panel and to others that we start to talk about who or what is sustained by fish, and who or what needs to become part of the discussion and dialogue about what makes for a sustainable fish. Of course, we have to respect science. Of course, we have to be caretakers of the stocks, and we have to consider who, whether it's coastal communities or corporations, is going to be the beneficiary of fishing.
By the way, all the photos of Fogo Island that you see in front of you today were taken on my iPhone.
Let's talk about the fish itself. Industrial fish are premium fish. For us, it's a very simple matter. In 300 years of fishing, we've learned a few things. It turns out that it's a matter of when you fish and how you fish. Let me talk about that a little more.
That picture on your left in the deck is a very important picture. It may be the most important picture in the deck. The fish on the left was caught using a gillnet by our fishers on the same day from the same waters as the fish on the right, which is a handline fish. This particular handline fish was caught one a time, in a traditional way, bled at sea—