Mission

Big Fish is a special shop. Like all other businesses we have to make money to earn our living. But we want to do that in a sustainable way. We care about the future of our people and our planet and try our best to take our responsibilities. All the products we sell are selected in a careful way with the following guidelines in mind:

• They are the best price/quality ratio you will find in Tarifa
• Their production contributes to the economic well being of the people that produce them
• Their production contributes to the social and cultural integrity and diversity of the people that produce them
• Their production does not harm the integrity and diversity of the ecology
• Their production takes place in regions where its contribution to sustainable development is the most effective, either regionally in Andalucia or globally in developing countries.

How do we guarantee these claims? With our 15 years of experience in working in sustainable development we know where to look for sustainable products. We work either with small scale producers and distributors that we know, or with multinational companies that have a good record on the ethical and responsible entrepreneurship. We try to offer transparency in this, by having as much as possible documented on our website and in our shop.

The claims we make mainly refer to our clothing. In the windsurfing branche it is harder to work with these guidelines. We are talking to the windsurfing industry to make them aware of their responsibilities and the challenges that face them to contribute to sustainable development globally. If we find persistent unsustainable behaviour of our windsurfing partners we will stop working with them. We ask our customers to help us being aware of the opportunities for windsurfers to contribute to a sustainable society.

Big Fish Tarifa was started by Michael Dauner in the nineteennineties. In 2004 it was taken over by Frans de Man. The the Retour foundation, a Dutch NGO that has been active in sustainable development of tourism for over 15 years, supported him in converting Big Fish into a sustainable entreprise. More about his venture you can find in this article in Liquid Magazine