Tuna fishery. (Photo: AFMA)

MSC adopts new requirement for fisheries assessments

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) will further strengthen its ability to catalyse improvements in global fisheries by requiring all fishing activities on a target stock on a single trip to be certified against the MSC’s Standard for sustainable fishing.

The decision was reached at the MSC Board meeting in London last week. It followed public consultation involving more than 50 interest groups from NGOs to the fishing and commercial sectors, and concluded with a review in December 2017 by the MSC’s Technical Advisory Board.

The Technical Advisory Board comprises 15 experts in the field of marine science and supply chains, and it provided its formal recommendation to the MSC Board based on a scientific and technical analysis of the issue and the information and feedback provided in consultation responses.

The MSC Fisheries Standard - initially developed in 1997 in consultation with 300 organisations and individuals around the world including NGOs, governments and scientists - has allowed a fishery to define the target stock, management area, fishing gear and vessels - known as the Unit of Assessment (UoA).

In early 2017, the MSC initiated a review of its UoA requirements in response to concerns that the current rule allows a vessel to catch fish from the same stock using both certified and uncertified fishing gear or catch methods on a single trip. Under the new requirements this will not be possible; certified seafood will only enter MSC certified supply chains if it comes from fishing trips on which all activities on the target stock are certified.

“The MSC welcomes constructive stakeholder engagement and dialogue and I wish to thank the many individuals and organisations who engaged in the consultation and helped deliver this strong outcome in support of sustainability and the MSC program,” said Dr David Agnew, MSC’s Science and Standards Director.

“We have run a rigorous, objective and transparent process for developing, and ultimately adopting, these new rules. Third-party scrutiny and stakeholder engagement are central to the MSC’s values and our commitment to respond to the constantly evolving field of fisheries science and management. By honouring this commitment, we can maintain our world-leading standards,” he added.

The MSC has been effective in incentivising certified fisheries to enter other gears, stocks or areas for assessment, or other fleets and fisheries to enter assessment. For example, in 2011 the Scottish whitefish fleet achieved MSC certification for haddock. Once the fleet saw the benefits, they obtained certification for coley (saithe) two years later, and subsequently the iconic North Sea cod last year. The MSC refers to this mechanism for incentivising successive fisheries to demonstrate their sustainability as its “theory of change”. The MSC will continue and deepen its research into its theory of change, and monitor the effectiveness of the new changes to requirements on unit of assessment.

The new UoA requirements, which will be released in August 2018, will help support further improvements in fisheries and encourage engagement in the program.

In line with FAO guidelines, fisheries entering assessment for the first time after February 2019 will need to comply with the new UoA requirements, and fisheries which are already under assessment or certified will have three years from August 2018 to make the transition to the new requirements. Compliance will be audited by MSC’s third party Conformance Assessment Bodies.

[email protected]
www.seafood.media

Address:	Marine House, 1 Snow Hill
City:	London
State/ZIP:	England (EC1A 2DH)
Country:	United Kingdom
Phone:	+44 (0)20 7246 8900
Fax:	+44 (0)20 7246 8901
E-Mail:	[email protected]
Skype:	https://www.instagram.com/mscecolabel/
More about:

Print