Iceland’s blue whiting fishery in the north-eastern Atlantic has been granted MSC certification and the blue tick of approval that goes with it. The fishery has been certified by conformity assessment body DNV GL against the MSC’s fisheries standard.
The client in this case was Iceland Sustainable Fishery (ISF) and project manager Kristinn Hjálmarsson said that as a result, all Icelandic pelagic vessels fishing for blue whiting come under the certification.
‘Roughly 90% of all catches landed by Icelandic vessels is now from MSC certified fisheries and the challenges ahead are clear. Regardless of certifications, the authorities of each fishing nation, must make sure that our nations are indisputably a reliable source for healthy seafood courses, anywhere and always.’
‘With completion of the blue whiting fishery, then all pelagic fisheries in Iceland have gained MSC certification,’ said the MSC’s senior program manager for Iceland, the Faroes and Greenland Gísli Gíslason.
‘In addition to blue whiting, these include Atlanto-Scandian herring, mackerel, capelin and Icelandic summer-spawning herring, which is the only pelagic fishery in Iceland exclusively caught by Icelandic vessels.R39;We congratulate ISF and the Icelandic fishing industry for this milestone.’
He commented that the MSC hopes that nations participating in mackerel, Atlanto-Scandian herring and blue whiting fisheries will be able to reach a coastal states agreement, hence closing conditions in those certificates.
‘The special circumstances with those conditions which exist in all MSC certificates for those three species is that no single fishery can close those conditions on their own, as all states need to have mutual agreement on how they share total catches, so the catches come into line with management advice.’
