The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has clarified its position on the eligibility of enhanced fisheries to be assessed under its Standard for sustainable and well-managed fisheries, opening the way for many forms of enhanced fisheries to be assessed under the programme.
In June 2008, the MSC Board confirmed that the MSC would not be expanding the scope of its well-known certification and labelling programme for wild-capture fisheries to include aquaculture production systems. However, in between the two poles of wild capture fisheries and aquaculture systems, are a wide variety of ‘enhanced fisheries’ that involve different forms and degrees of human intervention.
Over recent years, increasing numbers of fisheries have asked MSC for guidance on the scope of the programme in relation to such enhanced fisheries. The MSC Executive and its governance bodies discussed these issues at meetings in December 2007, June 2008 and January 2009. At the last of these meetings the MSC agreed that in many instances the MSC Standard for sustainable and well-managed fisheries is a suitable and robust tool for assessing the sustainability of an enhanced fishery, and recognised that MSC will need to develop further technical guidance.
The MSC has a long history of engaging with fisheries that include some form of enhancement, from the hatchery-based stocking components in the Alaska salmon fishery – certified in 2000 and recertified in 2007 – to the habitat modifications in the Burry Inlet cockle fishery – first certified in 2001.
Rupert Howes, Chief Executive of the MSC said: “This is an important clarification of the scope of the MSC Standard. While enhanced fisheries have always been represented within the MSC programme, the MSC has never defined the limits to the scope for enhanced fisheries to be assessed. The decision on enhanced fisheries draws a line in the sand that will inform potential fisheries as to whether or not they are now in scope for an MSC assessment. We believe many new fisheries will now move forward into assessment process now we have this clarification.”
The MSC will closely follow assessments of enhanced fisheries to ensure consistency of approach. In some instances new guidance will be required as part of the full assessment process to ensure that the fishery impacts can be assessed. MSC will develop this guidance including broad consultation with key stakeholders. This work will also be informed by past, ongoing and future assessments and will be conducted over the next 6-24 months.
