MSC certification for North Sea saithe is to be suspended as of 30th June, and this applies to all saithe caught in ICES areas 4, 6 and 3a, which includes the North Sea, Rockall, the area west of Scotland, Skagerrak and Kattegat.
Tor Bjørklund Larsen at the Norwegian Fishermen’s Association commented that the background to the suspension is revised ICES advice from 2024, which placed the stock below Bpa and the fishing mortality at Fmsy.
‘These are technical terms that are a downgrade from previous assessments of the population in question. This triggers a requirement in the MSC standard to document a viable recovery plan, which is made difficult when fish mortality is still high,’ he said, adding that there are no changes for saithe catches north of the 62°N line in ICES areas I and II – which is where the bulk of saithe from Norwegian waters is caught.
‘The Norwegian Fishermen’s Association understands that this is a borderline case, and we understand that our certification company, Control Union, shared this view. The MSC standard allows for a transition period for management to adapt to new reference points based on an ICES benchmark,’ he said.
‘However, this view was not shared by any of the other certification bodies that assessed similar fisheries in the EU. The MSC requires harmonisation across certificates, and in such processes the most conservative interpretation should always apply. The Norwegian Fishermen’s Association is critical of how this practice creates high risk and unpredictability for fisheries that are otherwise responsibly managed, and where there are no acute sustainability challenges,’ Tor Bjørklund Larsen said.
As a result of the certitication suspension, saithe caught in the North Sea can not be labelled as having been sustainably caught, and Tor Bjørklund Larsen commented that it’s difficult to predict what immediate effect this may have – if any – in a market with a high demand for fish.
‘We are confident that the management of the coastal states around the North Sea will bring the saithe stock back to a level that will give us back the MSC certificate. At the same time, we hope for a sustainability standard in the future that provides greater predictability,’ he said.
