Small is beautiful but big is certified

A new paper published by Frederic Le Manach (Bloom), Jennifer Jacquet (New York University), Megan Bailey (Dalhousie University), Charlène Jouanneau (Consultant), and Claire Nouvian (Bloom) reveals substantial gaps between the reality on the water and the image MSC wants to present to the public. While the visuals on their reports and social media postings mostly show small fishing boats and local community fisheries, the reality is that 83% of all MSC-certified seafood (by volume) is caught by large industrial fishing vessels! Pictures of small scale, coastal fisheries with low impact gear obviously appeal much more to people trying to purchase sustainable seafood. Most of them might not be aware that their shopping actually supports huge industrial fishing fleets and some of the most destructive fishing methods, like bottom trawl and dredging.

Bloom has also produced an advocacy version of the paper called The Sham of the MSC that highlights additional concerns.

View the Paper

Deutsche Version

Make Stewardship Count announces release of “Transparency of stakeholder engagement and decision making in the Marine Stewardship Council: Concerns and recommendations.”

The paper highlights the key concerns we have and offers a range of solutions for the MSC to improve transparency and trust, drawing from the leading literature on consultation and partnerships, as well as past experiences of engagement with MSC by groups across our coalition and other stakeholders we engage with.

We hope that you will follow our recommendations to help ensure that the upcoming consultations on the Fisheries Standard Review are a positive and valuable experience for everyone involved.

Download PDF (559 KB)

Stakeholder-Transparency-Briefing—Online

Make Stewardship Count
Steering Committee

Who we are:

Shannon Arnold, Dr. Cat Dorey,
Kate O’Connell, Dr Iris Ziegler

Meet The Steering Committee

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) label, the most recognized seafood sustainability eco-label, is increasingly being awarded to fisheries that routinely catch thousands of vulnerable marine animals; discard excessive amounts of sealife as waste; irreversibly destroy sea floor habitats; and continue to catch overfished species.

We are calling for urgent and swift changes to the MSC certification standard in order to uphold the scientific rigour, transparency, and original vision of the seafood label as well as its promise to consumers and retailers that it is the ‘gold standard of sustainability’.

A growing number of marine conservation organizations, leading academics and researchers, animal protection organizations, and individuals working towards sustainable seafood options have joined this call and undertaken analyses to advise MSC on specific changes needed to the certification.

See all partners below.

Open Letter

We sent an open letter to the MSC on January 19th, 2018 and look forward to working with MSC to move swiftly to address the flaws in the certification standard that allow fisheries with widely unacceptable impacts to be certified.

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Critical Improvements needed for MSC's Principle 2

These MSC certified fisheries have been widely controversial and considered unsustainable by many stakeholders.They demonstrate the imperative for the changes called for above

download pdf

Case studies now available in English and German language for download

Download Case Studies

01 2019 – Finned silky shark
01 2019 – Trapped Salvin’s albatross
01 2019 – Stock crashes and environmental destruction
01 2019 – Hooked sea turtles
01 2019 – The North Atlantic right whale

Fallbeispiele zum Herunterladen

01 2019 – Finning von Seidenhaien
01 2019 – Gefangene Salvin-Albatrosse
01 2019 – Dramatische Bestandseinbrüche und Umweltzerstörung
01 2019 – Meeresschildkröten, die an den Haken verenden
01 2019 – Der Atlantische Nordkaperwal

ENGLISH
DEUTSCH

ENGLISH

Critical requirements to improve the MSC

These required improvements emerge from research and analysis undertaken by non-government organizations and academics focused on marine conservation and seafood certification and are aimed at improving Principle 2 of the MSC Standard as well as the certification procedure to ensure credibility and impartiality. They stem from our involvement as stakeholders in a range of MSC certifications, which have given rise to concerns with the MSC Standard and its application.

To see full technical details of each of the requested changes
(download the pdf)

1 Ensure that the full ecological impacts of a certified fishery are assessed and progressively improved and fisheries are not wasteful of marine lives and resources.

2Ensure that the entirety of the certified fishery methods, gear, and catch are sustainable and that all “main species” of a catch are managed equally to the target species.

3Ensure that MSC certified fisheries do not destroy seafloor biodiversity, and that the MSC Standard is consistent with internationally accepted fisheries management standards.

4Ensure that the sustainability claim of MSC certified fisheries is evidence based and transparent for all of the data used for decision making in the assessments and audits of fisheries.

5Ensure that condition-based certification is resolved prior to recertification.

6Ensure that the certification assessment and audit process are impartial.

7The MSC must proactively uphold the scientific rigour and goals of the program.

DEUTSCH

Wesentliche Forderungen zur Verbesserung des MSC

Die geforderten Verbesserungen resultieren aus Untersuchungen und deren Analyse durch Umweltschutzorganisationen und Wissenschaftler aus dem Bereich des Meeresschutzes und der Nachhaltigkeitszertifizierung von Fisch und Meeresfrüchten. Die Forderungen beziehen sich sowohl auf eine Verbesserung des „Principle 2“ (Beifang und Ökosystem) als auch auf die Verbesserung des Zertifizierungsprozedere in Hinblick auf Glaubwürdigkeit und Unparteilichkeit. Sie resultieren aus unserer Beteiligung als Interessenvertreter in einer Reihe von MSC Zertifizierungen, die zu Bedenken gegenüber dem MSC Zertifizierungsstandard und seiner Anwendung geführt haben.

Um die gesamte Liste mit den Details zu den geforderten Verbesserungen zu sehen laden Sie bitte den pdf in Englischer Sprache herunter

1Die gesamte Auswirkungen der zu zertifizierenden Fischerei auf das marine Ökosystem sind zu bewerten und diese Auswirkungen müssen schrittweise reduziert werden um den sinnlosen Tod von Meeresbewohnern als Beifang und die Verschwendung marine Ressourcen zu vermieden.

2Alle Fangaktivitäten (Methoden und Fangeräte) einer Fischerei müssen für den gesamten Fang nachhaltig sein und alle Arten die den Hauptanteil des Fanges ausmachen müssen ebenso nachhaltig bewirtschaftet werden wie die zu zertifizierende Zielspezies.

3MSC-zertifizierte Fischereien dürfen nicht zur Zerstörung der Artenvielfalt der Lebensräume am Meeresboden beitragen und der MSC Standard muss die international anerkannten Bestimmungen für Fischereimanagement implementieren.

4Die Zertifizierung von Fischereien als nachhaltig muss beweisgestützt und transparent erfolgen. Dies gilt für sämtliche Daten die zur Zertifizierungsentscheidung bei Bewertungen oder Audits von Fischereien herangezogen werden.

5Ist eine Fischerei unter Auflagen zertifiziert worden, so müssen diese spätestens vor der ersten Re-Zertifizierung vollständig erfüllt sein.

6Die Bewertung einer Fischerei sowie die durchgeführten Audits müssen vollständig unparteiisch erfolgen können.

7Das MSC muss den Stand der Wissenschaft pro-aktiv implementieren und die Nachhaltigkeitsansprüche seines Programms umsetzen.