Star advertiser, September 18 2022
The Hawaiian Longline Association has been granted the MSC certification, covering deep-set tuna longline and shallow-set swordfish longline fisheries, and raising concerns around the legitimacy of the label. While the MSC program is meant to ensure that only truly sustainable fisheries are certified, this fishery has been criticised for its impact on bycatch species, and pushback against bycatch-reducing regulations.
Inga Gibson, policy director of Pono Advocacy LL highlighted the fishery’s flaws, especially when it comes to bycatch and says “This is a long-held complaint about MSC — that there is no oversight or ultimate accountability under the certification”.
Per the assessment found on the MSC website, the fishery has 19 conditions, only 3 of which must be met. But the fishery says that they are sustainable and have made improvements on their own.
Our thoughts: The certification of this fishery further shows that the significant improvements we have called for over the last several years, in particular with the reduction of bycatch, are mandatory for certifications to be credible and contribute to improvements on the water. Even if the new Fisheries Standard V3.0 will result in some improvements, it will be 2028 before already certified fisheries are required to adhere to these new requirements, and it is to be seen how these requirements will be applied by CABs in practice, a major critique we have raised from the start as weak definition and requirements allow CABs to use their “expert knowledge” to decide on how to interpret the requirements
