The MSC Standard should reflect global best practices in fisheries management and drive positive change on the water. Since 2018, we have watched to see how the current Fisheries Standard Review (FSR) will address the critical flaws the Make Stewardship Count coalition of experts has identified in the current Standard. Now that the FSR is complete, does the revised Standard meet expectations to ensure that certified fisheries reduce their ecological impacts?
April 2023
This rating covers the entire review process, taking into account our 3 previous rounds of scorecards, and including the 2022 public consultation phase of the FSR. The multi-year review included several meetings with stakeholders, workshops, webinars and surveys. The most recent phase of the FSR in 2022 included a 60-day public consultation survey on the draft Fisheries Standard content, and several webinars intended to introduce the Standard.
Meets Expectations Improving Below Expectations NOTE: Click on each “finger icon” for more information.
- Cumulative impact assessment required for all species caught by ALL fisheries (MSC and non MSC) in the same area
- Cumulative impacts of total catch for all fisheries of Endangered, Threatened and Protected species (ETP) are assessed at the 100 level only. The weak definition of when the fishery under assessment (UoA) or multiple MSC fisheries are ‘hindering recovery’ combined with a threshold requiring any MSC fisheries to be responsible for at least 30% of the catch (same as previous Standard) means that cumulative impact scoring is likely never going to be triggered and this requirement is unlikely to result in changes on the water.
- Application of precautionary principle and best science is used to designating a species as ‘Endangered, Threatened, Protected’
- MSC focused on designing a more systematic and stringent decision tree for the designation of species as ‘ETP’, an important step in an assessment to ensure a fishery is not worsening the condition of ETP species and that they cannot be a certified product.
- The ETP designation process has been significantly improved for clarity and consistency in the new Standard. Species listed on the IUCN Red List as Endangered and Critically Endangered are more clearly included along with Appendix 2 species of both CITES and CMS and those protected under national legislations.
- Unfortunately, species that have yet to be listed under national legislations but have been assessed as Endangered or Threatened by national level science bodies are still not included, nor if they are assessed as Vulnerable by IUCN (see below).
- Application of precautionary principle and best science is used to assess fishery impact on ETP species using Precautionary Principle
- The new Standard allows species designated as ETP to be considered for certification as an MSC product by introducing ‘modification factors’. These factors are not precautious enough and will likely allow economically valuable ETP species that are not well managed or recovering to enter certification. Make Stewardship Count and other experts repeatedly questioned MSC’s proposal to move ETP species into certification at all through modification factors and, ultimately, indicated several points of concern with the factors: Maximum sustainable yield (MSY) is not an appropriate target for ETP species management; acceptable management plans need to have both thresholds and targets, not just ‘be a plan’; clear evidence of recovery should be present; and all three ‘modification factors’ need to be passed, not just two of three. Given that all of the concerns we raised remain in the final Standard text released, Make Stewardship Count believes that this is not best practice for an ETP species recovery plan, and these modification factors may result in allowing commercially valuable species that remain at a depleted level to be certified.
- ETP species should be inclusive of, but not limited to, all IUCN Red List ‘threatened’ categories
- The new designation tree fails to consider all IUCN ‘threatened’ categories, leaving out ‘vulnerable’ species.
- Prerequisite for certification: bycatch must not exceed a risk based maximum percentage of catch
- Not included in the FSR terms of reference or in related workshops and consultations.
- Progressive reduction of bycatch during certification
• Conditions that define risk based annual bycatch reduction rates
• Verification of achieved bycatch reduction during surveillance audits- The new Standard requires fisheries to have management measures in place that are expected to “ensure that incidental catches of the ETP/OOS unit are ‘minimised’ and where possible eliminated” and to “ensure that the UoA does not hinder recovery to Favourable Conservation Status”. This is a substantial improvement in language in the scoring from the previous Standard, and indicates that there was an intent by MSC to ensure the continuous reduction of bycatch of ETP species, a critical requirement advocated by Make Stewardship Count.
- Unfortunately, the definitions in the Standard dictating whether a fishery is ‘minimising mortality’ or ‘hindering recovery’ and when a species has reached ‘Favourable Conservation Status’ are so weak that the intention of the scoring will be undermined. Many of the definitions are similar to those in the previous Standard which, more often than not, resulted in no changes in practices being required of certified fisheries, even when they continued to impact critically endangered species.
- Overall, while we applaud the new Standard for stating the intention of the MSC to reduce bycatch of ETP and unwanted catch by certified fisheries, their own guidance for assessment extensively undermines this intent. There are so many ‘opt out’ options built in that Make Stewardship Count predicts the new Standard will likely result in few, if any, mitigation measures to be implemented through certification conditions.
- Prerequisite for certification: no fishing methods that include the intentional encirclement of marine mammals or ETP species
- The draft Standard included a scope change that would have excluded fisheries that intentionally set on marine mammals, but this was removed in the final version. Although there is now a requirement at S80 to verify with a “high degree of certainty” that encircled mammals have a “favourable conservation status”, the definition of this favourable status and potential reference points to use may be difficult to determine, non-existent or inadequate to protect the species. Even if these reference points were adequate, the fact that the MSC endorses using marine mammals or other ETP species this way (essentially as live bait in some cases) falls far short of what the average person would consider sustainable or ethical fishing.
- Prerequisite for certification: All fisheries interacting with sharks (elasmobranchs) must have a ‘fins naturally attached’ (FNA) policy implemented and enforced
- A fins naturally attached (FNA) policy, without exception, was included in the new Fisheries Standard. This is considered global best practice to ensure that finning is not occurring, and we are pleased to see that MSC has adopted this policy for all fisheries seeking certification. The intention of the MSC as stated in the Standard is a high degree of certainty that fisheries have implemented a fins naturally attached policy before seeking certification.
- Unfortunately, the monitoring requirements to ensure that the FNA policy is adhered to are weak and may result in finning taking place on MSC-certified vessels. It is important that the MSC ensures compliance with this policy for it to be truly meaningful.
- All fishing practices used by the fishery must be assessed during certification
• Upon recertification all remaining fishing techniques have improved to the Standard- The revised Fisheries Certification Process (FCP) in 2019 ensured that certified fisheries will no longer be able to target a stock using both certified and non-certified fishing practices with the same gear (known as compartmentalisation).
- However, given there are still critical improvements needed to the Fisheries Standard, ending compartmentalization has yet to result in significant differences on the water for certified fisheries
- All ‘main’ species of the catch must meet the same criteria as target species (P1) even if discarded
- Main species are scored under Principle 2 ‘in-scope’ species in the new Standard. They do not require the same robust harvest control rules as Principle 1 (certified species).
- Overfishing (F>Fmsy) is prohibited for all ‘main’ species of the catch
- There was no change to the Standard to address this point.
- Prerequisite to Certification: No bottom fisheries in known or likely VME areas
- The new Standard does not include a prohibition on bottom contact fishing in VME areas (referred to by MSC as ‘more sensitive’ habitats) for certified fisheries.
- Benthic impacts must be reversible in less than 10 years
• Prerequisite to certification: 50% of benthic habitat type in a region closed to all fishing- This was not changed during the FSR. The definition for ‘irreversible damage’ remains as ‘recover in 20 years or more’ and protection or closure thresholds were not considered.
- Prerequisite for certification: risk based qualitative and quantitative data requirements exist for bycatch reporting
• Consistent data requirement for comparable fisheries- Although a risk based approach for the quality and extent of data required for bycatch reporting was discussed at several workshops during the Standard Review and received broad support from stakeholders, such an approach has not been adopted. A “Toolbox” defining the adequacy of data with regard to the qualitative trueness and the quantitative precision of data required for scoring of the bycatch scoring issues has been introduced as a new element for fisheries’ assessments instead.
- While different requirements apply at the SG60, SG80, and SG100 level for in-scope and ETP species bycatch, these requirements are not applied according to risk posed by different fishing gear, practices, or location, for example, but instead leave it to the expert judgement of the CAB to decide which level of ‘independent monitoring’ is considered as adequate. An initial draft proposing minimum threshold levels of ‘independent monitoring’ required for evaluation of precision based on species, interaction rates, and fisheries was, unfortunately, abandoned in the final Standard.
- The new Standard includes only one quantitative threshold for ‘independent monitoring’: 30% coverage for fisheries operating in the High Seas and managed by RFMOs and interacting with ETP species. Unfortunately, MSC again has likely undermined even this ‘requirement’ with assessment guidance that potentially allows less observer coverage in cases where the regional fisheries management body so deems it adequate.
- For fisheries that are not managed by RFMOs, the lack of risk based categories for fisheries and objectively verifiable criteria means assessors can define the adequate level of ‘independent observation’. This will likely result in different levels of monitoring for very similar fisheries and a corresponding lack of comparability.
- Upon request stakeholders must have access to all data used for scoring of fishery by CABs (including, inter alia, AIS, VMS, EM, observer raw data)
- The final Standard does not require CABs or fisheries to allow stakeholders to access all the information that CABs are using to assess a fishery.
- Peer review should be included in any annual audit where conditions are closed
• Possibility for stakeholder objection to surveillance audit outcomes- Conditions were addressed in the 2019 FCP (Fisheries Certification Process) Review.
- Peer review is now required, but stakeholder objection is still not possible.
- No recertification prior to verified fulfilment of all conditions
- Condition extension was tightened in the 2019 FCP review, however extension of conditions is still allowed in some circumstances.
Make Stewardship Count, other stakeholders, and researchers continue to raise concerns about CAB impartiality and MSC accountability as the Standard holder. Neither of the following topics has been taken up in the Fisheries Standard Review and MSC has ignored these concerns.
- Ensure impartiality of the assessment, certification and audit processes, CABs must be independently assigned
- Not addressed during FCP or announced for FSR.
- MSC must be proactive and intervene in case of urgent and obvious problems
- No evidence of improvement apparent so far.
