December 15, 2020 — The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) announced in early December that it would suspend its certification of Atlanto-Scandic herring and blue whiting fisheries as of Dec. 30, affecting eight certificates across European fisheries. This follows the suspension of the MSC certificate on mackerel fisheries in the Northeast Atlantic in 2019.
This had been expected for quite some time and the action taken by all involved stakeholders, starting with the MSC certificate holders (i.e. the fishing industry), including other industry representatives, during the last years, was sadly not enough.
What does it mean, really?
Let us be clear: the MSC suspension does not reflect an issue related to illegal, unreported or unregulated (IUU) fishing at an individual fishery level. No one has overfished their allocated quota.