Saving Seafood

MSC launches improvement program to incentivize fisheries progress

November 5, 2024 — The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has launched a new venture designed to incentivize fisheries improvement and prepare them for certification.

The MSC Improved Program will accelerate the improvement of fisheries that do not currently meet the conditions of the MSC Fisheries Standard. According to MSC, the program will offer support and incentives to fisheries in exchange for following an independently verified action plan and making measurable improvements over a five-year period.

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ALASKA: Adjudicator rejects conservationists’ concerns, recommends MSC recertification of Alaska salmon

October 31, 2024 — An independent adjudicator in Canada has recommended the Alaska salmon fishery be recertified as sustainable under the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) Fishery Standard, rejecting objections raised by two conservation groups.

“This decision is disappointing and very misleading,” SkeenaWild Conservation Trust Fisheries Biologist Kaitlin Yehle said in a statement. “This is a fishery that does not adhere to internationally recognized best practices with respect to handling and release of bycatch species, basic catch monitoring and data collection, and is intercepting millions of south-migrating salmon from populations of conservation concern yet is marketed to consumers as ‘sustainable.’”

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Campaigner demands shake-up of certification schemes’ approach to labor abuse

August 12, 2024 — A U.K. NGO wants seafood sustainability certification programs to take better account of labor conditions within their standards.

Human Rights at Sea International Executive Director David Hammond said the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and other eco-labeling programs need to do a better job of setting fair labor conditions before allowing the sustainability of any fishery, chain of custody, or seafood product.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ISSF report finds more tuna stocks are sustainable

July 29, 2024 — A recently released report by the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) found the number of tuna stocks meeting Marine Stewardship Council fisheries standards and avoiding overfishing has increased in 2024.

The report, “An Evaluation of the Sustainability of Global Tuna Stocks Relative to Marine Stewardship Council Criteria,” determined 11 of the 23 major commercial tuna stocks worldwide are sufficiently avoiding overfishing and maintaining target stock biomass levels to meet MSC standards. That is an increase from the seven fisheries that met the standard in the ISSF’s report from March 2023.

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US senators, fishing industry level criticism at MSC for continued presence in Russia

July 10, 2024 — U.S. senators and key figures in the U.S. seafood industry are criticizing the Marine Stewardship Council’s (MSC) decision to continue allowing Russian fisheries – particularly Russian pollock – to keep their certifications in the face of economic sanctions.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the MSC announced it planned to continue to certify Russian pollock so long as it followed through on a plan to conduct more sustainable fishing. Other areas of the Russian pollock industry would go on to gain further MSC certification, but the MSC added at the time that the ongoing war would impact its certification of Russian fisheries, as some assurance providers’ work in the country became difficult.

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Marine Stewardship Council issuing amended Version 3.0 standard in July 2024

June 26, 2024 — The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) plans to release new technical amendments to its Version 3.0 standard in July 2024 that the organization said will help correct issues with its initial release.

The MSC originally released Version 3.0 in May 2023 after a review process that began in 2018. The review included the participation of over 1,000 stakeholders and was considered one of the most comprehensive reviews ever conducted by the organization.

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Op-ed: Human rights issues in the farmed seafood industry and the role of certification

April 23, 2024 — Chris Ninnes is CEO of the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) and previously served as deputy CEO and director of operations at the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC).

He has been chair of the ISEAL board since 2018 and chair of the Certification and Ratings Collaboration’s (CRC) Steering Committee since its inception in 2015. The Collaboration consists of the ASC, Fair Trade USA, MSC, Seafood Watch, and Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, working together to coordinate tools and increase impact so that more seafood producers move along a clear path toward environmental sustainability and social responsibility.

Ninnes’ op-ed was originally published on the ASC website.

The recent investigations uncovering human rights abuses in the farmed seafood industry, most recently in the shrimp industry in India, are very unsettling to read. While we all agree that these abuses should have no place in any industry, the reality is more stark and uncomfortable.

Human rights abuses can be found everywhere, and no system alone is perfect at eliminating all of them. The CRC’s data tool, which was originally developed to collate information about the environmental performance of seafood production from member assessments, now contains a global overview of key social metrics related to their occurrence. Shockingly, there is evidence of forced labor, child labor, or human trafficking within 65 percent of the countries assessed that are involved with 98 percent of seafood production. The frequency of these abuses differs by country, but such evidence is much harder to collect.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource