The first annual audit for the MSC certified, PNA free school skipjack fishery will take place next month in Cairns, Australia. It’s a routine check-up and a chance for stakeholders to raise any possible concerns that they have about the fishery’s sustainability certification.
“The annual audit is to check progress on the client action plan related to the six conditions to certification and to review the fishery to ensure that there have been no substantive changes that call into question its sustainability,†explains Ian Scott, the lead assessor for the independent certification body, Intertek Moody Marine. Scott and Tony Lewis, another auditor, will be meeting with representatives of the fishery and fishery management organizations beginning Nov. 11.
The Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) are eight Pacific island countries that collectively have a quarter of the world’s tuna stocks in their waters. Last December, their free school skipjack purse seine fishery gained the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification, which means their tuna is sustainably caught.
In the 2011 assessment, six conditions were outlined that need to be met within five years of certification. Each year, the PNA must be able to show they have reached specific “milestones.†For the first year, this includes the identification and development of appropriate reference points and harvest control rules for the skipjack stock, and the review of observer and logsheet data to provide confidence that the current management measure for sharks will work.
