Biggest MSC Tuna Certification Getting Close - ISSF opposes: “The World Will Have To Wait”ff

By Atuna

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has made public that it has started the final assessment process for the most ambitious and important certification of sustainable tuna fisheries done so far in the world tuna industry. The draft assessment will cover the purse seine fisheries for free school and log set skipjack for the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) in the Western and Central Pacific. If approved this Pacifical fishery could provide hundreds of thousands of tons of MSC certified skipjack for the world canning industry.

In a first reaction, the powerful International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF), has made public a statement in which it declares to be opposed to MSC certification and announces a delay in the assessment process,  being a stakeholder. “…it won’t happen overnight”, writes ISSF-president Susan Jackson on her blog about the MSC certification for the PNA skipjack.

The assessment of the PNA fisheries, on request of the 8 countries that signed the agreement, forms part of the ambitions of these Pacifical Island states to maintain their stock of skipjack and fish it in a sustainable way. The PNA-countries already implemented special measures to limit the fisheries of this stock, which represents about 20% of the raw material supply to the global canning industry.

In a quickly released and strong statement ISSF, the powerful coalition of leading tuna industry companies and WWF, declares its fundamental disagreement with a possible MSC certification of the PNA skipjack. ISSF questions if the assessors appropriately took into account the regional fishery management organization (RFMO) responsible for the stock of skipjack being assessed. It also doubts if there is verifiable separation of tuna once onboard since all purse seine vessels tend to fish on both fish aggregating devices (FAD’s) and free-swimming schools in any given trip. FAD fishing is not possible under MSC certification. “Is there a strict and verifiable definition for what a FAD-free catch is? How did assessors score the impact on and health of other retained species and by catch?”, Susan Jackson writes.

The assessment status is now that for a period of 30 days commentaries can be made on the Draft Report PNA Western and Pacific skipjack. Being one of the stakeholders ISSF warns that ‘the world will have to wait’ before the certification is approved. Jackson also put some doubts if the MSC certificate as such will make the PNA fisheries more sustainable anyway. “…it’s important for everyone to acknowledge that a certification process and subsequent ecolabel will not help less sustainable fisheries improve. Action will. For that, we all need to roll up our sleeves and work together on the issues needing improvement. Like the MSC assessment process, it won’t happen overnight.”

On March 3rd ISSF also objected to the MSC assessment of the New Zealand Albacore fisheries , and November 2010 ISSF said that the credibility of MSC in tuna was on the line, and they also expressed that “coalitions like ours give the future of tuna stocks a better shot”.