EFTA02690254.pdf

nature Vol 467 2 September 2010 OPI \ 10 \ Seafood stewardship in crisis The main consumer-targeted certification scheme for sustainable fisheries is failing to protect the environment and needs radical reform, sayJennifer Jacquet, Daniel Pauly and colleagues. growing number of consumers want in the chain from "boat to plate" must be certi- MSC lowered the maximum fee to £5,000. A to eat seafood without feeling guilty. Enter the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), which purports to certify sustainable fied for traceability. The MSC became an inde- pendent, non-profit organization in 1999. From 2000 to 2004, the MSC certified six When a formal objection is filed, an independ- ent adjudicator — a lawyer, rather than a sci- entist — steps in. The MSC states: "It is not the fisheries and provides a label for sustainable fisheries, which together produced about half purpose of theObjections Procedure to review products to "promote the best environmental a million tonnes of seafood annually. The cer- the subject fishery against the MSC Principles choice in seafood". The MSC is growing rap- tification rate has since boomed as commercial and Criteria for Sustainable Fisheries, but to idly; the organization is also rapidly failing on interest in the scheme rose. In 2006, Wal-Mart determine whether the certification body made its promise. pledged to sell only MSC-certified wild-capture an error? We feel that this is a mistake. Of the The MSC has become the world's most estab- fish in its North American market by 2010. four adjudicators appointed by the MSC, only lished fisheries certifier: 94 fisheries are cur- Today, MSC certifications cover 6.3 million two have experience in fisheries management rently MSC-certified, accounting for about 7% tonnes ofseafood per year (see graph). mentioned in their MSC biographies. In our of global catch, and about 118 more are under view, more should be done to ensure that the assessment. MSC-certified seafood products, BOOMING BUSINESS objection process gets to the heart of biological identified with a blue check-mark label, pack Low-impact fisheries remain a tiny pact ot the issues, rather than bureaucratic ones. Marine Stewardship CouncErs certified catch the shelves of stores such as Wal-Mart, Whole Foods Market and Waitrose. Although other t 6• Impact of fishing methods Generous interpretation certification schemes exist, such as Friend on habitat and bycatch Some MSC-certified fisheries, such as the one of the Sea based in Milan, Italy, the MSC is 1 S. • High Medium • Low for five species of Alaska salmon (Oncorhyn- taken most seriously by scientists. The MSC is .3 4- chus spp.), do adhere to — or even exceed praised in Jared Diamond's bookCollapst: How — the principles that underlie the MSC's Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed(200S), and 3- certification scheme. It is our assessment that is featured as a solution to declining fish stocks ° many others do not. ti 2 in the 2009 film The End ofthe fine. The largest MSC-certified fishery, with However, objections to MSC certifications an annual catch of I million tonnes, is the aregrowing. Scores ofscientists (including our- US trawl fishery for pollock (Themgm chat- selves) and many conservation groups, includ- 0 cogramma) in the eastern Bering Sea. It was 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 ing Greenpeacc. the Pew Environment Group certified in 2005, and recommended for recer- Accred from refs Iwo hihnimethofr .nereeerliteirlied and some national branches of the WW F. have hem low to erc4vm enpect becsne of problem> with bycack tification this summer, despite the fact that protested over various MSC procedures orcer- the spawning biomass of those pollock fell by tifications. We believe that, as the MSC increas- The MSC had a budget in 2008-09 of £Smil- 64% between 2004 and 2009 (ref. 2). The MSC ingly risks its credibility, the planet risks losing lion (US$13 million), mostly from charitable expects the stock to rebound. Similar declines more wild fish and healthy marine ecosystems. donations. To seek certification, a self-defined in biomass can be found in other MSC fish- This can be turned around only if the MSC fishery (represented by companies or govern- eries. including the Pacific hake (Merluccius creates more stringent standards, cracksdown ment bodies) chooses an accredited for-profit products), which was certified in 2009 despite on arguably loose interpretation of its rules, consultancy to perform an assessment. Media a population decline of 89% since a peak in and alters its process to avoid a potential finan- reports show that the fees are about $15,000- the late 1980s (ref. 3). Part of the reason for cial incentive to certify large fisheries. 150,000 per fishery, and about S75,000 for this may lie in what we sec as loose wording annual audits. Accreditation Services Interna- in the MSC criteria. The organization states: From boat to plate tional, a company in Bonn. Germany, oversees "for those populations that are depleted, the Thc MSC, based in London, was founded in the assessors, who use an open-to-the-public fishery must be conducted in a manner that 1997 by the WWF and Unilever. one of the system involving independent scientists, input demonstrably leads to their recovery? We world's largest seafood retailers. The MSC from stakeholders and external peer review. believe that this needs to change to prevent the designed a set ofecological criteria' that had The process takes months or years and hun- potential for overly generous interpretations of the support of many scientists, including dreds ofdocumented pages to complete. a fishery's future sustainability. Certification authors D.P. and S.H., who advised the MSC as Nevertheless, we have concerns about the should not be granted until a fishery is shown it was starting up. It abides by three main prin- process. In our view, the certification system to be actually sustainable. ciples. Fisheries must operate so that: fishing creates a potential financial conflict of inter- In 2009. the MSC-accredited assessor can continue indefinitely without overexploit- est, because certifiers that leniently interpret Moody Marine in Derby, UK. recommended ing the resources; the productivity of the eco- existing criteria might expect to receive more certification of the Antarctic toothfish (Dissos- system is preserved; and all local, national and work and profit from ongoing annual audits. tidtus mawsone), marketed as Chilean sea bass. international laws are upheld. In addition, for a Objecting to an assessment comes at a cost: As always, this certification would be subject product to carry an MSC label, every company up to £15,000 until August 2010, when the to ongoing monitoring and review. Yet almost 28 x'^ 2010 Macrrellan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved EFTA R1_02030125 EFTA02690254 NATURE Vol 467 2 September 2010 Many scientists, and conservation groups including Greenpeace and national MIMIF branches, have objected to various MX certifications. nothing is known about this fish: no eggs or revised standards. In 2009, the European States and Europe is sourced, and where small larvae have ever been collected. TheCommis- supermarket chain Waitrose refused to buy or fisheries are often based. The terrestrial analogue sion for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine sell MSC-certified New Zealand hold (Macru- of the MSC, the Forest Stewardship Council, has Living Resources, which oversees fishing in ronus novaczelandiae) because the fishery five ofits nine board members from developing the Southern Ocean, classifies the Antarctic concerned uses bottom trawling. In May 2010, countries.None of the MSCs 13 board members toothfish fishery as "exploratory" because of Whole Foods stopped selling fish-oil supple- is from the developing world. the lack of knowledge. An objection was filed ments made from krill, despite MSC certifica- The MSC can still fulfil its promise to rep- in December 2009 by the Antarctic and South- tion, because ofconcerns about sustainability. resent, as it claims, "the best environmental ern Ocean Coalition; as these pages went to choice" — if It undergoes major reform. If it press, a ruling was expected soon. Slow drift does not change, there are better, more effec- In May 2010, again after an assessment by We believe that the incentives of the market tive ways to spend ES million, such as lobby- Moody Marine, the MSC certified the few have led the MSC certification scheme away ing to eliminate harmful fisheries subsidies, or boats operated by the company AkerBioma- from its original goal, towards promoting the creating marine protected areas. These steps rine in its fishery of Antarctic krill (Euphausia certification of ever-larger capital-intensive would do more to help the oceans. • superba). The MSC notes that less than 1% of operations. Small fisheries that use highly Jennifer Jacquet and Daniel Pauly are with the krill are currently under pressure from fishing. selective, low-impact techniques, such as hook- Sea Around Us Project at the University of British But we feel that more important data come and-line fishing or hand picking, are often sus- Columbia Fisheries Centre, Vancouver. British from a 2004 paper in Nature showing a long- tainable, but make up only a tiny fraction of Columbia V6T 124, Canada. David Ainley is a term decline in krill populations, as well as a MSC-certified fisheries (see graph). The MSC marine ecologist at H. T. Harvey& Associates, link between the depletion ofkrill and declin- does do outreach in the developing world, Los Gatos, California 95032, USA. Sidney Holt ing sea ice in an area highly sensitive to climate provides grants and, in 2007, created a pilot is a marine scientist specializing in fisheries change. Even more importantly in programme to encourage the cer- management who resides in Umbria, Italy. our view, much of the krill caught "Creating marine tification of small-scale and data- Paul Dayton and Jeremy Jackson are marine is destined not for consumer pur- chase but for fishmeal, to feed protected areas deficient fisheries. But we feel that this is too little too late. Although ecologists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California factory-farmed fish, pigs and would do more to several fisheries are under assess- San Diego, La Jolla, California 92037, USA. chickens. We propose that any help the oceans?' ment, only one small-scale oper- e-mail: jjacquet@fisheries.ubc.ca fishery undertaken for fishmeal ation in the developing world The authors declare competing interests: details should not be viewed as responsible or sustain- — a Vietnam Ben Tie clam (Meretrix !pinta) accompany the article at goretvre.corn/P5P7t7. able, and should not qualify for MSC certifica- fishery — is currently MSC certified. tion. At present, the MSC assessment rules do Different models ofcertification might help I. Marine Stewardship Card.Priicipks andCdtedo for Sustanoble Fisl*g(2010): avaslabt at go nalute not consider the end-use ofa product. to redress this balance. For products such as IJT46uo Other amendments to the MSC rules would coffee in the Fairtrade scheme, for example, 2. lanelli.I. N.et el Assessment of the WorleyePeak Stock in our opinion strengthen its commitment to certification is available only to cooperatives in the foaem&ft Sec 2009 (Alaska Ash.'ies Science center. 2009); walolie at go nature cemiTu.an its own principles. The MSC already prohibits of small producers; large plantations are not 3. Feshenes and Oceans CanaclaConalran Assessment of the certification of fisheries that use dynamite eligible. This helps to correct for market advan- Pacific HakeinU.5 and Conaban Waters m 2009(2009): and poison. It should also ban other destruc- tages held by larger companies. available at go.naturr com/coUGUY 4. Atkinson. A Steger. V. Pathornov. E.& Rothery.P.Natuse tive practices, such as those types of bottom It might be easier to push for some of these 432,100-103 (2004). trawling that have a high impact on habitat and changes if the MSC hoard had better represen- 5. Chuenpagdoe R., Morgan,L E.. Mansell. S. ht. Norse. EA on fish other than the target species`. tation from the developing world, where more & Pauly, D. Port EcotEmiron.10, 517-524 (2003). There are signs that retailers might support than half of the seafood eaten in the United See News, page15. 29 I` 2010 Macmillan Publishers Limited All rights reserved EFTA_R1_02030126 EFTA02690255