Certification of Seafood Products:Vision and Reality

Rainer Froeserfroese@geomar.de

2nd Hamburg International Environmental Law Conference12-13 September 2013, Hamburg, Germany

The Need for Labels

• 4,657 species of fishes are exploited by commercial fisheries (FishBase 08/2013)

• Most of these species occur in several stocks with different exploitation pressure

• There are many more non-fish seafood stocks• Keeping track of which stocks are in good status

and are exploited sustainably is beyond the capabilities of retailers and consumers

• Hence, there is a need for seafood certification

What Should Be the Rules?

The binding Law of the Sea requires that stocks are rebuilt to and maintained at levels that can produce the maximum sustainable yield MSY.The binding United Nations Fish Stock Agreement requires in addition that the precautionary principle is applied and that longterm fishing pressure is below the one that results in MSY.Non-binding FAO guidelines for ecolabeling of seafood require that certified seafood products stem from stocks that are not overexploited

MSY, Bmsy and Fmsy

• MSY is the maximum sustainable yield• Biomass (B) is the weight of the fish in the sea• Bmsy is the biomass that can produce MSY

• Fmsy is the fishing pressure that eventually results in Bmsy and MSY

• A stock is and remains in good status if B > Bmsy and F < Fmsy

Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)

• In April 2011 there were over 100 certified Fisheries in the MSC program, with thousands of seafood products in many countries

• Fisheries are certified not by MSC but by companies who are selected and paid by the fisheries

• MSC sets the rules and gets a share from sales

Friend of the Sea (FoS)

• Over 80 stocks certified in over 30 fisheries (April 2011)

• Fisheries are evaluated by small teams selected by FoS

Principles and Criteria

• MSC has an extensive framework of principles and criteria against which fisheries are scored

• FoS has a short, transparent list of mandatory criteria

• Both FoS and MSC use F < Fmsy and B > Bmsy , mandatory in FoS, required for score 80-100 in MSC (but score 60 in stock status is enough for conditional MSC certification).

Reality Check

• Froese & Proelss (2012) checked the status of all stocks certified in April 2011, 71 stocks for MSC and 76 for FoS

• For each stock we checked the certification reports as well as independent assessments to see whether F < Fmsy and B > Bmsy

Froese, R. and A. Proelss. 2012. Evaluation and legal assessment of certified seafood. Marine Policy 36:1284-1289

B > Bmsy ?

F < Fmsy ?

Reactions

• FoS has subsequently de-certified three of the red stocks

• MSC disputed the results and published ist own assessment, which however largely confirmed the results of Froese & Proelss

Froese, R. and A. Proelss. 2012. Is a stock overfished if it is depleted by overfishing? A response to the rebuttal of Agnew et al. to Froese and Proelss “Evaluation and legal assessment of certified seafood”. Marine Policy 38:548-550

If only stocks with available data are considered...

Conclusions in 2012

• Both FoS and MSC have to be much more rigorous in applying their criteria

• Especially MSC has to start de-certifying overfished stocks

• Despite the shortcomings, certified products are 3 (MSC) to 5 (FoS) times more likely to stem from not overexploited stocks than non-certified products

Reality Check in 2013

• North Sea Saithe („Nordsee Seelachs“) has been MSC certified since 2008

• Since then F was at or above Fmsy (instead below) and biomass has been declining

ICES Advice for North Sea SaitheJune 2013

Reality Check in 2013

• North Sea Saithe („Nordsee Seelachs“) has been MSC certified since 2008

• Since then F was at or above Fmsy (instead below) and biomass has been declining

• The German fishery on this stock has just been MSC-certified, stating: „The main strengths of this fishery are that the stock status is good and is consistent with the MSY approach to fisheries management.”

http://www.msc.org/track-a-fishery/fisheries-in-the-program/certified/north-east-atlantic/Germany-North-Sea-saithe-trawl/re-assessment-downloads-1/20130827_FR_SA148.pdf?utm_campaign=msc-fisheries-update_msc-fisheries-update-27-august-2013&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter

ICES Advice for North Sea SaitheJune 2013

MSC8060fail

Certification of Threatened Species

Conclusions 2013

• While MSC is giving some useful guidance towards stocks that are not in immediate danger of collapse, it clearly needs to change ist criteria to– withdraw certification if F > Fmsy – alert customers if B < Bmsy– withdraw certification if B remains < Bmsy, e.g. after

one generation time (5-8 years in most species)– Do not certify fisheries on species that are of general

conservation concern (e.g. threatened)

Thank You