A review of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has been launched by the On The Hook campaign, with the stakeholder group stating that while the fishery certification programme has a “vital role to play” in global ocean governance, it is nevertheless failing to deliver on its vision of an “ocean teeming with life”.
On The Hook, which was launched in 2017 amidst growing concerns from conservationists, academics, industry and retailers that the MSC programme was rewarding some unsustainable practices and fisheries and not living up to its aforementioned vision, is now calling on all stakeholders to share their views on MSC’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as solutions for improvement, by participating in an online consultation.
The consultation will be followed by a series of roundtable discussions to expand on themes raised.
Input from both exercises will be collated and summarised in a report by MarFishEco Consultants CEO Dr Andrew Johnson, containing recommendations to MSC.
On The Hook campaign member and Professor of Marine Conservation at University of Exeter, Professor Callum Roberts, said, “MSC has taken small positive steps, such as banning certifying one part of a fishery while letting boats continue unsustainable practices, and strengthening requirements on shark finning. However, many of its proposed updates are piecemeal, weak, and lack teeth.”
Another member, Executive Director of Blue Marine Foundation, Charles Clover, commented that in the face of climate and biodiversity crises, it is more important than ever that MSC serves to guide consumers towards genuinely sustainable choices and incentivises improvements across the fishing industry.
“Some MSC-certified fisheries do represent the best in the sector, but others do not. MSC has not kept pace with best practice and has not set the bar for certification high enough. We are increasingly concerned that MSC is greenwashing high-impact industrial fisheries while remaining largely inaccessible to small-scale, developing-world fisheries,” he said.
Explaining why it has launched its own external review, On The Hook said that it has called on the MSC numerous times to initiate an external independent review of itself – looking at both its standards and its wider business model, but that the non-profit organisation had refused.
“MSC can play a critical role in protecting our ocean, but only if its certification process is transparent, robust and credible. In too many recent instances, it has fallen short of that,” said Steve Trent, founder and CEO of the Environmental Justice Foundation and On The Hook member. “We therefore support this participatory third-party review. It offers the most practical route to comprehensively identify key issues and formulating initial workable and widely-supported solutions.
“While we had hoped MSC would have initiated such a process themselves, we do not believe this can wait any longer – so we have launched our review today in an effort to drive that process,” Trent said.
Responding to the announcement of the review, an MSC spokesperson told World Fishing & Aquaculture, ”We are disappointed that On the Hook has taken the step of launching its own review of the MSC. We see this as unnecessary and a distraction, given the scale of the challenges facing the ocean. The Marine Stewardship Council is just finishing a review of its Fisheries Standard – a careful and thorough process which has involved over 1,000 stakeholders, the most extensive consultation ever undertaken by the organisation. The MSC’s review is likely to result in significant changes to the programme, including for example, greater protection for endangered, threatened and protected marine species.
”Far from being an organisation which is not subject to independent scrutiny, the MSC is regularly assessed against international standards for seafood sustainability and independent ecolabels, in line with United Nations requirements. We frequently engage and learn from stakeholders – including On the Hook – and this is integral to the success of our programme. However, we disagree with On the Hook’s starting point that the MSC is not effective at driving progress in sustainable fishing, which pre-empts any findings of an external review. We see this campaign as an unwelcome diversion from the real task of ending global overfishing.”
On The Hook’s members comprise: Bloom, Blue Marine Foundation, Blue Ventures, Environmental Justice Foundation, FairFish International, Fish4Ever, Island Conservation Society, Shark Guardian, SharkProject, WildAid, Woolworths, World Wise Foods, John McNally MP, Prof Callum Roberts, Prof Jennifer Jacquet and Blue Seas Protection. The campaign is funded by its members, with the majority of financial contributions provided by World Wise Foods.
