ISSF objects to skipjack certification

ISSF says that the objection finds that the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification assessment conducted by Moody Marine, Inc. contains serious procedural irregularities and errors along with arbitrary and unreasonable scoring.

ISSF’s analysis concluded that:

• The RFMO has been ineffective to date in implementing management measures. The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) mandates that any assessment of a fish stock includes a measure management organisation that has responsibility for a shared stock. ISSF says that, unfortunately, the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) has been unable to adopt effective conservation and management measures for stocks that are experiencing overfishing, such as bigeye tuna. Even healthy stocks, like skipjack, are not currently guaranteed to be managed according to MSC standards.
• The MSC assessment failed to meet requirement for public consultation. MSC requires that conditions under a certification go through a consultation process with all parties that would have to act in order for those conditions to be successfully completed. In this case, the assessment team did not consult all member nations of the WCPFC, a serious procedural irregularity that undermines the certainty that the certification conditions will be implemented.
• The assessment team made incorrect assumptions. The independent assessment team states that 70% of the skipjack stock falls under the management of PNA countries, and believes that because of this, the PNA can deliver sustainable management of tuna stocks even without action by the WCPFC. However, this is a misleading percentage. While a significant majority of the current skipjack catch is made in the waters of the PNA – mainly due to licensing arrangements for vessels to fish in their waters – the percentage does not reflect the abundance of the stock in their waters. A calculation based on the stock assessment adopted by the WCPFC Scientific Committee suggests that on average, as little as 25% of the stock inhabits PNA waters in any given year. But, even if 70% of the stock were in PNA waters at any point in time, many of the fish would move in and out of those waters thus becoming available to fisheries outside PNA waters. For this reason, the entire stock needs to be considered in accordance with MSC standards.
• The assessment uses insufficient and incorrect data. The MSC standards require that there be good information on all fishery removals from the stock under consideration. ISSF believes that in this case, the assessment team’s evaluation scores are too generous and unjustified, as there is no good detailed information on fishery removals from the skipjack stock for fisheries in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam. While the assessment team claims that the catches of skipjack tuna for these countries is 11% of the total, available data indicates that in recent years, Indonesia and the Philippines alone have on average accounted for 25% of the total catch, and as much as 32%. In the case of Vietnam, skipjack catches are not even known.
• Lack of target and limit reference points, and harvest control rules. These reference points and harvest control rules are the sound basis for modern fisheries management as reflected in the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fishing. However, the assessment team indicates that it would be sufficient for just the PNA to set them in their own waters. But doing so in PNA waters only would fail to take into account that fisheries operating outside PNA can be responsible for the stock not meeting the standard because of the highly migratory nature of skipjack. This assessment gives the impression that managing the stock throughout WCPFC’s range is optional. It is not optional, according to MSC standards.
• The MSC assessment is inconsistent across fisheries. The proposed PNA fishery overlaps with the Tosakatsuo Pole and Line Skipjack Fishery. The assessment team failed to harmonise its assessment and conditions with the Tosakatsuo fishery, in violation of MSC procedures.

All objections to the PNA assessment will be reviewed and ruled on by an independent adjudicator.