The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has released the Terms of Reference for its next Fisheries Standard Review.
The areas for review in the Terms of Reference are divided into three sections: Standard efficiency, Standard effectiveness and Standard evolution. They will be looked at in detail and possibly revised, over the next three years.
Dr Rohan Currey, Fisheries Standard director, said: “As well as ensuring that performance levels are set appropriately in key areas, the accessibly and effectiveness of the Standard will be reviewed with the aim to achieve sustainability outcomes while reducing complexity and barriers to participation.
“The MSC is committed to the inclusion of underrepresented stakeholders in the FSR, and impact testing will form an important part of the review.”
What is involved?
Reviewing Standard efficiency will involve looking at the structure of the MSC Fisheries Standard and identifying redundancy or overlap in the scoring system. It will also focus on ways to reduce the complexity of the Standard and improve its compatibility with new digital tools that could improve data management.
The Standard effectiveness review will examine the application of the Standard by assessors, with a particular focus on consistency. Existing tools for assessing data limited fisheries will also be included in this section.
Standard evolution will focus on where the MSC Fisheries Standard sets performance levels for sustainability with the aim of ensuring that this is set appropriately. In this section, the review will focus on areas such as how interactions with endangered, threatened and protected species are addressed by the Standard. Governance, including illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, will additionally be looked at.
This part of the review will also determine the appropriateness of the MSC Fisheries Standard for assessing the sustainability of certain species like squid and octopus.
