German processor Royal Frysk Muscheln GmbH has agreed to fund the assessment of three Danish blue mussel fishing vessels against the MSC standard for well-managed and sustainable fisheries.
Moody Marine Ltd will undertake the assessment and estimates that the process will take 10 months to complete.
If the fishery is successful in meeting the standard, the harvest of all three vessels will be eligible to carry the MSC’s blue ecolabel.
The assessment will focus on the following areas: the status of the blue mussel stock; the impact of the fishery’s operations on the wider marine ecosystem; and the fishery’s management system.
“The sustainability of the mussel fishery is the highest priority for our processing business. Our profession will only have a future if we manage to preserve the mussel stocks,” explains Stephan Tack, Executive Director at Royal Frysk Muscheln. “That is why we have set ourselves the ambitious goal of getting the three Danish mussel vessels MSC certified. We hope to be able to provide our clients with MSC-labelled products from this fishery in the near future.”
The fishing grounds of the three vessels are located along the eastern coast of Jutland, Denmark. Last year, the landings of the three vessels totalled 5,790t, which accounted for 88% of the total blue mussel landings of eastern Jutland. Fishing for blue mussels is conducted between March-May and September-mid December. Each year, the Danish Fisheries Directorate sets a quota for the blue mussel fisheries. The current quota per fishing vessel and week amounts to 300t.
The fishery is managed by the Danish Commission of Commercial Fisheries. The management is informed by regularly analysed biological data and geographic information systems that are used to map the spread and development of the various mussel stocks. The data derived from these tools helps in directing fishing efforts to the most productive mussel beds. The fishers contribute to a precautionary management of their fishery through various measures and have voluntarily reduced the fishing quota to 150t per vessel.
