Charities and non-profit organisations have warned the Marine Stewardship Council it could lose its reputation as a committed support of sustainable seafood because changes to its certification programme do not go far enough.
WWF, The Pew Charitable Trusts, BirdLife Marine Programme, The Nature Conservancy, Ecology Action Centre, Earthworm Foundation, IPNLF and Sharkproject warn that MSC has missed the opportunity with the current revisions to the Fisheries Standard to effect real progress in ocean conservation.
The five main concerns are that:
- There are too many economic opt-outs of protections to endangered and vulnerable species
- The requirements to improve fisheries management are too lax
- Minimum thresholds for independent observation are under threat
- The proposed ‘fins naturally attached’ requirement to protect sharks is ambiguous
- Certifying bodies have too much discretion owing to ambiguity and loopholes in the standard.
“For a certification scheme to retain its credibility, it must have sufficient procedures and checks and balances in place to ensure that audits are carried out consistently and that outcomes are credible and rigorous in the eyes of consumers,” said Martin Purves, IPNLF.
“The proposal by the MSC to increase the ability of conformity assessment bodies to exercise ‘expert judgement’ circumvents the MSC intent of independence and will call into question the fairness and credibility of the certification process.”
The current review began in 2018 and is now out for public consultation. In May, these same groups sent a letter to the MSC’s Technical Advisory Board and Stakeholder Advisory Council expressing their concern.
