Photo credit: Make Stewardship Count
Co-founded by SeaChoice in 2018, Make Stewardship Count is coalition of more than 90 marine conservation experts, organisations, and researchers from around the world who engage with the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) to advance improvements in the certification.
The coalition has been heavily engaged in the MSC Fisheries Standard Review (FSR) since it began. After 5 years, the MSC published their new revised V3.0 Fisheries Standard on October 262022, which will be in place for at least the next decade. Make Stewardship Count has reacted to the results of the review with their initial take on the Standard.
MSC certification aims to cover all fisheries – whether large-scale industrial or small artisanal, across all gear types, many management systems and thousands of species – almost inevitably making it a mixed bag for outcomes. The coalition has primarily focused on how the certification assesses bycatch and wasteful fishing, impacts on species at risk and ecosystems, and monitoring high impact/high-risk fishing.
While there are improvements in the new Standard, it remains riddled with ways fisheries can undermine the intention of these requirements. Ultimately, high-impact fishing gear types that many experts would not define as sustainable will continue to be certified.
According to the coalition, the MSC has chosen a lower bar for impacts on endangered, threatened and protected (ETP) species, monitoring of fishing practices and catch, and sustainable management objectives.
A notable improvement is the inclusion of a strict Fins Naturally Attached (FNA) policy for all sharks landed by fisheries. FNA is the globally recognized best practice which SeaChoice and many stakeholders have called on MSC to require for more than a decade.
The new Standard and related documents are still under comprehensive review by the coalition to confirm the full details of changes. Please follow Make Stewardship Count to learn about their final scorecard on the Standard contents, the Review process and more details about the new V3.0 MSC Fisheries Standard.
