Imagine a World Without Seafood for Supper -- It's Nearer Than You Think

By Andrew Purvis, The Observer UK. Posted April 29, 2009.

In Norway and the US, "they respect the advice of scientists", he adds - the best example being New England, where stocks of ground fish were in serious decline in the mid-1990s, but enlightened management brought them back. "At Georges Bank, they created a closed area of 20,000 square kilometres that was off-limits to mobile fishing gear [such as trawl nets]," Professor Roberts explains. They also cut fishing effort by a draconian 50% - putting many fishermen out of business. In the past 10 years, however, there has been "a spectacular recovery" of key economic species, Roberts says. "The haddock has bounced back, the flounder has bounced back, the scallops have bounced back, so it has been a great success story."

What this demonstrates is that, where there is political will, the tide can be turned on overfishing. In the US, a piece of 1976 legislation called the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act has recently been reauthorised, requiring the industry to end overfishing in all federal waters by 2011. There is no such legislation in Europe. Under the existing Act, fisheries in Alaska and the North Pacific are already well managed - which is why wild Pacific salmon, Pacific cod and pollock from Alaska were prime candidates for certification by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), the international NGO that created a standard for sustainable fisheries in the late 1990s and upholds it. Why do these US fisheries tick all the boxes?

"They have very progressive management under the North Pacific Fishery Management Council," Professor Roberts says, "with precautionary targets - so they go for a relatively low fraction of the fish population each year. They have closures to protect habitats and valued species such as Steller sea lions and sea otters [which can get caught in fishing gear] plus extensive areas that are closed to protect deep-water corals from destruction by bottom trawling."The authorities also impose quotas for bycatch - other species caught by mistake - to protect them from exploitation.

These are the kinds of issues the MSC is looking at when certifying fisheries. So far, 43 have been certified, including 10 in Britain, while more than 100 are under assessment - but what exactly does that mean? "Right from the start, the idea was that fisheries would be independently assessed by a third party," says James Simpson, communications officer at the MSC, "so although we set the standard, we don't carry out the assessments. That is important, because it means we don't have any influence over the results."

Instead, marine scientists from certifying bodies such as Food Certification International and Moody Marine do the work, delving into every aspect of sustainability and producing a report up to 900 pages long. "They look at stock levels, based on historical records," says Simpson, "at the impact fishing is having on the environment and at the management plan for the fishery."

A score of 80 or more must be achieved against each of these three criteria for a fishery to be certified.

The initial assessment is peer-reviewed by fellow scientists, stakeholders such as environmental groups have their say - and the fishery gets to carry the eco-label on its products. "To do that, you have to be able to trace the fish all the way through the supply chain," says Simpson, "because you don't want any non-certified species or illegally caught fish slipping into an MSC batch."

The science may be rigorous, but will the MSC label change the world?

With some species, the label is making a big difference: 42% of the world's wild salmon catch is MSC-certified, and 40% of its prime white fish catch. Altogether, five million tonnes of seafood are certified by the MSC every year.

However, that is just five per cent of the wild-caught seafood market, which is why Professor Roberts believes the label itself "can only change a small number of well-informed people who actually care". The big effect, he says, is that supermarkets "have taken on board what the MSC is saying and have developed better fish sourcing policies of their own. They are the ones who can buy or not buy from a particular supplier, so they have a lot of power."

Sainsbury's - the largest retailer of MSC-certified seafood in the UK - has pledged that, by the end of 2010, it will source 80% of its seafood from MSC-certified fisheries or from the "green list" of species approved by the Marine Conservation Society. Marks & Spencer has promised that, by 2012, all its seafood will be either MSC-certified or from other independently certified fisheries. In May, it will launch a new range of prepared meals for outdoor eating and barbecues, based around gurnard, John Dory and black bream. Caught in season in British waters, these are a more sustainable choice than the "Big Five" overfished species - the cod, haddock, prawns, tuna and plaice that account for 80% of all seafood sold in Britain. If we take the pressure off these overexploited stocks, they will hopefully recover.

However, the MSC programme is about far more than shopping. In Europe, the growing number of certified fisheries has transformed the mood of EU fishing negotiations. The Dutch based Pelagic Freezer-Trawler Association (PFA) was the first North Sea herring fishery to be MSC-certified in May 2006, and the Swedish, Danish and Scottish herring fleets followed. Their representatives meet regularly in Brussels to talk about fisheries management. "All the major herring players in Europe are MSC-certified or under assessment," says Gerard van Balsfoort, president of the PFA, "and this has led to a certain kind of behaviour in the advisory process. From the point of view of stocks, you can't just ask for a higher quota if it isn't scientifically based. You can't just shout for what you want. "

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