Overfished and overfishing are the new sustainable?

In a multi-authored article (22 authors) published online in the open access journal PLOS in August 2012, the claim is made that fisheries certified by the Marine Stewardship council are in better shape than those that are not as well as those that failed the MSC confidential pre-assessment  process. 

Two initial observations: (i) About half of the authors are directly or indirectly associated with MSC.  (ii) Data on those stocks that failed pre-assessment are not available for scrutiny because of a confidentiality agreement.

There are currently 132 MSC certified fisheries, yet the authors of the paper only examine the state of 74 of these (56%).  The required data were not available for the other 58 stocks. This constitutes a potentially biased sample of certified stocks.  It seems likely that those stocks without adequate data could be in worse shape, or at best their status is more uncertain.

      

Of 74 stocks examined only 32 (43%) had a stock assessment adequate for determining whether overfishing was taking place (fishing mortality or exploitation rate higher than that which would result in maximum sustainable yield or MSY) or whether the stock was overfished (below 50% of the biomass that generates MSY).  It is of considerable concern that fisheries are certified as sustainable on stocks for which such basic information regarding sustainability is lacking.

In addition to the 32 stocks, the authors were able to fit a Schaefer surplus production model to the data, or to combine a Schaefer surplus production model with the existing stock assessment model to estimate MSY related information for 13 additional stocks.  The methods used to fit the model have previously been published.   However, for a number of reasons it is unlikely that their approach would garner support through a peer review process on individual stock assessments; otherwise it would surely already be in use in these assessments.

 

Of the 32+13=45 stocks for which overfishing and overfished status could be determined, 8 MSC certified stocks are currently subject to overfishing while 4 certified stocks are overfished.  One could thus conclude that the MSC certification definition of sustainable fisheries  includes overfishing and overfished stocks.
 

Of the 4 overfished MSC certified stocks, only one has had its certification suspended.  The authors point out that the other three are above their respective biomass limit reference point, and therefore above the level where serious and possibly irreversible harm to the stock productivity is considered to occur.  It is arguable whether merely having the stock above the biomass level where serious and potentially irreversible harm occurs is sufficient grounds to consider a fishery sustainable.

Of the MSC certified stocks where overfishing is taking place, 4 are above the biomass that gives MSY which the authors consider to be less of a concern than overfishing on the other 4  certified stocks which have a biomass below the MSY level.   One of these stocks of concern is the South African Deep Water Hake, “poster-child” for a recent MSC-produce dvideo.  North Sea Saithe continues to be certified by MSC even though it is overfished and overfishing is continuing.

Although the authors find that MSC certified fisheries are healthier than those that are not certified or that failed confidential MSC pre-assessment for certification, they also note that this divergence was largely established before MSC certification commenced in 1999.  It is therefore not a consequence of certification.

The main criticism of MSC certification by environmental groups and informed members of the general public is that it sets the sustainability bar too low in some cases.  Stocks on which fisheries are certified as sustainable should be near or above the MSY biomass and should be exploited below the MSY exploitation rate.  They should not include fisheries in which the stock is currently overfished, or where overfishing is taking place, even if it is anticipated that overfishing will cease at some point so that the stock will recover to the MSY level in the future.

Consumer confidence in the MSC brand will be diminished if fisheries are certified in cases where the stock is overfished or overfishing is occurring , or where there are insufficient data to reliably make such a determination.

Score jiggling under the MSC process to ensure fisheries sustainability certification?

Do third party MSC accredited Certifying Bodies jiggle scores to ensure a Pass on sustainability when responding to critical public comments, independent reviews and formal objections?

This issue has been raised recently by the Objection to the certification of the Faroese Pelagic Organisation North-East Atlantic Mackerel Fishery by Marine Scotland.  Marine Scotland is the lead marine management organisation in Scotland, bringing together the functions of the Fisheries Research Services (Marine Scotland Science), the Scottish Fisheries Protection Agency (Marine Scotland Compliance) and the Scottish Government Marine Directorate.

The Independent Adjudicator appointed by the Marine Stewardship Council to evaluate the objection, Melanie Carter, posted a notice on the MSC website dated 3 September 2010 outlining a query on the revision of the score on one of the fishery Performance Indicators by the Certifying Body Det Norske Veritas.

In responding to the objection by Marine Scotland, Det Norske Veritas had revised down the score for PI 3.1.1 to 65 resulting in the overall score for Principle 3 going down to 79.9.  This is a Fail under Principle 3 and therefore a Fail in terms of Sustainability determination under the MSC process.

When Melanie Carter pointed out this blunder to Det Norske Veritas they immediately responded “Our Assessment teams did not intend failing the fishery but we did overlook the effect of the rescoring on the weighting table (the total scores). DNV has been in contact with both experts [on the assessment team] yesterday and today. The assessment team wishes to rescore PI 3.1.1 to 70 giving it a total of 80,5.”  

This looks a lot like subjective score jiggling to ensure a Pass.

This brings to mind a previous case of alleged score jiggling under the MSC eco-certification process.  The controversial “skin-of-the-teeth” 2006/2007 sustainability assessment of the NZ Hoki fishery by SGS Netherlands resulted in a formal objection by NZ WWF in July 2006.  WWF claimed that there was “a procedural failure, because the Final Report does not provide enough evidence to show how the assessment team derived the scores for Performance Indicators that were changed between the Public Comment Draft Report and the Final Report.”

The allegation is that in responding to critical WWF comments on the Public Comment Draft report, SGS revised down some of the scores, but to compensate other PI scores, not subject to criticism by WWF, were revised up to ensure that an overall passing score was retained under each of the 3 Principles.

Recall that no fishery that has gone through the secret MSC pre-assessment process into full assessment has failed to achieve a Pass on Sustainability (except for a UK lobster fishery which fell out of the certification process at some point, possibly lack of funds to pay the CB?). Further recall that no public comment, independent peer review or formal objection has resulted in the overturning of a Certification Body Sustainability Determination.  

Eco-certification of wild capture fisheries - public resource

Marine fish are considered to be a public resource and generally we would like to see them sustainably managed for long-term public good.

Eco-certification of sustainable fisheries would seem to be one way of achieving this. The idea is that if the public only purchases eco-certified fish products bearing a clear and valid eco-label, then there will be a dissinsentive for the fishing industry to engage in unsustainable fishing practices and for purveyors to deal in unsustainble fish products.

Clearly there are three parties involved in this process - us who want sustainable fisheries (hopefully), the industry that wants to make a profit (of course), and the eco-certifiers who want to make a difference.

The purpose of this blog is to discuss the respective roles of the public, the fishing industry and the eco-certifiers in this process. The most prominent eco-certifier at present is the Marine Stewardship Council: http://www.msc.org/ They have been at it for 10 years and currently have 56 certified fisheries around the globe.

So, how well do we think they are doing? Are all these fisheries really sustainable? How good is the MSC standard? Is certification working? Feel free to contribute your views!