Can the Japanese fisheries qualify for MSC certification?

Abstract

Among various ecolabeling schemes, the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is the largest certifier of seafood ecolabel for the wild caught fish in the world. An increasing number of fisheries in the world have applied for MSC certification. However, Japanese pre-assessed fisheries, one of the largest seafood producers, have not been keen on applying for the MSC certification. In this paper, we examine whether Japanese pre-assessed fisheries can qualify for MSC certification by using MSC pre-assessment scores of 53 fisheries in Japan. To understand these Japanese pre-assessed fisheries’ place in the world, we compared scores of these fisheries with those of the MSC certified fisheries. By using descriptive statistics, and cluster analyses, we found that most of the Japanese pre-assessed fisheries do not meet the MSC standards. Among other things, The Japanese pre-assessed fisheries targeting at total allowable catch (TAC) species are relatively well managed in terms of stock rebuilding, harvest strategy, and harvest control rules compared with other stock assessed, or non-assessed fish species. A cluster analysis sorted the Japanese pre-assessed fisheries with a good stock status into the similar clusters to the MSC fisheries. Difference in scores between the Japanese and MSC fisheries is ecological performance including approach for bycatch and endangered species. We found that the Japanese fisheries have a possibility to be strong candidates by adopting bycatch strategies.