Marine Stewardship Council’s Fisheries Standard: Updated best practices for promoting sustainable seafood

Abstract

Eco-labeling can incentivize effective management to sustain productive fisheries, but certification standards occasionally need to be updated to reflect iterative advancement in marine policy. The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) recently developed a revised standard for fishery certification, and the process provides case studies in policy development that are compiled in this special issue. Consultation with a broad group of international stakeholders identified several aspects of the MSC standard that required re-evaluation. Standards, expressed as performance indictors and scoring criteria, were revised based on current perceptions of best practices in fishery management. The revised standard requires greater evidence of management performance, more rigorous protection of endangered species and vulnerable habitats, more comprehensive mitigation of ghost fishing, explicit harvest strategies, more effective exclusion of shark finning, and socioeconomic performance indicators. Although the implementation of certification standards will continue to be imperfect, the process and results from MSC’s standard review offer methods and case studies for broader application to codify best practices in marine policy as they continually evolve.