The MSC Fisheries Standard Review policy development process

Abstract

The Marine Stewardship Council’s (MSC) global fisheries certification program plays a crucial role in MSC's Theory of Change by promoting fishing practices that mitigate impacts on ecosystems while supporting sustainable harvesting of marine and freshwater fish and invertebrates. This paper discusses the Fisheries Standard Review (FSR) process, which aims to keep the standard updated to reflect evolving fisheries management best practices and scientific findings around the world. It involved multiple rounds of public consultations and engagement with over 350 participants from 275 organizations across 46 countries. The revisions can be categorized into two groups: those that raised the expected environmental performance for certified and prospective fisheries and those that clarified requirements. Regarding the first: the new requirements on shark finning call for a fins naturally attached policy for any MSC-certified fishery that retains sharks; revisions related to ghost gear require measures to reduce and manage loss of fishing gear; for harvest strategies a more prescriptive process was outlined for fisheries on the high seas, requiring Management Strategies Evaluation, and the adoption of catch or effort constraint mechanisms; new evidence requirements specify the characteristics of the systems used to collect information such that fisheries will be more likely to produce high-quality information for assessments; regarding Endangered Threatened and Protected (ETP) species the requirements delivered a sophisticated, innovative system to designate ETP species for MSC assessment purposes and introduced a new and more objective reference point of favourable conservation status for evaluating and managing impacts. Lastly, the paper discusses lessons learned and expectations for implementing the new standard.