December 4, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The US purse seine menhaden fishery operated by Omega protein has been recommended for MSC certification by SAI Global.
Today the assessment body released its draft report for public comment. Scores for the three principal areas were quite high.
The MSC system is based on the target fishery achieving a score of 80 or above in a range of criteria, organized under 3 principles: health and sustainability of target species; the status of the ecosystem and the environmental impact of fishing, and the management system in place.
Scores are averaged, and a fishery must exceed a score of 80 in each of the three main areas to be recommended for certification.
The menhaden fishery was scored at 82.5 on the target species health; at 87.4 on the ecosystem health, and at 92.2 on the management system in place.
Within these areas there were three specific issues that scored below 80, which will become conditions that need to be addressed in the five year plan for improvement following a successful certification.
The three issues identified by SAI Global as conditions are first, that Omega Protein must provide evidence of a harvest strategy that is designed to take into consideration the role of menhaden as a forage fish in the overall Northwest Atlantic ecosystem, meaning that if ecosystem impacts are identified, there must be a mechanism to reflect those impacts in the harvest strategy.
The second issue is that the client must implement a harvest control rule that ensures the exploitation rate is kept below a level where serious ecosystem impacts could occur, and the client will be expected to keep the stock fluctuating around a target level consistent with ecosystem needs.
The third condition is that every five years there must be a review of alternate measures related to bycatch. The certifier recommends that more work be done on bycatch in the fishery.
The overall conclusion is to strongly recommend certification. Under the MSC process, stakeholders have the right to lodge objections or suggest changes to the report. Normally these types of suggestions are negotiated between the parties, and if no agreement can be reached, a stake holder may appeal the certification decision to a review board.
This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.