May 4, 2006 - MSC's Principles & Criteria for Sustainable Fishing ..... http://www.msc.org/assets/docs/fishery_certification/UsingAHP&ECforMSCCert_V2_Sep2005.pdf ...... the UK's Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science ...
Environmental benefits resulting from certification against MSC’s Principles & Criteria for Sustainable Fishing
FINAL REPORT for Phase 1 of 2 to create a system of tracking environmental benefits of certification against MSC’s Principles & Criteria for Sustainable Fishing
By David Agnew1, Chris Grieve2, Pia Orr1, Graeme Parkes1 and Nola Barker3
4 May 2006
1
Marine Resources Assessment Group Ltd, UK 2 Meridian Prime Ltd, UK 3 Marine Stewardship Council
Citation: Agnew, D., C. Grieve, P. Orr, G. Parkes and N. Barker (2006) Environmental benefits resulting from certification against MSC’s Principles and Criteria for Sustainable Fishing. MRAG UK Ltd and Marine Stewardship Council, London. 134 pp.
© Marine Stewardship Council & MRAG UK, 2006
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
4
2
INTRODUCTION
8
3
METHODOLOGY
10
3.1 3.2 3.3
4
RESULTS 4.1 4.2
5
Types of approach – background considerations Questions to be answered Categorisation
Candidate fisheries Trends in environmental gains
CONCLUSIONS 5.1 5.2 5.3
Are there environmental benefits? The major lessons of this analysis are: Next steps ~ further work
10 11 12
14 14 15
22 22 27 28
6
ANNEX 1: MAIN ANALYSIS TABLE
30
7
ANNEX 2: FISHERY CASE STUDIES
41
WESTERN AUSTRALIAN ROCK LOBSTER FISHERY THAMES HERRING DRIFT-NET FISHERY ALASKA SALMON FISHERY BURRY INLET COCKLE FISHERY NEW ZEALAND HOKI FISHERY SOUTH WEST MACKEREL HANDLINE FISHERY SOUTH GEORGIA TOOTHFISH LONGLINE FISHERY LOCH TORRIDON NEPHROPS CREEL FISHERY SOUTH AFRICAN HAKE FISHERY MEXICAN BAJA CALIFORNIA RED ROCK LOBSTER FISHERY
42 58 67 76 81 92 96 111 117 130
1 Executive Summary The MSC, jointly with a team of fisheries researchers from MRAG UK Ltd3, has created a twophase project aimed at developing a long term strategic framework for monitoring and evaluating the environmental benefits arising from the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification programme. This study focussed specifically on the first phase of the work: 1) developing tools and methodologies to measure the environmental or ecological impacts of certification to the MSC standard; and 2) cataloguing and assessing current evidence that the MSC eco-labelling programme results in positive outcomes (benefits) for the environment. The project team embarked upon the study asking a number of critical questions. Are there meaningful and measurable changes happening on, or in, the water? Are the fisheries that have been certified really changing practices and will these lead to positive outcomes for the environment? Does certification cause more environmental gain than would otherwise occur? And finally, is there an ecological case for fishery certification? The study examined the ten certified fisheries that, by late 2005, had been the subject of at least one post certification audit. In the ten fisheries, a total of 62 certification conditions were examined to determine whether changes or improvements observed would 1) ultimately lead to environmental improvement and 2) lend themselves to quantitative analysis. The project team identified environmental gain indices for each certification condition in the study group. Detailed investigation, looking specifically for quantitative indicators of change, was made on a sub-set of six fisheries. The project team categorised the gains according to five different levels of environmental gain: o No-gain to signal those circumstances where satisfying a certification condition could reasonably have been expected to result in an environmental gain but such a gain did not result or where satisfying a condition merely required the provision of information to the certification body. o Institutional gain to denote changes to institutions and processes involved in fisheries management that could lead to environmental gains, including to the way that those institutions do business, the way they define the fisheries management systems, the data they require from the fishery and its regulations. o Research gain for new research that should lead to environmental gains if implemented by management, such as on any aspect of the target stock, environment or management system. o Operational – action gain for activities in the fishery such as new discard regulations, mesh regulations or bycatch mitigation methods that are expected to lead to environmental gains. o Operational – result gain for real, ‘on the water’ outcomes or results of actions, such as reduced numbers of discards, continued absence of Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing vessels, demonstrated return to sustainability of bycatch species, recovering benthic diversity in protected or closed areas that have resulted in environmental gains. Finally the team examined whether the gain was caused primarily by certification (i.e. satisfying the requirements of the condition); whether it was ongoing anyway, and was not a direct consequence of certification, even though it may have been coincidental; or whether it was a combination of the two.
3
Marine Resources Assessment Group, UK
The results of the analysis identified a total of 89 environmental gains over the ten fisheries. There were eight instances of no-gain identified. Sixteen of the gains were operational result gains, which in the project team’s view, represent the most desirable gains and demonstrate real improvements in controlling the impact of fisheries on the environment: 11 arose directly from a condition, and 5 did not appear to be directly related to a condition. Of the 11 that arose directly from a condition, 8 were judged to be most likely stimulated or partially stimulated by the certification process itself; and for three, the certification process could not be identified as the primary catalyst. Sum m ary of environm ental gains & no-gains from certification conditions
Operationalaction, 17 Operationalresult, 16 Research, 27 No-gain, 8
Institutional, 29
Operational result gains were not as common as other gains: they represented 18% of the total gains that were identified. However, most of the result gains were supported by quantitative evidence. Taking all gains into account, and whether the gain was partially or mostly stimulated by the certification process, it appears that the certification process has stimulated about 65% of the gains observed. In the eight cases of no-gain, some involved situations where the condition was satisfied simply by the provision of additional data to the certification body – in other words no additional work was done, except for filling an information gap. Other cases of no-gain resulted from apparent failures of certification bodies in some of the early certifications to be explicit about the requirement for change. Another case related to the fact that the certification client itself had no control over whether the stock remained above its precautionary reference point. Most of the positive gains were in Principle 24. This is out of proportion to the number of conditions raised: Principle 1(P1) = 26%; Principle 2 (P2) = 37%; and Principle 3 (P3) = 37%, compared to the proportion of gains attributable to P1, P2 and P3 of 17%, 46% and 37% respectively. Since most fisheries actually score lower in their full assessment for Principle 2 than the other principles (roughly 70% of fisheries score lowest on P2) this is the principle in which there is most potential for progress. It is therefore encouraging that that is indeed where most of the progress appears to be being made. The analysis shows that there is a strong positive relationship between the number of conditions and the overall gains realised, and a positive (although not statistically significant) relationship between the number of gains and the length of time the fishery has been certified (i.e., certification date). The analysis also shows the fisheries demonstrating the greatest overall environmental ‘gain score’ could be classified as more difficult or controversial.
4
The MSC’s Principles and Criteria for Sustainable Fishing (known as the MSC standard) are based upon three fundamental elements that contribute to sustainable fisheries: maintaining healthy target fish populations (Principle 1); understanding and maintaining the integrity of marine ecosystems (Principle 2); and implementing effective fisheries management systems (Principle 3).
There is some evidence, although not described in detail in the fishery results, of environmental gains occurring in other unrelated fisheries as a result of certification of a specific fishery in that region. And there appears to be evidence that research and action in one certified fishery can have far reaching effects on both uncertified and certified fisheries on the other side of the world. Although not an objective of the study, the team encountered anecdotal and published evidence of economic and social benefits in three fisheries and reported on this. The team acknowledges that there is probably a great deal more to uncover in each certified fishery in relation to economic and social impacts of MSC certification. The major lessons from the study are that: o
All certified fisheries have shown some environmental gain resulting from the certification process.
o
Some environmental gain has resulted in areas where there were no conditions, but in general the biggest gains have been in areas which carried conditions for certification.
o
There is a direct relationship between both the amount of gain, and the relative direct benefit of that gain to the environment (expressed as a ‘gain score’), with the number of conditions that are set for a fishery. When the number of conditions is high, the total gains to a fishery appear to be greater than the number of conditions, whereas when they are low the gains are equal to the number of conditions.
o
The instances of lack of gain in areas that we would expect to see gain resulted from issues in some of the early certifications, as well as from the difficulty of finding solutions to some very difficult environmental problems. The early certified fisheries show a lower average environmental benefit than the later certified fisheries mainly because the expectations contained in conditions (or corrective action requests as they were called) were not as well articulated as in later certifications.
o
If environmental gain outweighs the other strategic objectives of the MSC, certification of difficult fisheries could be encouraged because these are the fisheries in which certification is likely to create the biggest environmental gains.
o
It was virtually impossible to create a set of indices that would be equally applicable across certified fisheries for comparative purposes. The only index that comes close is target stock size in relation to target/limit reference points. But not all certified fisheries set target/limit reference points, nor do they have easily interpreted assessments of stock size. This approach should not be precluded in future analyses, but the project team deemed it not to be practical here.
Next steps The initial findings show promising evidence of both quantitative and qualitative environmental benefits which now require critical analysis and peer scrutiny to determine whether the method and the results are robust and credible with the scientific community as well as with the range of MSC stakeholders. While tangible measures showing environmental improvements resulted from the analysis, the project team has expressed caution about causality (i.e., what were the stimuli for change) and other questions arising from the work that should be resolved in phase two. To mark the transition from the first to the second phase, the MSC is planning to host a targeted workshop in 2006 (currently proposed for midSeptember 2006) to discuss both the results of the first phase and how to move forward. The MSC has long acknowledged that it needs to develop a plan or framework for long term monitoring and evaluation of changes in fisheries management, environmental gains and other benefits resulting from certification. This idea has now come of age and future MSC work on each of the three major issues contributing to sustainable development (ecological, economic and social) should move ahead strategically and concurrently. Therefore the main objective of the workshop will be broader than simply looking at the environmental benefits question. The main objective is to contribute to the development of a formal “Monitoring and Evaluation Plan” for the impacts of the MSC programme from environmental, economic and social perspectives. Conclusions that emerge from the
workshop will then be used by the MSC to determine 1) the highest priority needs; 2) the most appropriate methodologies; and 3) the basis for future research and funding proposals. The conclusions and recommendations from the workshop will also be reported to the MSC Board of Trustees and will form the basis for an agreed Monitoring and Evaluation Plan for the impacts of the MSC programme from environmental, economic and social Perspectives to be published later in 2006. The full report: “Environmental benefits resulting from certification against MSC’s Principles and Criteria for Sustainable Fishing” by David Agnew, Chris Grieve, Pia Orr, Graeme Parkes and Nola Barker contains a complete description of the objectives, methods, results and conclusions, including specific examples of environmental gain from some of the fishery case studies. Annexed to the report is a matrix summarising all the certification conditions, the individual indices chosen by fishery / condition and the environmental gains for each of the 10 fisheries in the study group. And finally, also annexed to the full report, the complete fishery case studies are presented, along with detailed quantitative and/or qualitative analysis for each of the 10 fisheries.
4 May 2006
5
Marine Resources Assessment Group, UK
2 Introduction Since the first fishery was certified in early 2000, 15 fisheries, from seven countries, producing approximately 1.8 million tonnes of fish a year, have been certified as meeting the standard set by the Marine Stewardship Council’s (MSC) Principles and Criteria for Sustainable Fishing. By the end of February 2006 there were a total of 330 products carrying the MSC label being sold in 26 countries around the world (www.msc.org). The MSC was created out of a desire to realise the dual vision of securing long term supplies of fish for global markets, and creating a viable, alternative tool to help halt or reverse the decline in global fish stocks. The MSC uses a voluntary, market-based policy instrument to pursue this challenging vision – an eco-labelling programme that employs a standard (the Principles and Criteria for Sustainable Fishing) against which fisheries are measured. The standard is based upon three fundamental elements that contribute to sustainable fisheries: maintaining healthy target fish populations; understanding and maintaining the integrity of marine ecosystems; and implementing effective fisheries management systems. Fisheries that pass the standard are certified and operators are eligible for five years to make the claim that their fish products come from a well managed and sustainable fishery. After chain of custody (traceability) requirements are met and certified, operators may be licensed to use the MSC eco-label to differentiate their products in the marketplace from those coming from non-certified fisheries. The MSC programme has never been about certifying perfect fisheries. Given the complexities and uncertainties of managing wild fisheries resources it is questionable whether any fishery might pass a standard that characterises perfection in fisheries management. The MSC does, however, set standards for environmental sustainability, and the MSC certification programme requires independent assessors to use an objective, science-based assessment methodology to determine whether a fishery will pass the standard either conditionally or unconditionally. Fishery client organisations are expected to meet any certification conditions within the timeframes specified by the independent certification body. The MSC methodology does not have an inherent expectation that all fisheries must improve their environmental credentials to remain certified for the five year period, unless a specific certification condition requires a higher level of performance. In reality, however, the MSC standards, particularly those relating to the impact of a fishery upon the wider ecosystem, require a practical application of ecosystem management concepts that have been developed and implemented only relatively recently, and are higher than the standards generally adopted by mainstream fisheries management practice. Thus, to date, all certified fisheries have had to commit to meeting conditions of certification defined in the assessment to improve their performance to the ‘unconditional’ pass level. While this does then lead to an expectation of environmental improvement in individual fisheries, the MSC did not, at the time of establishing the certification methodology, establish a structure under which to monitor and evaluate whether environmental improvements are being made in certified fisheries or in the broader fisheries management context. Previous work has suggested that environmental improvements in certified fisheries have been obtained either during the MCS certification process itself or by virtue of being certified, but these analyses have necessarily been dependent largely on qualitative data. External reviews of the MSC in 2003 and 2004 emphasised the need for rigorous and quantitative analysis of the extent to which the MSC’s dual vision is being realised. That is, to ask the questions: does the MSC programme broadly, and fishery certification in particular, lead to positive benefits from an environmental perspective; and, how can this be measured? Unfortunately past reviews aimed at answering these questions have been limited both in scope and by the relatively short time that had elapsed between certification and the study date. However, the first fishery was certified in 2000, the number of certified fisheries continues to grow, and there are five fisheries that are undergoing, or have undergone, reassessment for a second certification. Across all 15 certified fisheries over 110 certification conditions were specified at the time of original certification. Each of these conditions relates
8
to improving performance in relation to one of the Principles or Criteria and should lead to improved fisheries management (through improved data, research, management processes, etc) and changes that might have a positive impact on the environment itself, and in the longer term have an overall positive effect on fishery and ecosystem health. There is therefore now a much larger dataset to analyse. We embarked upon this study asking a number of critical questions. Are there meaningful and measurable changes happening on, or in, the water? Are the fisheries that have been certified really changing practices and will these lead to positive outcomes for the environment? Does certification cause more environmental gain than would otherwise occur? And finally, is there an ecological case for fishery certification? The formal objective of the study was to examine whether there are benefits for fisheries, from an environmental or ecological perspective, from achieving certification against the MSC’s Principles and Criteria for Sustainable Fishing. More specifically our objectives were twofold: 1. To develop tools and methodologies to measure the environmental / ecological impacts of certification to the MSC standard. 2. To catalogue and assess current evidence that the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) eco-labelling programme results in positive outcomes (benefits) for the environment. This study is the first phase of two planned stages of this work. The MSC’s intention in the longer term is to develop this work further to: o Build a strategic framework for the future analysis of environmental impacts of certification to the MSC standard and the MSC programme, including recommendations for changes to current MSC methodology where appropriate. o Investigate evidence that the MSC programme has wider impacts on environmental sustainability of fisheries outside of specifically certified fisheries, and to build an ecological case for certification of fisheries to the MSC standard. The study examined the ten certified fisheries that, by late 2005, had been the subject of at least one post certification audit. We identified environmental gain indices for all the certification conditions in fisheries in the study group to establish whether there was an environmental gain or not. Detailed investigation, looking specifically for quantitative indicators of change, was made on a sub-set of six fisheries. We categorised the gains into five different levels of environmental gain, including a “no-gain” category, and examined whether the gain was stimulated primarily by certification, whether it was ongoing anyway, and therefore not a direct consequence of certification, or whether it was a combination of the two. This report sets out our methodology, describes the system of categorisation of potential environmental gain, and the analysis design. We report on the results of our analysis – at a meta-level – to determine what, cumulatively, we can say about whether fishery certification leads to measurable and meaningful changes from an environmental/ecological perspective. We then delve deeper and report on individual fishery cases – the stories and analysis underneath the meta-analysis. Finally we discuss our conclusions and recommend the next steps that might be taken to establish a framework for developing a long term MSC Monitoring and Evaluation Plan to assess changes in fisheries management and quantify the ecological benefits resulting from certification against the MSC’s Principles and Criteria for Sustainable Fishing.
9
3 Methodology 3.1 Types of approach – background considerations There are several ways one could examine the challenge of detecting environmental gains within MSC certified fisheries, and these are associated with different formulations of the questions to be asked, or more formally the hypotheses that are erected about the incidence of environmental gain. The most basic question that can be asked is: “does the process of certification cause more environmental gain in fisheries than would occur naturally without certification?”. This is an extremely difficult question to answer because the institutional and social processes that cause change in fisheries are also those that attract certification. It is those fisheries that are more environmentally aware, through whatever mechanism, that are more likely to be seeking certification. Furthermore, since certification per se is not aimed at creating environmental gains, but is simply a process of judging fisheries against a standard, on the face of it one should not expect much environmental gain at all. This argument means that in looking for evidence for environmental gain in certified fisheries we should actually look at the pre-assessment process (a confidential process undergone prior to full assessment for certification). In theory, we would expect that all the fisheries that have been certified were performing to the environmental standard set by the MSC Principles and Criteria for Sustainable Fishing (the Ps & Cs), and needed no further improvement. And that any fisheries that in any way under-performed subsequently failed. To examine evidence for the environmental benefits of certification we would simply examine the serial performance of fisheries through their pre-assessment reports. This is not how certification has actually been working. To date, all certified fisheries have had some certification conditions that either required or recommended changes to the behaviour of the fishery to raise its performance beyond the minimum standard set by the Ps & Cs. Some of these conditions relate to management or institutional concerns, but many relate to concerns about the target stock or of the ecosystem with which the target stock or the fishery interacts. We might therefore naturally expect environmental gains to flow from the actions required to meet these conditions. Our job would therefore appear relatively simple. The most obvious way to go about it would be to examine all the certification reports and scores for all fisheries and look for trends within those scores, treating them as indices of environmental performance. For instance a fishery scoring 70 for Performance Indicator 2A.2.1 in its first certification, might be expected to score 75 at some future point, 80 (the unconditional pass level) and then perhaps stay at 80 over subsequent years6. If post certification surveillance reports provided updated scores for the scoring indicators of certifications this would be a very easy job, although it would still be reliant on the quasi-quantitative/qualitative scoring system. Since surveillance reports do not score fisheries on the indicators that were used in the first certification, we wondered whether perhaps we could use the certification reports themselves, which are completed at 5-year intervals? This might be possible in the future, but there is only one fishery that has had two final reports, at the time of writing, and this is Thames herring. The reports were completed by different certification bodies (SGS & Moody Marine Ltd), with different performance indicators and scoring guideposts and under different certification methodologies (the first as an early test case for the MSC, and the re-assessment under the subsequently adopted and revised methodology). Furthermore, there is concern that as more fisheries are certified, and as the fisheries world in general becomes more environmentally conscious, there might be a certain amount of “target creep” (i.e., incremental changes ratcheting standards upwards) in both scoring and setting performance indicators within 6
For more information about the MSC scoring system see the MSC website and download: http://www.msc.org/assets/docs/fishery_certification/UsingAHP&ECforMSCCert_V2_Sep2005.pdf
10
certifications. Therefore, a strict quantitative comparison of sequential performance indicator scoring is not, nor likely to be, possible. In the absence of a series of existing indices of environmental performance we must create our own. After some consideration we decided that it was virtually impossible to create a set of indices that would be equally applicable across all fisheries for comparative purposes. The only index that comes close, and is usually readily available is target stock size in relation to target/limit reference points. But not all certified fisheries set target/limit reference points, nor do they have easily interpreted assessments of stock size. We make some comments on this method of choosing an index later, but for the most part of our analysis we were unable to use this method. Given the above considerations, we chose not to develop a list of possible environmental gains and indicators and compare certified fisheries against this list. Whilst such an approach may be desirable, and should not be precluded in future analyses, it was deemed not to be practical here. We should, however, be able to create a set of indices that are specific to a fishery, and specific to the certification conditions identified for a fishery. This is the approach that we adopted for our analysis.
3.2 Questions to be answered We have explained above that the most objective question, “does certification cause more environmental gain than would otherwise occur” is practically impossible to answer, particularly quantitatively, with current data sources. We therefore ask a related series of questions, but ones we should be able to answer from the available data. Q1
Can instances of environmental gain be detected in fisheries that have been certified?
Q2
Can instances of environmental gain be attributed directly to the certification process?
Q3
a) Are instances of environmental gain restricted to elements related to certification conditions? b) Can instances of environmental gain in non-condition indices be attributed indirectly to the certification process?
Q1 is relatively easy to answer and it forms the main focus of our report. To answer it we chose to examine those areas of the major certified fisheries which were subject to corrective action requests (CARs), or conditions as they have become known. The reason for making the distinction is that some certification bodies used terminology, such as CAR, that was in common usage in other non-fishery certification processes. A CAR identified a weakness that needed to be addressed rather than making a clear statement of conditionality. In the MSC programme, both terms have the same effect: they are requirements that need to be addressed in order to remain certified. Q2 is difficult to answer, even for those gains resulting directly from certification conditions. Our analysis is based partially on qualitative evidence, such as anecdotal reports from the fishery or from surveillance reports, and partly on quantitative evidence where it exists. Indices derived from quantitative data that show a change point during or soon after certification may reasonably be assumed, if supported by anecdotal reports from the fishery, to have resulted from the process of certification or the requirement of conditions. Q3 is even more difficult to answer, and for this we must rely on anecdotal evidence. However, it is reasonable to assume that there may be some indices that respond positively
11
to certification, in a similar way to that defined for Q2, and for which there is no condition. Similarly, it is reasonable to assume that there may be some features of associated fisheries, for instance those managed by the same authority as the certified fishery, which might reasonably be expected to show some environmental gain resulting from improved management methods or information gained in the certified fishery. The problem arises when we try to tackle this question quantitatively, to re-phrase the question as “how many environmental gains in fishery x or region y were attributable to certification and how many were not” because that requires us to develop an exhaustive list of all possible environmental gains. Whilst this might be theoretically possible, it runs into the same problem as noted above that there is not an easily defined single set of indices which could be used in all fisheries. Our method was as follows: o Choose only those fisheries for which there has been one or more surveillance report. o Identify environmental gain indices for all the conditions for test certified fisheries and examine data from the fishery, including but not restricted to surveillance reports, to establish whether there has been an environmental gain or not. Detailed investigation, looking specifically for quantitative indicators of change, was made on a subset of fisheries. o Categorise the gains according to a categorisation explained below reflecting different levels of environmental gain. This categorisation included “no-gain” only in those circumstances where satisfying the condition could reasonably have been expected to result in a gain and such a gain did not result or where satisfying a condition merely required the provision of information to the certification body. o Examine whether the gain was caused primarily by certification (i.e. satisfying the requirements of the condition); whether it was ongoing anyway, and was not a direct consequence of certification, even though it may have been coincidental; or whether it was a combination of the two.
3.3 Categorisation It can be argued that all improvements in a fishery – be they improved crew safety, the creation of new consultative partnerships between industry and environmental stakeholders, research directed at understanding population dynamics of bycatch species or the reduction in the quantity of discards – are, or should reasonably be expected to flow to, increased environmental gains. But it is clear that whilst the first three of our examples could and should (respectively) result in increased environmental performance, this is not a given. For instance, a safer working environment should allow the crew to focus more on complying with mitigation methods, or requirements of the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL), than focussing on working in a dangerous environment, but it does not guarantee on its own that this will happen. A new consultative partnership or better research should lead to incorporation of environmental concerns or new target reference points into the management and industry decision making process, but it might not. An actual reduction in discards is almost certainly an environmental gain, in that fewer dead fish are being returned to the sea. One would hope that this resulted from fewer non-target fish being caught, and that therefore this will improve the sustainability of bycatch fish populations, as well as redress the environmental nutrient input imbalance. But it might not. Therefore we need to consider two levels of environmental benefit from such operational change – the reduction itself, and the result. The best of all outcomes would be one in which the change results in a reduction in bycatch species mortality to such an extent that an unsustainable exploitation pattern becomes sustainable for that species. Henderson (2004) recognised some of these issues in his categorisation system for environmental gains in certified fisheries. His categories were
12
1. Process oriented change – changes to the systems or procedures used by management, for example implementing a more accurate method of estimating Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing, executing an ecological risk assessment or implementing an environmental management strategy. 2. Operational change – direct change to the way the fishery operates, for example implementing a conservation measure to mitigate an ecosystem impact not identified prior to the certification process. 3. Research strategy change– stimulation of research, for example research into trophic interactions, or mapping of complex benthic habitat. 4. Institutional change – changes to the institutions that govern, advise or manage the fishery, for example implementing environmental stakeholder involvement in decision making bodies. 5. Accelerating change – the process of certification can put a spotlight on a particular environmental issue, which is already being addressed, and then accelerate the process of resolving the issue, for example accelerating research into population distributions to allow mitigation of bycatch. We regard Henderson’s number (5) as relating to the causality of environmental gains, and therefore part of our analysis described in section 3.2. Furthermore, we regard the difference between process and institutional change to be difficult to define. We would regard new rules for accounting for discards to be an institutional change, as would be the creation of a new committee dealing with discards or a new section in a standard stock assessment and advice report on discarding. These are all systems based approaches that should, if they are followed through, lead to or create an environmental gain, but of themselves do not directly result in it. Henderson’s other example, undertaking an ecological risk assessment, we would also interpret as an institutional change – the fact that the management system undertakes it is good, but it does not necessarily lead to an operational change. Our categories therefore are: No-gain – to signal those circumstances where satisfying a certification condition could reasonably have been expected to result in an environmental gain but such a gain did not result or where satisfying a condition merely required the provision of information to the certification body. Institutional – changes to institutions and processes involved in fisheries management that could lead to environmental gains, including to the way that those institutions do business, the way they define the fisheries management systems, the data they require from the fishery and its regulations. Research – new research that should lead to environmental gains if implemented by management, such as on any aspect of the target stock, environment or management system. Operational – action – new activities such as new discard regulations, mesh regulations, mitigation methods etc. that are expected to lead to environmental gains. Operational – result – real downstream results of actions, such as reduced numbers of discards, continued absence of IUU vessels, demonstrated return to sustainability of bycatch species, recovering benthic diversity in protected or closed areas that have resulted in environmental gains. Clearly, from the point of view of examining our questions, whilst institutional and research improvements are fundamental to creating change, one cannot be sure that certification has led to a change until there is a real operational action and preferably until a real result is seen. In our analysis we found that only operational actions and results have really been amenable to quantitative treatment. Wherever possible we have undertaken such quantitative analysis.
13
4 Results 4.1 Candidate fisheries We examined ten fisheries based on their current status and the criterion that they should have had at least one surveillance report completed at the start of our study.
Table 1 Fisheries that meet the criteria (minimum 1 audit) and their status in February 2006, sorted by certification start date. P1 = Principle 1; P2 = Principle 2; P3 = Principle 3. Name
PreAssessm’t 1997
Full Assessm’t start date Jan 1999
First Certificate awarded Mar 2000
Western Australian rock lobster Thames herring
Oct 1997
Mar 1999
Mar 2000
Alaska salmon
Jul 1999 – Feb 2000
Mar 1999
Sep/Oct 2000
Burry Inlet cockles
Mar 2000
Mar 2000
Apr 2001
New Zealand hoki
Nov 2000
Oct 2000
Mar 2001
South West handline mackerel
Oct 2000
Mar 2001
Aug 2001
South toothfish
Georgia
Dec 2000
May 2001
Mar 2004
Loch nephrops
Torridon
Mar 1999
Jan 2002
Jan 2003
South African hake
May 2002
Aug 2002
Apr 2004
Mexican Baja California red rock lobster
2001
Nov 2002
Apr 2004
Number of conditions
No. of audits
5 P2 – 5 8 P1 – 2 P3 – 6 10 P1 – 6 P2 – 2 P3 – 2 3 P1 – 1 P2/3 – 2 10 P1 – 3 P2 – 4 P3 – 3 2 P1 – 1 P2 – 1 10 P1 – 2 P2 – 4 P3 – 4 5 P2 – 1 P3 – 4 7 P1 – 1 P2 – 4 P3 – 2 2 P3 – 2
7 5
In reassessment? Or Re-certification date Yes, started Sep 2004 Re-certified December 2005 Feb
Draft reassessment public report No – Certificate extended to 15 Feb 2006 N/A
4
Yes, started 2005
No
4
No
11
Yes, started 2005
3
No
N/A
1
No
N/A
3
No
N/A
1
No
N/A
1
No
N/A
N/A
Mar
Yes – released January 2006
Detailed quantitative analysis was undertaken only for Western Australian rock lobster, Thames herring, Alaska salmon, New Zealand hoki, South Georgia toothfish and South African hake. The other fisheries were deemed to be too small, or to have been certified too recently, to warrant detailed analysis.
14
4.2 Trends in environmental gains We identified a total of 89 positive environmental gains over the ten fisheries. In addition, eight instances of no-gain were identified. The full table of gains is given in Annex 1; summary results are provided in Table 2 and Table 3. Table 2 Summary of gains (for detail see Annex 1). “Y” under “stimulated” indicates mostly stimulated by certification, “P” indicates partially stimulated by certification, “N” indicates not stimulated by certification: for more detailed analysis see Table 3.
Fishery
W. Australian Rock Lobster
Thames herring
Alaska Salmon
Burry inlet cockles
New Zealand hoki
SW handline mackerel
South Georgia Toothfish
Loch Torridon Nephrops
South African Hake
Mexican rock lobster Total
Required by condition?
Stimulated by certification?
Y
Y
Nogain
Institution
Research
3
Operational action
Operational result
Total gains
1
1
5
N
Y
2
3
3
N
P
1
1
1
N
N
1
Y
Y
1
1
P
1
Y
N
3
N
N
Y
Y
Y
P
Y
N
1
Y
Y
1
Y
N
Y
Y
Y
P N
Y
Y
Y
N
3 1 1
1
1 1
3
6 1
1
1
1
1
1
2 1
2
1 1
5 1
3
Y
N
8 2
1
1
3
2
1
7
2
1
1
1
5
1
0 1
1
1
0
Y
Y
3
1
1
7
Y
P
2
2
1
2
5
Y
N
1
1
1
3
N
N
1
1
2
4
1
1
2
Y
Y
2
Y
P
1
Y
Y
1
2
2
1
Y
P
Y
N
Y
Y
2
5
2
2 1
4
89
2 8
15
6 1
2
29
27
17
16
33%
30%
19%
18%
Table 3 Summary of gains and causes Gains where there was a condition Caused Not stimulated by certification
No-gain
Institution
Research
Operational action
Operational result
1
6
5
2
3
16
4
6
2
3
15
16
10
8
5
39
26
21
12
11
70
Institution
Research
Operational action
Operational result
Total gains
2
1
3
6
2
5
Partially stimulated by certification Mostly stimulated by certification
5
Total Gains where there was not a condition Caused Not stimulated by certification
No-gain 2
Partially stimulated by certification
1
1
1
Mostly stimulated by certification
2
3
3
Total
3
6
5
8 5
Sixteen of the gains were operational result gains, which in our view represent the most desirable gains and real improvements in controlling the impact of fisheries on the environment: 11 arose directly from a condition, and 5 did not appear to be directly related to a condition. Of the 11 that arose directly from a condition, 8 were judged to be most likely stimulated or partially stimulated by the certification process itself; and for three the certification process could not be identified as the primary catalyst. In these latter cases the environmental gain was usually ongoing at the time of certification, and we judged that even if it was supported by the certification process it would have happened anyway, although perhaps not quite as rapidly, in the absence of certification. We should emphasise (as we did in the methods) that it is not easy to directly attribute gains to the MSC process. Very often, those gains that we have attributed to certification were only mostly stimulated by certification, and it is difficult to convincingly argue, after the event, that they would not have happened in the absence of certification. Indeed, it is to be expected that a fishery making such gains, and generating a much more sustainable ethos within the industry and management, would naturally pre-dispose itself to certification. Thus there is a chicken and egg element to environmental gain development, in that only environmentally responsible fisheries are likely to be generating them and only these fisheries are likely to be interested in certification. A few gains were caused directly in response to certification conditions, but here again the intention to make that change may well have already been present in the fishery management system, and simply needed the catalyst of certification to stimulate it. In some cases we found that certification strengthened the hand of groups within the fishery that were pre-disposed to making environmental gains. For instance, certification of New Zealand hoki strengthened the hand of those in the industry that had been drafting voluntary codes of conduct. But there are a number of instances where it is clear that although certification has contributed to the gain, it is not the primary cause or stimulant. For instance, although the number of hooks discarded in the South Georgia toothfish fishery has declined as a direct result of measures taken in response to a condition and is counted as an operational-action gain, this is only one of three factors responsible for the decline in hooks associated with albatross nests, the others being the reduction in IUU fishing during the summer at South Georgia and the decline in longline fisheries in albatross foraging areas far away from South Georgia. Accordingly, we have scored this operational-result gain as only partially stimulated or attributable to certification. The eight result gains required by conditions that appeared to be directly or partially caused by the certification process, or where the actions of management or the industry were assisted or accelerated by the certification process were:
16
Total gains
19
o
Western Australian rock lobster (1): reduction of fishery beach litter on metropolitan beaches.
o
New Zealand hoki (2): halting the decline of the eastern stock and reduction in fur seal mortalities (partial).
o
South Georgia toothfish (3): closer correspondence of extractions to the Total Allowable Catches (TAC), reduction of number of discarded hooks appearing in albatross nests (partial), revision of assessment process (partial).
o
Loch Torridon nephrops (2): elimination of ghost fishing and increasing stock density number of large animals.
The three result gains required by conditions that appeared not to be stimulated by certification were: o
Thames herring (1): halt in the decline of Spawning Stock Biomass (SSB), which occurred despite the failure to consider both gillnet and trawl catches against the TAC, and resulted from declining demand for herring.
o
South Georgia toothfish (1): continued low levels of Illegal, Unreported, Unregulated (IUU) fishing, which although it was a condition actually happened before certification.
o
South African hake (1): much improved compliance, which again was required but was ongoing prior to certification.
Interestingly, we identified five cases of operational result gain that had not apparently been the subject of conditions. In two of these cases (both Western Australian rock lobster7) the gain was partially influenced by certification and in three of them the gain seemed unrelated to certification (Thames herring and South Georgia toothfish)8. These last three are interesting, because they demonstrate that some positive and negative environmental changes should normally be expected in fisheries, especially those that are well managed enough to be considered for MSC certification. Clearly the operational result gains are not as common as other gains: they represent only 18% of the total gains that we identified. If one considers the likely influence of certification, the 10 result gains that we identified as being partially or mostly stimulated by the process of certification (irrespective of whether there was a condition) represent only 11% of the overall number of gains; whereas the 5 result gains that were primarily stimulated by certification and arose directly out of conditions (a subset that can be considered as representative of the most direct influence of certification) is 6% of the total. Another way of looking at this is the relative contribution to the change that has been stimulated by the certification process. Scoring “partial stimulation” with a weighting of 0.5, we can say that overall the certification process appears to have stimulated about 65% of the gains observed. 7
These were the apparent reduction of sea lion mortality and the removal of discarded gear from Dirk Hartog island, neither of which were direct conditions although they did arise from recommendations made in the certification process. They therefore could perhaps be classified as “arising from conditions” and “stimulated by certification” rather than “not arising from conditions”, depending upon how one interprets the conditions and recommendations in this very early certification. Note that there is some question over the level of actual reduction in sea lion mortality, so we have scored it as “partially” stimulated.
8
In the case of Thames herring the gain is that the catches are within the TAC, a coincidental result arising from the lack of demand for the fish; in toothfish there is a reduction in the number of birds being taken by IUU fishing as a result of elimination of the IUU problem prior to certification, and continuing efforts by the South Georgia Government and CCAMLR to reduce the numbers of birds taken by the licensed fleet; there is also an increase in the mean size of toothfish in the catch, which is entirely unrelated to certification.
17
Some particular examples of positive gain are given in section 4. Many of the result gains were supported by quantitative evidence, such as the halting of the decline in the New Zealand eastern hoki stock, the reduction in beach debris in the Western Australian rock lobster fishery, the reduction in longline hook discarding in the South Georgia toothfish fishery, and the increase in female size in the Loch Torridon nephrops fishery. There were eight cases of no-gain. Some of these cases involve situations where the condition was satisfied simply by the provision of additional data or information to the certification body, such as in the case of several conditions on Alaska salmon – in other words no additional work was done, except for filling an information gap. We have distinguished between this sort of information provision and issues such as the codification of a management plan on the grounds that the latter is a real advance in terms of transparency of management whereas the former is simply provision of information to a certification body. Other cases of no-gain result from an apparent failure of the certification body to be explicit about the requirement for change, which was a consequence of the early certifications specifying corrective action requests rather than conditions. An example here is the failure of the management system for Thames herring to operationally take the catches of both gillnet and trawl fisheries into account when assessing the TAC, or for progress to be made with bird mortality mitigation in the New Zealand hoki fishery. Coincidentally, of course, the herring fishery also received an unexpected operational result gain, not arising from a condition, simply because catches have fallen substantially in response to market conditions so that catches from both fleets combined are within the TAC. However, this is coincidental, and the re-certification in 2006 correctly, in our view, has raised the single condition that both catches be considered within the TAC. One other case requires special mention: south west Cornwall mackerel handline. The fishery was certified with the understanding that the certification client itself had no control over whether spawning stock biomass (SSB) remained above its precautionary biomass reference point (Bpa), but that at the time of certification the stock size appeared to be robust and above this target reference point. Subsequently, new stock assessments by fisheries scientists reporting to the European Commission, after a change to the method of calculating stock size, indicated that SSB has been below Bpa for a number of recent years. This warrants a no-gain in our view because the fishery certification client could not influence the outcome of the condition to keep stock size above the target reference point9. A similar no-gain is recorded for the New Zealand hoki western stock, which declined precipitately following certification in the absence of a condition. Even though this situation resulted from recruitment failure, we note that lack of recovery is a no-gain situation. The recent draft re-assessment report requires a formal recovery plan to be developed, with agreed rebuilding targets for the stock. Most of the positive gains were in Principle 2 (Table 4). This is out of proportion to the number of conditions raised: 26%, 37% and 37% of the conditions for these 10 fisheries were raised for P1, P2 and P3 respectively, compared to the proportion of gains attributable to P1, P2 and P3 of 17%, 46% and 37% respectively. Since most fisheries actually score lower in their full assessment for Principle 2 than the other principles (roughly 70% of fisheries score lowest on P2) this is the principle in which there is most potential for progress. It is therefore encouraging that that is indeed where most of the progress appears to be being made.
9
MSC Unit of Certification policy allows fishery certification clients to choose to pursue certification for one part of a stock. However, the main concern for a certification body under MSC’s Principle 1 will always be the health of the whole stock (the biologically distinct unit) and take account of all the extractions from the stock including those in fisheries or sectors not undergoing certification. Clients understand before embarking upon the certification process that should something outside their control effect the stock, the certification of their fishery, in this case the Cornish mackerel handline fishery, could be jeopardised. See www.msc.org for further information on unit of certification.
18
Table 4 Gains where there was a condition mostly or partially caused by certification Principle
No-gain
Institution
Research
Operational _action
Operational _result
Total gains
Total conditions
1
3
2
3
2
2
1
3
11
7
2
9
16
4
25
3
23
1
15
2
1
2
20
23
To examine how different fisheries have performed, we applied an arbitrary “gain score” to the analysis, such that no-gain gains scored 0, institutional gains scored 1, research gains scored 2, operational – action gains scored 3 and operational – result gains scored 4. The results are shown in Table 5. Table 5 Average ranked scores for fisheries (ranking 0 for no-gains, 1,2,3,4 for institutional, research, action and result gains respectively). (a) gains where there was a condition, and only where the gain was stimulated by certification; (b) gains where there was a condition, irrespective of cause of gain (i.e. both mostly/ partially caused and not caused by certification); (c) gains irrespective of conditions and causes of gain. Fishery
Start certifica tion
End certifica tion
Number of Conditions
Average gain score where condition and caused by certification (a)
Average gain score where condition irrespective of cause (b)
Average gain score irrespective of conditions and causes of gain (c)
Western Australian rock lobster
Jan-99
Mar-00
5
2.00
2.00
2.26
Thames herring
Mar-99
Mar-00
8
1.00
1.60
1.82
Alaska salmon
Mar-99
Sep-00
10
2.00
1.75
1.75
Burry Inlet cockles
Mar-00
Apr-01
3
2.00
2.00
2.00
New Zealand hoki
Oct-00
Mar-01
10
2.33
2.33
2.33
Mar-01
Aug-01
2
1.00
1.00
1.00
May-01
Mar-04
10
2.50
2.60
2.74
Loch Torridon nephrops
Jan-02
Jan-03
5
2.29
2.29
2.29
South African hake
Aug-02
Apr-04
7
2.14
2.09
2.09
Mexican rock lobster
Nov-02
Apr-04
2
1.00
1.00
1.00
South West handline mackerel Toothfish
The number of gains was generally proportional to the number of conditions (Figure 1). This is only to be expected. However, it is also noteworthy that there is a general 1:1 correspondence between the number of gains and the number of conditions when the number of conditions is low, but when the number of conditions is high there are more gains than conditions. This is best seen in plot (c) of Figure 1, where there are in reality two groups of fisheries: those with fewer than 5 conditions, in which the number of gains is in 1:1 proportion to the number of conditions, and those with more than 5 conditions in which the number of gains is slightly higher than the number of conditions.
19
Figure 1 Plot of the number of gains against the number of conditions raised in a certification. Points are individual fisheries. The dotted line is a regression line with R2 shown. The single purple line is a 1:1 correspondence between the axes. (a) refers to gains where there was a condition and the gain was stimulated or partially stimulated by certification, (c) refers to gains irrespective of conditions and cause (following columns in Table 5 above).
a
c 20 number of gains
number of gains
20 15 10 5 R2 = 0.431
0 0
5
10
15
15 10 R2 = 0.3101
5 0 0
20
5
10
15
20
number of conditions
number of conditions
There is a significant positive relationship between the average gain score and the number of conditions (Figure 2). This holds for all the datasets shown in Table 5 (n = 10, P
