Certification and eco-labelling: opportunities for African fisheries

Certification and eco-labelling programmes are widely recognised as a useful tool to bring about more effective management in fisheries. Evidence is also growing that real environmental benefits can result from these market based initiatives. Market benefits for certified fisheries range from better market access, price premiums for some products and access to niche markets. In some cases political and social benefits have also been reported for fishing communities after their fisheries have been certified. Compared to other parts of the world fewer fisheries in Africa have however been involved in and benefitted from certification programmes. The cost of certification, difficulty in meeting standards, lack of effective management in many fisheries and data poor environments have been given as potential barriers to access certification opportunities. There is however growing evidence that fisheries in developing countries, including small-scale fisheries, are benefitting from certification programmes such as that of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), the most widely recognised of these programmes for capture fisheries. This paper will explore some of the success stories from Developing World fisheries engaging in the MSC programme. It will review the status of uptake of certification in African fisheries and look at growing market opportunities that eco-labelling potentially offers for these fisheries

Charting a Path Towards Sustainable Seafood Resources in India: The Role of Voluntary Sustainable Standards

The rapid development and growth of the fisheries sector in India over the last couple of years has led to the sector playing an increasingly important role in the country’s economy. Fisheries contribute to India’s economy through increased employment, gross domestic product (GDP) and improved food security. The sector is, however, now faced with challenges to continued sustainability amidst concerns about overfishing, depleted stocks and illegal unreported unregulated fishing in the wild catch sector

Pathway to sustainability: the Marine Stewardship Council certification standard as an improvement framework for African fisheries

Fishery certification is increasingly employed as a multi-stakeholder, market-based mechanism to promote sustainability of fisheries. Preparing for, and achieving certification continues to deliver tangible improvements and benefits to fisheries, but the number of certified fisheries from Africa remains low. Some of the factors that constrain certification of fisheries in the region include limited data to assess and manage fisheries, the open access nature of many fisheries, overfishing, poor management, inadequate enforcement, and low demand for certified seafood. To overcome these constraints, several fisheries employ a “pathway to sustainability” approach that involves using the MSC fisheries standard as a framework for gap analysis, action planning, progress tracking and improvement. Certification may not always be the goal. This allows fisheries to make ongoing improvements over prior performance, regardless of whether they immediately achieve certification or not. Progress towards the desired goal, sustainable management, can be tracked over time. Some of the reported benefits include clarity of objectives, consolidation and focus of stakeholder efforts, participatory engagement, ability to attract resources for improvements, benchmarking of performance and, ultimately, improved environmental performance through better fisheries management. This paper discusses the uptake of this approach in Africa, by presenting case study fisheries from the continent. It outlines mechanisms through which these fisheries embarked on a pathway to sustainability using the MSC fisheries standard, and the outcomes from these initiatives. It highlights the successes and challenges associated with implementation. The paper concludes that the MSC standard and the improvements that it incentivizes can make a positive contribution to regional efforts to improve environmental sustainability, fisheries governance and consequently the socio-economic viability and resilience of fisheries in Africa