Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) Certification of Arctic Fisheries: Processes and Outcomes

• Author: Geir Hønneland
• Pages: 71-94

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Citation: Geir Hønneland. “Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) Certication of Arctic Fisheries: Processes and Outcomes”

Arctic Review on Law and Politics, Vol. 11, 2020, pp. 133–156. http://dx.doi.org/10.23865/arctic.v11.2488

Arctic Review on Law and Politics

Vol. 11, 2020, pp. 133–156

133

*Correspondence to: Geir Hønneland, email: ghonneland@fni.no

Peer-reviewed article

Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)

Certication of Arctic Fisheries:

Processes and Outcomes

Geir Hønneland

Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) and Fridtjof Nansen Institute (FNI),

Norway

Abstract

Certication according to private sustainability standards (ecolabelling) has become an important

addition to public sheries management in recent years. The major global ecolabel in terms of

comprehensiveness and coverage is the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) Fisheries Standard.

Under the MSC Standard, the status of the shery’s target stocks, its impact on the wider eco-

system and the effectiveness of its management system are assessed. Becoming and remaining

certied requires continuous behavioural adaptation from sheries through a ne-meshed system

of conditions attached to certication. In this article, MSC certication of two clusters of sheries

in Arctic waters is discussed, one large- and one small-scale. In the Barents Sea cod and haddock

sheries, the main obstacle to certication has been the sheries’ impact on endangered, threat-

ened and protected (ETP) species and bottom habitats, and in order to remain certied beyond

the rst ve-year certication period, the shing companies have had to introduce a number of

voluntary measures beyond what is required by law. In the local lumpsh sheries in Greenland,

Iceland and Norway, conditions attached to certication have been related to the effects of these

sheries on seabirds and marine mammals. Here essential parts of a management regime, such as

biological reference points and harvest control rules, have come about as a direct result of MSC

certication. MSC certication is no panacea, but it seems to have found a niche as a supplement

to national legislation and international agreements.

Keywords: Marine Stewardship Council, ecolabelling, Arctic sheries, Barents Sea

Responsible Editor: Nigel Bankes, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary, Canada

Received: July 2020; Accepted: September 2020; Published: December 2020

Geir Hønneland

134

1 Introduction

Certication by private sustainability schemes has over the past few years become

a prerequisite for export-oriented sheries around the world. The golden standard

of seafood certication is accreditation by the Global Sustainable Seafood Initiative

(GSSI),1 and the rst global scheme to achieve that was the Fisheries Standard of

the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC).2 Since its establishment in 1997, MSC has

worked decisively not only to develop an ever more rigorous standard for certica-

tion, but also to get wholesale supply chains and retailers to commit to purchasing

MSC certied seafood only. As a consequence, seafood exporters face not only lower

prices for non-MSC certied products; they are effectively barred from the most

lucrative markets if their sh is not MSC certied.

Becoming and remaining certied requires continuous behavioural adaptation

from sheries through a ne-meshed system of conditions attached to certication.

The MSC Certication Requirements – which consist of the MSC Fisheries Stan-

dard and the MSC Fisheries Certication Process (FCP) – only apply to a limited

extent to shing companies as such. They primarily involve an assessment of the

management systems, with requirements as to their outcome (e.g. status of target

and bycatch stocks and other ecosystem components, such as bottom habitats),

management measures (e.g. harvest control rules and biological reference points)

and availability of information (e.g. in the form of stock assessments). Hence, the

involvement of management authorities at the national and international levels is

necessary; it is the interaction between shing companies and management author-

ities that is supposed to drive the sustainability of sheries forward. To be specic,

when a shery is certied with conditions, their representatives have to work with

management authorities (or scientists or other stakeholders) to meet these condi-

tions within set timelines in order to remain certied. In many instances, this implies

that national laws, regulations and policies must be changed.

There is a burgeoning social science literature on private sheries certication

schemes in general, and the MSC in particular. Many contributions focus on the per-

ceptions and effects of the MSC beyond sheries management as such, addressing,

inter alia, consumer willingness to pay for certied products,3 the legitimacy of the

MSC Standard among stakeholders4 and the environmental, economic and social

effects of MSC certication.5 This article takes an “inside” perspective on MSC cer-

tication, analysing the MSC Certication Requirements as a “semi-legislative”/“reg-

ulatory” system and evaluating the effects of certication. The research question is:

to what extent has MSC certication affected sheries management (i.e. regulations)

and shing practices (i.e. sher behaviour)?6 The empirical focus is on two clusters of

sheries in Arctic waters, one large- and one small-scale. The Barents Sea, to the north

of Norway and Northwest Russia (see Map 1), is one of the most productive shing

grounds in the world. It is home to a typical large-scale shery, with more than a

hundred ocean-going trawlers (most of them Russian) taking part all year round. The