The NE Sakhalin Island pink salmon fishery on Russia’s east coast has been awarded Marine Stewardship Council certification, the London-based organization announced on Tuesday.
This is Russia’s third fishery overall and second salmon fishery to earn MSC certification. The Iturup Island pink and chum salmon fisheries received MSC certification in September 2009, followed by the Barents Sea cod and haddock fishery, managed jointly between Russia and Norway, in 2010.
The region’s annual pink salmon harvest averaged 5,407 metric tons from 2001 to 2010. The market for the fish is mainly confined to domestic consumption but there has been increased interest from the United States and Europe.
The fishery occurs along the east coast of Sakhalin Island in the Nogliki and Smirnykh districts. The assessment encompassed all companies fishing in the two regions, but use of the certificate will apply only to the companies that have agreed to a certificate sharing arrangement with the Sakhalin Salmon Initiative Center and the Sakhalin Regional Fisheries Association.
The participating companies primarily use coastal trap nets to fish for pink salmon. A minority of the companies use diverse gear types such as river weirs, beach seines and floating gillnets. Coastal trap nets are considered passive since the nets are set in a single location for fish to swim into, and thus catch per net set varies depending on the intensity and strength of any particular run in that locale.
More than 280 fisheries are engaged in the MSC program, with 163 certified, 119 under full assessment and 40 to 50 in confidential pre-assessment. Collectively, certified fisheries or fisheries in full assessment produce close to 10 million metric tons of seafood annually, representing more than 11 percent of the global wild seafood harvest.
