Australia’s orange roughy fishery is set to be certified to the Marine Stewardship Council’s (MSC) Fisheries Standard following several failed attempts from the nation’s fishing industry to get it certified.
The certification, which will be valid for five years, has faced significant pushback from environmental NGOs on the basis that orange roughy is a listed threatened, endangered, or protected (TEP) species.
“No species on a recognized TEP list should be certified as one of the most sustainable seafood options a consumer can choose,” said Adrian Meder, the sustainable seafood program manager at Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS), a South Brisbane, Australia-based environmental nonprofit.
The opposition from AMCS and other groups was successful for many years, drawing the ire of fisheries representatives such as Simon Boag, a fisheries advisor at Australia-based Atlantis Fisheries Consulting Group, which Boag said has been engaged by a number of orange roughy quota owners to seek MSC accreditation.
“Environmental NGOs will complain and make up lies because they are becoming irrelevant,” he said.
Boag told SeafoodSource that AMCS erroneously classifies orange roughy as endangered in Australia but he said the fish is actually “classed as ‘conservation-dependent’ by the Australian government.”
“This is the ranking of least concern,” he said. “We must not forget that the World Wildlife Fund started MSC with the aim that if fisheries achieved its certification, global fishing would be more sustainable. Now that fisheries are achieving MSC Version 3.0, [NGOs] complain. The rebuilding of orange roughy is an amazing achievement that the Australian community should be proud of.”
Fisheries stakeholders like Boag and groups including AMCS have opposing views of the MSC’s Version 3.0 standard, originally issued in 2023 but amended in 2024.
Boag said MSC’s standard is based on the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization guidelines and environmental NGOs, governments, buyers, and fisheries were involved in drafting Version 3.0, which he described as “the toughest version [to meet] yet.”
Meder, on the other hand, told SeafoodSource that Version 3.0 was weakened to create a “loophole enabling certification of TEP species as in-scope for certification under certain circumstances.”
“This loophole was not added at the request of any environmental organization, nor was any environmental or seafood supply justification or benefit given by the MSC,” he said. “By being anywhere near a TEP listed status, there is likely not a significant tonnage available to sustainably catch. The only justification for this weakening was that sometimes TEP listings could be outdated, which is not the case of Australian orange roughy.”
Boag, however, is adamant the certification is sound and has accused AMCS of using its objections as a fundraising opportunity.
“AMCS just can’t accept that leaving the fishery alone for decades and then taking a fraction of what used to be caught has seen the fishery rebuild and now be on a sustainable footing,” he said. “They [have fundraised] using campaigns that asked for ‘legal fees.’ They didn’t incur any such fees. Other than a small [objection] application cost, they incurred no cost. In fact, the objection was cash positive for them, likely hugely cash positive.”
Meder objected to Boag’s accusation, saying AMCS did incur costs in objecting to the certification of the orange roughy fishery, saying that the MSC’s objection process is “costly and burdensome and heavily favors the industry and certifiers.”
He also said fundraising is a very normal process for organizations like his to engage in.
“As a nonprofit organization, AMCS does not hold funds to pay for objections without calling on donations from our supporters,” he said. “AMCS sent our supporters an email asking for AUD 10,000 [USD 6,200, EUR 5,600] to cover the objection costs, which include the application fee of AUD 9,500 (USD 5,896, EUR 5,680) plus staff time and travel costs associated with preparing and attending the objection hearing. AMCS retains the right to fundraise on matters relevant to our organization’s purpose as we see fit.”
New Zealand’s orange roughy fishery, which is MSC-certified, has faced pushback from NGOs, too.
The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC), a New Zealand-based coalition of 115 conservation-focused NGOs, asked the MSC to suspend its certification of the country’s orange roughy fishery in late 2024 after the New Zealand government published scientific evidence of spawning habitat loss related to damage from bottom trawling.
The group has also called for catch limits to be reduced by as much as 50 percent to ensure the health of the species.
“Following evidence of another orange roughy stock in decline, disappearance of spawning aggregations, disturbance to spawning habitats such as seamounts, and ongoing damage to deep sea life from bottom trawling, the DSCC is strongly and urgently recommending that the MSC suspend the remainder of the New Zealand orange roughy certification,” the DSCC said in a letter sent to Matt Watson, who is MSC’s Asia Pacific senior fisheries program manager.
