The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) on Wednesday objected to the Marine Stewardship Council’s assessment of the New Zealand albacore troll fishery.
The objection is based on ISSF’s belief that the scoring of the assessment is not justified and that certain information was not considered as part of the assessment.
In it’s objection submitted to the MSC, the ISSF said it is concerned that the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) is incapable of setting effective conservation and management measures for stocks that are experiencing overfishing, such as bigeye tuna. According to the ISSF, even if albacore tuna in the southern Pacific is currently in a healthy status and the level of monitoring and management controls in New Zealand is strong, the ineffectiveness of the WCPFC prevents the entire southern albacore stock from being managed in conformity with MSC standards.
The objection will now be forwarded to an independent adjudicator for review.
