SFP: Just one reduction fishery in ‘very good condition’

The Antarctic krill fishery is the only fishery used for the production of fishmeal and fish oil that is in very good condition, according to the latest annual sustainability overview of reduction fisheries published by the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP). The Category A fishery accounts for just 2 percent of the 9 million metric tons (MT) produced by reduction fisheries.

The report, “Reduction Fisheries: SFP Fisheries Sustainability Overview 2015,” covers 24 of the most significant fisheries used for the production of fishmeal and fish oil and rates each according to the sustainability assessment on SFP’s online database, FishSource.

It finds that 62.5 percent of the total catch volume for reduction purposes comes from stocks that are reasonably well managed or better, scoring 6 or above on all five FishSource criteria. However, 37.5 percent or 3.5 million MT of the total comes from 12 poorly managed fisheries (Category C).

Furthermore, only 12 percent of the catch comes from stocks that score 6 or above in all criteria and the score for biomass is 8 or more, meaning biomass is at or above target levels (Category B1). This level of performance is in line with the current Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) requirements for fisheries providing fishmeal and fish oil for feed to certified farms, said SFP.

Of the 24 fisheries analyzed, four fisheries improved from 2014 and six had lower grades. Five have fishery improvement projects (FIPs) in place.

Around 90 percent of the catch supply from reduction fisheries in the study comes from either fisheries approved by the IFFO RS (International Fishmeal and Fish Oil Organisation Responsible Sourcing) certification or from Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified fisheries.

The proportion of the total catch from fisheries engaged with the MSC program has increased to 13.7 percent from just 3 percent in 2014.

With the exception of MSC-certified fisheries or fisheries under MSC full assessment, none of the fisheries reviewed in the report consider wider ecosystem effects when creating management regimes.

The lack of publicly available fisheries data has been a major problem for SFP in reviewing reduction fisheries. The NGO has identified five key data “building blocks” that it said need to be made public to allow an accurate assessment of a fishery but only 9 of the 24 fisheries studied by the report have all of them. Four fisheries have none at all.

“This report confirms that most of these reduction fisheries are relatively well managed but there is little room for complacency. More than a third of the catch going to fishmeal and fish oil has significant problems and this figure has hardly changed in recent years. There is also little recognition of ecosystem elements in the management of many fisheries and significant problems with transparency of data,” said Blake Lee-Harwood, strategy director with SFP.

“The fishmeal and oil industry remains essentially a responsible industry that works hard to manage stocks effectively but we need to see a concerted effort to raise the bar and boost performance. It is very heartening that there are at least five fishery improvement projects among the fisheries being studied and that the number of fisheries associated with the MSC program is increasing significantly.”

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