The Sustainable Fisheries Partnership’s 2022 reduction fisheries assessment has raised concerns over the continued stagnation of movement on sustainability in the sector since 2018.
Published on 19 April, the report is the 13th edition of SFP’s assessment of the world’s reduction fisheries, which are fisheries that focus on stocks used mainly for fishmeal and fish oil. SFP released the 2022 report in two parts to better align with the release of key stock assessments and management measurements for the 19 fisheries studied.
“The most important result is that overall performance in these fisheries peaked in 2017 to 2018 and has been stalled or declining ever since,” SFP Program Director Dave Martin said. “Most of the fisheries assessed in the report have been stuck in the ‘reasonably well-managed’ category for many years, and I worry that the industry has become somewhat complacent that these fisheries are ‘good enough.’”
The 2018 SFP report featured 91 percent of assessed fisheries ranking anywhere between “reasonably managed” and “very well-managed.” That report preceded a significant decline in scores for several fisheries from 2018 to 2021, tripling the volume of fish – from 7 percent to 21 percent – in the “poorly managed” category, according to Martin.
In the updated report, only two of the 19 assessed reduction fisheries improved performance – Northeast Atlantic blue whiting and Barents Sea capelin. In 2022, the coastal states of Iceland, Greenland, Norway, the U.K., the E.U., and the Faroe Islands agreed upon an official TAC that aligns with International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) advice for the first time. The collaboration among these coastal states ensured individual catch quotas now total up to the recommended TAC. This reduced previous overfishing and resulted in a record high spawning stock biomass for Northeast Atlantic blue whiting in 2022, therefore securing the improved score.
According to Martin, this complex, multi-country fishery highlights how industry, science, and government can work together to foster improvement and can serve as an example for other transboundary stocks.
The SFP evaluation in which Northeast Atlantic blue whiting recently improved its performance relies on sustainability scores in FishSource – an SFP public resource about the status of fisheries, stocks, and aquaculture. Scores further consider management strategies, managers’ compliance, fishers’ compliance, the current health of the stock, and the future health of the stock.
“It should be noted that the fisheries in the report are likely used mostly for salmon feed, meaning they are theoretically getting more attention from [the] industry,” Martin said. “The situation for many fisheries in Asia and other parts of the world that are used more for shrimp, tilapia, and pangasius feed is much worse; These fisheries face more significant environmental and social challenges and are desperately in need of industry-driven improvements. There is not enough data available to assess many of these fisheries, and we will need to engage an even wider set of stakeholders to drive improvements here.”
To drive assessment improvements, the 2022 report introduced the new FishSource Environmental and Biodiversity scoring method that focuses on impacts of bycatch; endangered, threatened, and protected (ETP) species; habitats; and ecosystems.
“Few of these fisheries have been assessed using our environment and biodiversity method; This would be a key next step in understanding risks and issues in any specific fishery covered in the report,” Martin said.
SFP found some evidence reduction fisheries are impacting food supply in some areas around the world, Martin said.
“Globally, we do see instances where reduction fisheries may be directly undermining local food security, but this varies greatly by country and region,” Martin said.
Martin said there is a need for further research on the impacts of these reduction fisheries on ETP species and the wider ecosystems they inhabit since low-trophic level species are often critical links in the marine food web.
“Reduction fisheries often face blanket criticism as being irresponsible in terms of ecosystem impacts and using fish that could be fed to humans to feed farmed fish or for other purposes such as nutraceuticals or cosmetics,” Martin said. “While these [overarching] concerns are now unwarranted, we need to look more closely at [individual] fisheries.”
SFP and IFFO – the Marine Ingredients Organization jointly launched the Global Roundtable on Marine Ingredients in October 2021 to tackle that research and welcomed the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and Nissui as roundtable members in 2022.
One fishery that received a category demotion in the recent report was Northwest Africa (Mauritania) and Southern European pilchard, which lacks a set total allowable catch (TAC) and has been impacted by illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing activity. The Global Roundtable on Marine Ingredients has taken over the management of the Mauritania Small Pelagic Fishery Improvement Project, created in 2017, and is creating a new fishery management plan and working to better understand marine ingredient industry impacts in Senegal and Mauritania.
“My broad recommendation to buyers and sellers of farmed seafood is to map your supply chains to better understand where feed is coming from … for any farmed seafood you handle. From there, we always encourage industry to work with their supply chains to drive improvements and support improvement efforts financially and otherwise,” Martin said. “We would certainly welcome more industry support to complete the environment and biodiversity assessments for these and other fisheries.”
Martin said SFP encourages companies involved with reduction fisheries to join industry efforts, such as the Global Roundtable on Marine Ingredients and the North Atlantic Pelagic Advocacy Group (NAPA), to spur improvements in sustainability.
Photo courtesy of David Martin/LinkedIn
