The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has published its 2025 Small Pelagics Yearbook, sharing market data, insights, and suggestions for pelagic fisheries’ stakeholders.
The yearbook included a 2024 survey conducted by MSC and Globescan that found consumers are highly concerned with the fate of the world’s oceans, with 91 percent saying that they are worried about the issue and nearly 70 percent saying they are willing to change their behaviors to protect fish and seafood in the future.
The results suggested that consumers feel empowered to help protect the oceans through their seafood-buying choices. Half of the participants recognized the MSC label, and 58 percent said that seeing the MSC label made them more likely to purchase a product. Even more revealingly, 40 percent of participants recognized the label and its meaning before being prompted by the questioner about it.
Three-fourths of surveyed participants said they trusted the MSC label, and 42 percent said they noticed ecolabels generally. More than half the participants (52 percent) said they were willing to pay more for certified seafood.
MSC Chief Program Officer Nicolas Guichoux said that those insights into consumer-buying behavior should inspire the protection of small pelagic fisheries.
“Against the backdrop of increasing demand, it is vital to protect small pelagic fisheries for the future,” he said. "The yearbook demonstrates the role of certification in driving sustainable outcomes for this species group while highlighting the risks to these dynamic fisheries when international agreements are not in place to protect from overfishing and mismanagement.”
According to MSC, aquaculture production will comprise 60 percent of fish destined for human consumption by 2032.
This market, as well as the growing fish oil market, puts pressure on small pelagic fisheries, some of which, MSC said, have lost their MSC certifications due to quota disagreements between fishing nations. Herring, blue whiting, and mackerel in the Northeast Atlantic, for instance, have lost or had their MSC certifications suspended due to such conflicts.
To alleviate the issue, the MSC “is calling on coastal states and fishing nations of the Northeast Atlantic to end the political deadlock and agree on a quota share agreement in line with scientific advice for the pelagic stocks of Atlanto-Scandian herring, blue whiting, and mackerel.”
One of the key risks the yearbook outlined that makes overfishing even greater of an issue is climate change.
Climate change is particularly impactful, according to the MSC, to the movement of small pelagic species, as changes in water temperature prompt fish migrations.
"Climate-related impacts have exacerbated [national disagreements about quotas,] with fish stock distribution patterns changing at an accelerated rate,” MSC said.
Though these climate-driven stock movements are a challenge, they also “make management responses more urgent,” the MSC said.
