The Marine Stewardship Council has created a GBP 1 million (USD 1.3 million, EUR 1.1 million) fund to assist small-scale fisheries in the Southern Hemisphere in overcoming obstacles to sustainability.
The Ocean Stewardship Fund aims to build capacity, knowledge, and data collection in fisheries in the Global South, with the eventual aim of seeing more small-scale fisheries in the region achieve MSC certification, according to a press release.
The fund is part of a larger effort on behalf of MSC called “Pathway to Sustainability,” which MSC announced at the Our Ocean Conference, in Bali, Indonesia, taking place from 25 to 29 October.
“Only 14 percent of MSC certified fisheries are in developing countries, while those countries provide 73 percent of the seafood consumed worldwide,” the MSC said in its release. “Lack of data and difficulty in mapping are some of the factors that limit these fisheries in becoming sustainable. Even in developed regions of the globe, similar barriers constrain fisheries' sustainability and access to the MSC program, particularly small-scale fisheries. The MSC is aware of this and is committed to supporting the efforts of fisheries to become sustainable, prior to entering MSC-assessment. The MSC has been working on these issues for many years, but never as one coherent, overall project, until now.”
The MSC has set the goal of enrolling 20 percent of global fisheries into its program by 2020 and 33 percent of all fisheries by 2030. The targets are in line with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG14), which seeks to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources.
“Achieving this target will require strategic engagement with fisheries in the Global South. These fisheries contribute over 70 percent of global seafood production. Many are data poor and not operating at a level to achieve MSC certification. The Marine Stewardship Council’s … Ocean Stewardship Fund is specifically targeted at helping these fisheries on their pathway to sustainability,” MSC Chief Executive Rupert Howes said. “The MSC’s new Ocean Stewardship Fund builds on the experience and success of our earlier Global Fisheries Sustainability Fund, which invested in small-scale fishery improvements in a diverse range of ecosystems, from the Coral Triangle to the oceans around Madagascar and Suriname. We have substantially increased the scale of the fund and will target investment to those fisheries engaged in a formal transition program that will deliver measurable improvements in performance.”
MSC funding will be made available to fisheries to enter into a formal MSC pre-assessment, which will help them identify obstacles to sustainability and address specific data needs, Howes said. Full details of how the governance and application for funding will work will be announced in 2019, he said.
“The MSC has been engaged with fisheries in the Global South since its inception and has built up a solid knowledge of the constraints these fisheries face to achieve a sustainable level of performance, MSC said in its release. “The fund will also help create a more sustainable seafood market through research to overcome data and information gaps in fisheries management.”
The MSC worked with the World Economic Forum’s Friends for Ocean Action, a group convened by the U.N. Secretary General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean, Peter Thomson, and the Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden, Isabella Lövin, to create the fund, Howes said. The MSC’s formal announcement of the fund was cheered by Tomson and Lövin.
“Our ocean is in trouble. We urgently need to scale workable solutions to deliver sustainable fisheries and resilient marine ecosystems. The attainment of SDG14’s targets is essential to the ocean’s future well-being,” Thomson said in the release. “I welcome MSC’s latest initiative to engage with and help fisheries in the Global South, and to invest in new scientific research that could benefit many fisheries around the world.”
The initiative is also a product of the 2020 Leaders for a Living Ocean program, which the MSC coordinated during the 2018 Our Ocean Conference. The program, which includes many of the world’s largest seafood companies and retailers, helped identify MSC’s target certification goals.
