A first of its kind project in South Africa will bring together stakeholders from across the seafood value chain, to benchmark and improve the sustainability of selected fisheries.
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is driving an initiative called the Fish for Good project whereby nine South African fisheries have been selected for pre-assessment against the MSC Fisheries Standard. These fisheries are longline-caught yellowfin Tuna, pole and line-caught albacore Tuna, purse seine netted sardine, hand-caught East Coast Rock Lobster, the commercial West Coast Rock Lobster fishery, rope-grown Black Mussel, kelp, jig-caught Squid and the west coast multispecies line fishery. Beyond pre-assessment, five of these fisheries will be supported through development and implementation of improvement action plans.
These fisheries have been selected by an Advisory Group of people representing government, the commercial and small-scale fishing sectors, scientific bodies, NGOs and the retail sector.
The Fish for Good (http://www.msc.org/fishforgood) project aims to accelerate the building of fisheries sustainability networks in South Africa as well as Indonesia and Mexico. It is a four-year project funded by the Dutch Postcode Lottery and is aimed at guiding fisheries towards more sustainable fishing. The fisheries will use the MSC sustainability criteria as a framework within which to structure improvement activities, opening the potential for future certification.
Mapping and gap analysis based on the MSC Fisheries Standard will be used to identify areas where sustainability improvements can be made. The project will follow a Project Pre-Assessment (PPA) model, focusing on country-specific analysis of fisheries as a way of introducing the MSC programme to a range of South African fishers.
Collaboration to drive change
Project Pre-Assessments (PPAs) is defined as any project that uses the MSC pre-assessment and other pre-certification tools in a strategic way to engage with multiple fisheries at the same time. It relies on support of the advisory group to provide advice and direction. Leading this group is the nominated chair, Professor Kevern Cochrane of Rhodes University, who noted, “stakeholders in the fishing sector, whether fishers themselves or supply chain companies, have different priorities and interests. Whilst we can all share the desire for better management of all fisheries, it’s important that different voices are given the chance to present their viewpoints so that all can benefit to some extent from the process that the Fish for Good project will introduce.”
