The Make Stewardship Count Coalition is raising concerns that the latest draft of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) standards, being released on 1 February, 2022, will not improve the requirements for achieving its sustainable seafood certification.
The Make Stewardship Count Coalition consists of more than 90 NGOs, experts, organizations, and researchers with the collective aim of pushing for improvements to the MSC standard and certification. The coalition has released a set of scorecards that evaluated the multiyear process of the MSC fisheries standard review, which included a list of critical flaws in the seafood certification program. According to the scorecards, though MSC increased engagement opportunities during the review, the final stage of consultations lacks transparency.
“If the MSC fails to hold fisheries to a higher level of sustainability expectations, the label will no longer act as an incentive for change,” Ecology Action Centre Senior Marine Program Coordinator Shannon Arnold said in a press release. “We worry that without some significant changes in the new draft standard, at best, MSC will just continue to reward status quo and, at worst, become a block for other efforts around the world seeking to raise the bar on fisheries management and practice on the water.”
The coalition said the new standard does not do enough to eliminate shark-finning or the endangerment of vulnerable and protected species. And loopholes in the language used in the standard may lead to continued certification of fisheries regardless of high bycatch, insufficient data, and lack of improvement, Animal Welfare Institute Marine Wildlife Consultant Kate O’Connell said.
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https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/environment-sustainability/make-stewardship-count-coalition-raises-concerns-about-new-msc-standard