Plaice fishery applies for MSC eco-label

London - 30th January 2008 – The ‘Gebr. de Boer’ North Sea plaice twinrig fishery managed by Gebr. De Boer Holding BV has applied for assessment under the Marine Stewardship Council standard for sustainable and well managed fisheries. If successful, the 800 tonne plaice fishery will be allowed to display the MSC eco-label on its products.

The de Boer North Sea plaice twinrig fishery isn’t the only fishery fishing for North Sea plaice: other EU member states and Dutch fishing companies exploit the same stock, however, the unit of certification (i.e. the certified fisheries) will be restricted to vessels specifically named by the client. Initially, this will be the fishing vessel - ‘Enterprise’ PD 147 (pictured) but it is anticipated that this will be expanded to include a second fishing vessel ‘Annegina’ PD 43 when new fishing methods, gear and operational practices are adopted.

Ben Visser, manager of Gebr. De Boer Holding BV says: “This is a very important step towards a recovery of the north sea flat fish fleet. I hope we will be certified as soon as possible. The consumers demand for top quality sustainable seafood. We aim to provide the European market with premium quality wild catch seafood, under the well known MSC-label, starting with plaice. In a later stadium we hope to certify cod and lemon sole as well. Also we invite other north sea fishing boats to join our group and apply for MSC as well. Together, we can build up our market for sustainable wildcatch plaice fillets in Europe again, with the support of the NGO’s like WWF, etc.”

Chris Ninnes, Operations Director of the MSC says; “I am very pleased that the de Boer North Sea plaice fishery has decided to apply for full assessment under the MSC standard.  This will be the first North Sea plaice fishery to be assessed for MSC certification and I am sure this development will greatly interest the 4,500 stores in the Dutch Association of Food Retail that recently pledged to sell only MSC-certified fish by 2011.”

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Notes to Editors

[1] Marine Stewardship Council: The MSC is an international non-profit organisation that was set up in 1997 to promote solutions to the problem of overfishing. The MSC runs the only widely recognised environmental certification and eco-labelling programme for wild capture fisheries. It is the only seafood eco-label that is consistent with the ISEAL Code of Good Practice for Setting Social and Environmental Standards and UN FAO guidelines for fisheries certification. The FAO ‘Guidelines for the Eco-labelling of Fish and Fishery Products from Marine Capture Fisheries’, require that credible fishery certification and eco-labelling schemes include:
- Objective, third-party fishery assessment utilising scientific evidence;
- Transparent processes with built-in stakeholder consultation and objection procedures;
- Standards based on the sustainability of target species, ecosystems and management practices.
In total, over 90 fisheries are engaged in the MSC programme with 26 certified, 56 under assessment and another 20 to 30 in confidential pre-assessment. Together the fisheries record annual catches of over 4 million tonnes of seafood. They represent over 42 percent of the world’s wild salmon catch, 40 percent of the world’s prime whitefish catch, and 18 percent of the world’s lobster catches for human consumption. Worldwide, over 1,000 seafood products resulting from the certified fisheries bear the blue MSC eco-label. For more information, please visit www.msc.org