Cape Town – The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) officially inaugurated its first office in Africa in Cape Town, South Africa on 22 October 2008 at a reception at the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens in Cape Town.  The reception was attended by over 80 guests from seven Southern African countries drawn from the seafood industry, governments, trade unions non-governmental organisations, many of whom also attended a conference on “The opportunities and challenges of fisheries certification in Southern and Eastern Africa” held at Noordhoek .

Speaking at the launch Chris Nissen, Chairman of Sea Harvest Corporation and a former member of the MSC Board of Trustees, commented:  “I would like to say to the MSC that you have a friend in the deep-sea fishing industry in South Africa. The industry will be a benchmark for Africa.”

The MSC operates a fishery certification and eco-labelling programme that enables fisheries to demonstrate they operate in a way that will sustain fish stocks for the long-term future. MSC certification can help fisheries to gain access to the growing markets for sustainable seafood with products carrying the MSC eco-label influencing choices people make when buying seafood. Among other potential gains from promoting sustainability through MSC certification are increased food security, and helping to secure the livelihoods of those reliant on the long-term sustainability of the seafood industry. Initially Martin Purves, MSC Southern Africa Programme Manager, will work with partners in Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique and Tanzania to encourage more fisheries to seek certification under the MSC programme.

The South Africa hake trawl fishery was the first MSC certified fishery in Africa. Elsewhere there are two African fisheries, one in Mauritania and one in Gambia, engaged with the MSC.  They are part of a first group of fisheries testing an extension of the assessment approach specifically designed for small-scale and data-limited fisheries [3].

Also speaking at the launch event, was Denis Handley International Sales Executive for I&J Holding Company.  In his remarks he said: “The MSC brings a range of potential benefits to any company in the supply chain 'from boat to plate'. With consumers and seafood buyers increasingly aware of the importance of healthy oceans, being part of a secure, traceable supply chain selling certified sustainable seafood makes good business sense. Being part of the programme can set you apart from competitors and will ensure that the seafood you are offering to customers today will continue to be available in future”.

John White, MSC Director for Development stated: “The opening of the Cape Town office is a hugely significant day for the MSC. The MSC was born of a conviction that the destruction of the marine environment that has been taking place for decades would not be reversed by regulation alone. So an alternative way of tackling the overfishing problem was needed… using the market itself as a way of transforming the global seafood industry to a sustainable basis. There are tremendous opportunities for the Southern African industry to increase the share that they have of the global market for sustainable seafood, now worth about I billion US dollars. The MSC is excited at the prospect of working with the region to safeguard supplies of seafood for this and future generations and in so doing creating healthy oceans for all to enjoy.”

The MSC South Africa office is funded by the Pretoria based ComMarkTrust.
 

ENDS

Notes to the Editor:

[1] The MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) 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 (www.isealalliance.org/code) and UN FAO guidelines for fisheries certification (ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/008/a0116t/a0116t00.pdf)

 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.
The MSC has offices in London, Seattle, Tokyo, Sydney, The Hague, Edinburgh, Berlin and now Cape Town.  In total, more than 120 fisheries are engaged in the MSC program with 35 certified, 80 under assessment and another 20 to 30 in confidential pre-assessment. Together these fisheries record annual catches of more than 5 million tons of seafood. Of fish for human consumption, they represent more than 42 percent of the world’s wild salmon catch, 42 percent of the world’s prime whitefish catch and 18 percent of the world’s lobster catch.  Worldwide, more than 1,800 seafood products resulting from the certified fisheries bear the blue MSC eco-label. For more information, please visit www.msc.org
 [2] The MSC office in Cape Town is contactable at: P O Box 7107, Roggebaai, 8012, Cape Town South Africa, Telephone +27 (0) 21 4255086, E-Mail: martin.purves@msc.org 

[3] GASSDD stands for Guidelines for the Assessment of Small-Scale and Data-Deficient fisheries. The project is designed to test an alternative way of assessing the sustainability of fisheries that cannot provide the comprehensive set of scientific data needed to assess their environmental performance. If successful it will help increase the participation of small-scale and data-poor fisheries in the MSC programme and also help achieve the widest possible involvement in it.