North East Atlantic mackerel pelagic trawl, purse-seine and handline

Kyllej — 2008-03-11T09:05:00Z

MSC status

Certified as sustainable on the 30th April 2009.

The Conformity Assessment Body, DNV, has suspended the MSC certification of the North East Atlantic mackerel pelagic trawl, purse-seine and handline fishery, effective from, 30 March 2012. Fish caught after 30 March 2012 cannot be described or sold as MSC certified or carry the MSC ecolabel; however, fish caught before this date may still bear the MSC ecolabel provided it complies with MSC Chain of Custody requirements for traceability and separation. The fishery now has up to 90 days to work with DNV to put in place a plan to introduce corrective measures. If the certification body approves the action plan, the fishery will remain suspended while the corrective measures are being implemented. Failure to put a suitable plan in place will result in the fishery having its certificate withdrawn at the end of the 90 days (i.e. until 29 June 2012).

Please refer to the assessment downloads section for further information.

Summary

Species: Mackerel (Scomber scombrus)
Location: ICES areas II, III, IV, V, VI, VII
Fishing methods: Offshore purse-seiners, midwater trawlers and some smaller coastal vessels operating purse seines and handlines.
Vessels: In 2007, according to Norges Sildesalgslag figures, there were 107 offshore purse seiners, 32 licensed trawlers, 189 small coastal purse seine vessels and 269 coastal hook and line vessels fishing for NEA mackerel.
Number of fisheries: 1

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More about mackerel

Mackerel is a pelagic fish spending most of its time in mid-water travelling in large dense, shoals, often at great speed and making very long migrations. It is a voracious, opportunistic feeder and feeds mainly on zooplankton, but also on some small pelagic fish. As a result it is a very oily fish, building up high energy reserves during the spring and summer which it needs both for migration and subsequent gonad development during the following winter.

More about the fishing methods

On average about 77% of the Northeast Atlantic mackerel catch originates from purse seiners, 3% from pelagic trawlers, 11% from coastal purse seiners and 9% from coastal handline vessels.

Both small coastal vessels and larger offshore vessels operate purse seine gears. Offshore purse seiners are generally between 36m and 94m, with a smaller group of vessels (18) around 27m. In addition, the 189 coastal purse seine vessels are between 15 and 27m.

Pelagic trawl vessels operate offshore. These vessels are currently between 30 and 68m in length.

Fishery tonnage

131,965 tonnes

Commercial market

The mackerel landed in Norway is almost exclusively exported. The main market for mackerel some years ago was Japan and China, but during the two last years there has been a large increase in exports to Russia and Ukraine.

Meet the fishers

Jessica Wenban-Smith — 2008-05-28T15:25:00Z

Meet the North East Atlantic mackerel pelagic trawl fishers

More information following soon.

Sustainability notes

Kyllej — 2008-03-03T12:10:00Z

This is an overview of how the North East Atlantic mackerel pelagic trawl, purse-seine and handline fishery scored in assessment against the MSC standard. For the certifiers evaluation please download the full public certification report with detailed information on the performance of this fishery against the criteria of the MSC environmental standard for sustainable fishing.

The fishery scored as follows in assessment against the MSC standard for sustainable fishing. The highest possible score for each principle is 100 and a fishery must score at least 80 against each principle to get certified:

MSC Principle	Fishery Performance
Principle 1: Sustainability of Exploited Stock	Overall: 82, Pass
Principle 2: Maintenance of Ecosystem	Overall: 87, Pass (purse seine/trawl) Overall: 89, Pass (handline)
Principle 3: Effective Management System	Overall: 90, Pass

Sustainability strengths

Some points on which the fishery scored over 90 are outlined below.

Principle 1: the state of the fish stock

•    The species is readily identified by fishers and by regulators and is recorded appropriately. The life history is well understood.
•    Robust systems are in place to monitor landings by area, with all EU and Norwegian vessels over 15m required to have VMS.
•    The age and sex structure of the stock is monitored as part of the stock assessment so as to detect any impairment of reproductive capacity.
•    Technical measures are in place to prevent impacts of the fishery on the currently depleted North Sea component of the Western mackerel stock.

Principle 2: the impact of the fishery on the marine environment

• The fishery has very limited interaction with non-target species. Discarding of any part of the catch is illegal for all Norwegian vessels.
• Based on the information available, the low rates of interactions suggest the fishery does not pose a risk to protected, endangered or threatened species.

Principle 3: the fishery management systems

•    Organisations with management responsibility are clearly defined, including their areas of responsibility and interactions.
•    Clear operational procedures exist for meeting fishery objectives, through regular inspection of landings and other feedback systems.
•    The fishery resource and the effects of the fishery are regularly monitored and assessed by ICES. Full details of these assessments are made publicly available.
•    Procedures exist for reductions in harvest in light of monitoring results on an annual basis. Norway has entered into agreements regarding joint fisheries management with all neighboring countries and the EU, and the annual TAC’s for such shared fish stocks are arrived at through annual negotiations with these countries.

Challenges

In order to ensure its continuing sustainable operation this fishery made a commitment to improving its performance where it scored between 60-80. Some of the actions the fishery has committed to are:

•    Record all incidences of slippage. The client should actively discourage slippage in both the trawl fleet and the purse seine fleet. Vessels must record all slippage events with their best estimates of the species mix, quantity released and condition of the school on release. Reporting programmes should be initiated to provide comprehensive and verifiable estimates of the extent of this form of discarding of the target species and the by-catches of other species.
•    Record discards/slippage of mackerel in other pelagic fisheries, notably the herring-directed fisheries. Provisions under Condition 1 (above) should be extended to other Norwegian pelagic fisheries over the same timescale.
•    Develop and implement appropriate stock rebuilding or sustainable harvest strategy. Action required: ICES are currently completing the evaluation of a new multi annual management plan for NEA mackerel. This involves the re-assessment of target and limit reference points for both fishing mortality and biomass. Although the request is from the European Commission, subsequent discussion and implementation will inevitably involve the EU/Norway negotiations. The client will be expected to put its full weight behind the new management plan formulated by ICES and promote its adoption throughout the Norwegian pelagic industry.
•    By-catches. Sampling programmes should be initiated to provide statistically robust estimates of the by-catch of all species, including estimates of slippage and discards. Where assessments of impacts on by-catches are shown to be significant, and for all species identified as protected, endandered or threatened (PET), appropriate measures to reduce by-catches to acceptable and precautionary levels shall be developed and implemented.

Unit of certification

Kyllej — 2008-03-03T12:10:00Z

The unit of certification is the unit that is assessed by certifiers against the MSC environmental standard. It is defined as the fishery or fish stock (a biologically distinct unit) combined with the fishing method/gear and practice (the vessel/s) pursuing that stock. This is set at the beginning of the assessment.

The fishery: Unit of certification

The certified North East Atlantic mackerel pelagic trawl, purse-seine and handline fishery is defined as:

Species	Mackerel (Scomber scombrus)
Geographical range of fishing operations	ICES divisions II, III, IV, V, Vi and VII
Method of capture	Pelagic trawl, purse-seine and handline
Stock	North East Atlantic mackerel
Management	The stock is managed according to the EU-Norway Agreement. This agreement is implemented in Norway under national management systems, advised by ICES
Client group	Norges Sildesalgslag (Norwegian vessels only)