Sustainability notes

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: 

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.