Sustainability notes

This is an overview of how the Eastern Canada offshore scallop fishery scored in assessment against the MSC standard. For the certifiers evaluation please download the full public certification report (link) 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
•    A conservative harvest strategy that is aimed at maintaining a good fishing pattern, a low harvest rate, maximum meat counts, and a limit on the number of licensed enterprises.

Principle 2: the impact of the fishery on the marine environment
•    The industry has invested in seabed mapping thereby reducing the impact of the gear on the sea bed. There is good knowledge of benthic habitats and species within the fishing area.

Principle 3: the fishery management systems
•    The institutional and operational management of the fishery is considered overall to be very good.

Challenges:

•    The assessment team highlighted that there was limited information on the incidental and discard mortality of scallops.
•    The fishery management system lacks: explicit short and long term resource and environment objectives; procedures for measuring performance relative to the objectives; formalised measures to apply a precautionary approach; and, management strategies to detect and reduce ecosystem impacts.