Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska flatfish: the fishers' story
Meet the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands flatfish fishers
The Alaska flatfish fisheries have a compelling story to tell about how they reduced environmental impact and rebuilt their stocks – and MSC certification has been key to helping them spread the word. Bill Orr and John Gauvin of the Alaska Seafood Cooperative, a group of catcher-processors, discuss the conservative management, low-impact fishing gear and community quota system that is changing the way people think about trawling for flatfish.
Quick facts
"You can see and you can feel when you talk to people and they say, 'Yeah, we are certified and sustainable,' that it means something to the crew and the guys who are running the boats and the office"
Bill Orr, president of the Alaska Seafood Cooperative and CEO of Iquique U.S., a member company
Why we chose MSC certification
The Alaska flatfish fisheries had suffered from negative publicity due to the previous, unsustainable management measures of what had been a derby-style fishery, but after sustainable management policies were put in place, the men and women working in the fishery needed a way to verify and communicate these changes.
"They are proud that they are out there feeding the world – that is what they see themselves as doing – and it was hard to be attacked as being an environmentally negative industry," explains Bill Orr, president of the Alaska Seafood Cooperative (AKSC) and CEO of Iquique U.S., a member of the catcher-processor cooperative.
This is where certification came in. "When I heard about the [MSC] program I thought it would be great to have someone do a review of and give accreditation to what we had done and also address any areas that maybe were still deficient, if any," says John Gauvin, fisheries science projects director at AKSC. "We looked at it as more of an audit process."
What sets us apart
Here are a few of the steps the Bering Sea-Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska flatfish fisheries have taken towards sustainable fishing:
- Conservative management has increased flatfish biomass to unprecedented levels
- Ended 'race for fish' and high bycatch through allocating quotas to cooperatives
- Reduced seafloor contact by trawls by 90 per cent with improved trawl design
- New trawl design also reduces fuel consumption
- Ongoing commitment to further environmental improvements and to adapting the improved gear for new regions
Environmental benefits of MSC certification
After foreign trawlers were phased out of the fisheries in the 1970s, flatfish stocks off Alaska were gradually rebuilt over two decades of conservative management practices, so that in recent years, for instance, the actual catch in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands of between 200,000-250,000 tonnes has been 20-25 per cent of the annual flatfish catch limits established by scientists.
And in 2008 a quota system was implemented to end the ‘race for fish’ in which the season would end as soon as too much of the target species or the allocated bycatch, such as halibut or crab, was taken. Individual vessels can form cooperatives and each cooperative is allocated specific amounts of several flatfish species, Pacific cod, Pacific ocean perch, Atka mackerel and bycatch they are allowed to take. "In 2007, we ran out of our allocation of halibut bycatch at the beginning of August. Now, we run our entire year without running out of either bycatch of halibut or crab," says Orr.
Contact with the seafloor by trawl sweeps – fabric-covered cables that help herd the fish into the nets – has been reduced to almost zero through a four-year effort to develop a modified gear that raises the sweep off the seafloor using bobbins spaced at 30 meter intervals. This has reduced the impact of the trawl gear by 90 per cent, and thus reduced the impact to habitat and to non-target species such as crab.
The new gear was implemented in the Bering Sea in January 2011, and from all indications is not hurting catch rates, says Gauvin. It is now under consideration for other fisheries as well.
How else does MSC certification benefit the environment?
Economic benefits of MSC certification
All these environmental measures were taken independently of the MSC certification process, but over time the Alaska flatfish fisheries came to see certification as a useful marketing tool for talking about these improvements.
"We thought we had a pretty good story to tell and that by going through the MSC certification process we could discuss the fisheries on a factual basis as opposed to the pre-conceived notions we have been fighting for years," explains Orr.
The certification confirmed for consumers and retailers what those working in the fishery already knew – that decades of conservative management and major changes to gear and bycatch rates had succeeded in making the Alaska flatfish fisheries sustainable.
How else does MSC certification improve economic prospects for fisheries?
Social benefits of MSC certification
In addition to being a point of pride, the sustainability of the fisheries has resulted in a more stable future for them and the people who work in them.
"There are thousands of jobs on the water and just on the first level of management and processing…and you can tell in talking to the people that they are proud of the fishery and this certification adds to that," Orr says.
Looking ahead...
Work is underway to adapt the new and improved Bering Sea flatfish gear to the Gulf of Alaska as well, and to continue the fisheries' evolution toward becoming even more sustainable and further reducing impact on habitat and non-target species.
Learn more at the Alaska Seafood Cooperative site
Get recipes for sustainable fish dishes
Find MSC labelled products from this fishery
More about MSC-certified fisheries and fish
The article above was written by an independent journalist commissioned by the MSC to find out how MSC certification has helped this fishery.
