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West Greenland coldwater prawn

Last Updated: 27th October 2008
Number of fisheries: 1

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Fishery Species

Coldwater prawn (Pandalus borealis)

MSC assessment status

The certification body, Moody Marine Ltd, has announced the release of the final Performance Indicators and Scoring Guideposts (PI&SGs) that will be used to evaluate the West Greenland coldwater prawn fishery against the MSC Principles and Criteria.

The certification body, Moody Marine Ltd, has announced that the West Greenland coldwater prawn fishery is now entering the information gathering phase of the assessment. The primary objective of this stage is to collect information on the fishery and in particular to speak to representatives of the fishery, fishery management bodies and other stakeholders of the fishery. Meetings will be carried out over the period 17-20th November 2008 in Nuuk, Greenland.

Please refer to the downloads section for further details.

Fishery location

West Greenland (NAFO sub-areas 1A-F and 0B)

Fishing method

Otter trawls

Fishery management

The fishery is managed under the Greenland Fishery Act through a series of regulations. These include the use of:

  • Fishing licences
  • Fleet quotas
  • Access restrictions
  • Bycatch restrictions
  • Control measures, including logbooks, landing declarations, VMS, an observer programme and hailing in procedures
  • Technical conservation measure, e.g. minimum mesh size.

Enforcement and surveillance is principally carried out by the Control unit of the Directorate of Fisheries (Greenland Fisheries Licence Control). These enforce regulation, track vessels and landing reporting and control the observer programme.

Observers are present on sailings of 60% of the offshore fleet and inshore fleet with processing facilities on-board and 10% of the inshore fleet without processing facilities. All catches of the inshore fleet is landed in Greenland.

Policing is carried out by the Control Unit and through at-sea inspections by (Danish) naval vessels. Vessels are inspected at sea around 2-3 times per year.

Since 2004 the TAC for the entire fishery has been set at 130,000 tonnes.

Commercial market

All coldwater prawn product is exported. Product for domestic consumption is re-imported from Denmark.

Assessment timeline

The assessment process is expected to take 16 months and is scheduled for completion in or around June 2009. Please see the download section for a detailed assessment timeline.

The proposed target eligibility date is the 1st November 2008.

The MSC ecolabel can only be applied to product from certified fisheries. The MSC program does allow, in certain circumstances and within strict traceability requirements, the MSC ecolabel to be applied following certification to product caught before the actual date of certification. The target eligibility date therefore represents the date from which products may become eligible to carry the MSC ecolabel, however they cannot be sold until and if the fishery is certified. The actual eligibility date will be determined if the fishery is certified to the MSC standard.

To find out more about when fish from this fishery may be sold with the MSC ecolabel, please follow this link (http://www.msc.org/get-certified/supply-chain/eligibility-dates).


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