Number of fisheries: 1
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Fishery Species
Coldwater prawn (Pandalus borealis)
MSC assessment status
Owing to the delay in progressing to the next steps in the assessment the conformity assessment body, Intertek moody marine, has announced its intention to continue with the assessment using the MSC’s Default Assessment Tree (including Performance Indicators and Scoring Guideposts) in the evaluation of the West Greenland coldwater prawn fishery against the MSC Principles and Criteria. This allows for further opportunity for stakeholders to meet or speak with the assessment team.
The default Assessment Tree is defined in the MSC Fisheries Assessment Methodology (FAM), available for download here.
Any persons wishing to comment on this proposed use of the default Assessment Tree are invited to contact Paul Knapman by 5pm GMT, 8 March 2012.
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 scheduled for completion in or around August 2012. Please see the download section for a revised assessment timeline.
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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