Fishery improvement tools

Pre-assessment template

An MSC pre-assessment provides an overview on how a fishery performs against the MSC Standard. This allows for gaps in performance to be identified. The process for undertaking an MSC pre-assessment is described in the MSC Fisheries Certification Process. 

Fishery improvement action plan tool

This tool provides templates and operational guidance for developing a fishery improvement action plan that will address the gaps in a fishery's performance. Action plans are intended to help potential MSC clients set out and implement actions to allow the fishery to meet MSC performance requirements within a specified time frame.

Benchmarking and tracking tool

The benchmarking and tracking tool allows a fishery to benchmark the environmental performance of a Fishery Improvement Project against the MSC Fisheries Standard. Users can track the Fishery Improvement Project's actual and expected progress.

The tool provides a method of consistently reporting information about status of a Fishery Improvement Project and generates a visual summary dashboard of information to help interested parties understand how the fishery is progressing. 

Risk-Based Framework

Access to data can be a barrier to MSC assessment, this is particularly true for small scale and developing world fisheries. The MSC has a set of precautionary risk-based indicators for the assessment of data-deficient fisheries.