MSC certification of Ocean Trawlers and its Russian suppliers
Ocean Trawlers, a group of companies established in 1997 and based in Hong Kong having its sales offices in the UK and the USA, is entering a final stage of MSC certification of its suppliers of cod and haddock performed by Food Certification International (FCI), reports www.megafishnet.com.
The potential certification applies to approximately 90,000 tonnes (according to catches of assessed fleet of 16 trawlers in 2009) of the Northeast Arctic (NEA) cod and haddock traded by Ocean Trawlers group and supplied by Russia based fishing companies.
It is necessary to mention that both stocks of NEA cod and haddock are jointly managed by Russia and Norway based on the international agreements. The current positive development of these stocks and drastic decrease of estimated IUU-fishing activities, that recently became a threat to the sustainability of various species, indicates an effective and successful management performed by the Joint Norwegian-Russian Fisheries Commission. Such effective bilateral management and long-term cooperation between Russian and Norwegian fishery scientists became one of the key elements in successful assessment of the cod and haddock fisheries conducted by Russian trawlers.
Today the assessment of cod and haddock fisheries is finalized and the final report shall be soon available on the website of Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and FCI for 15 working day consultation period.
The certification process hasn't been an easy challenge both for Ocean Trawlers and Russian suppliers of cod and haddock. In order to achieve successful certification to MSC standards Ocean Trawlers in cooperation with its suppliers had to develop and implement a number of initiatives aimed at improvement of sustainability of the fisheries under assessment.
In order to establish a solid corporate platform for sustainable fishery Ocean Trawlers developed the Policy on Sustainable Fishery and updated its Code of Conduct for suppliers being an integrated part of all contacts with the suppliers.
In cooperation with Knipovich Polar Research Institute of Marine Fisheries and Oceanography (PINRO) in Murmansk the suppliers of Ocean Trawlers initiated a research to cover distribution of the fishing vessels under assessment in 2007 and 2008, description of the areas closed for bottom trawling, information on catches of the fishing vessels including all bycatch as well as overview of the papers on impact of bottom trawling on seabed ecosystems.
In order to establish a good and effective cooperation with Russian fishery scientists Ocean Trawlers also developed and initiated a Scientific Observers Scheme in cooperation with PINRO that will enable an independent monitoring of compliance of the assessed vessels and collect reliable data on fishing activity for scientific and management purposes.
Besides Ocean Trawlers in cooperation with Russian suppliers developed additional initiatives to register all non-target and non-commercial species including endangered threatened and protected species that can occur in the fishing gear as bycatch during cod and haddock fisheries.
During the previous stage of MSC certification several stakeholders had opportunity to comment on the Public Comment Draft Report. WWF Russia made the most comments on the results of this assessment.
In quite a number of cases Ocean Trawlers disagrees with the statements made by WWF Russia and considers that they might have been caused by misunderstanding or wrong information that WWF Russia referred to. However Ocean Trawlers will consider the concerns of WWF Russia regarding NEA cod and haddock fisheries also in terms of possible cooperation to address the most significant issues such as bycatch and discards during cod and haddock fisheries and impact of bottom trawling on the seabed communities.