SGS Product & Process Certification - Marine Stewardship Council

This is, in the main, a competent and comprehensive assessment of the Dutch rod and line fishery for Sea Bass against the MSC Principles and Criteria
for Sustainable Fisheries. The Report provides an authoritative overview of the fishery and the issues that relate to the three MSC Principles. I concur
with the majority of comments and scoring in the Report, though I have serious concerns about the overall score for Principle 1 and the use of the Risk
Based Framework (RBF).
Inevitably the majority of my comments relate to P1. This is not a reflection on the competence of the P1 assessor, but a consequence of dealing on
the one hand with a relatively data-poor fishery, and on the other hand, one which has very little environmental impact and takes place within a welldeveloped
fishery management regime.
The client rod and line fishery is relatively small scale and has a desirable exploitation pattern. It is the type of fishery that should be encouraged and
would be expected to meet the MSC Principles and Criteria for Sustainable Fisheries. However, this assessment has to look at the total exploitation on
bass within the unit of certification. It is clear that there are extensive landings from other commercial fisheries (French mid-water trawling (not in the
North Sea), and Dutch beam-trawl, fly-seine and twin-rig trawl gears) and from the large Dutch recreational fishery. There appear to be warning signs of
declining landings and mean size (these are anecdotal and from recreational anglers, who have a well declared vested interest in sea bass fisheries)
that raise serious concerns about the impact of trawling with its undesirable exploitation pattern. In my view this assessment has failed to evaluate the
impact of these other fisheries at a level sufficient to convince that the southern North Sea bass stock is being exploited in a medium-term sustainable
manner. On that basis, unfortunately, I have concluded that this fishery should not be certified at this time. The assessment team has amended the
report to better substantiate the case for certification, see below.
2.1 Biology of the target species. There is a need to be a bit more definite about the current biological stock identity in the certification area. Do
we have a ―biologically distinct unit‖? Are there links with the English Channel? If yes, then has the exploitation in the Channel been taken into account
when assessing the state of the ―stock‖ in the southern North Sea?
What is known about the sea bass population in the North Sea and its connections with other areas is clearly spelt out in the report (and is the subject of
more refereed publications than for most other species‘ ―stocks‖ in NW European waters), and exploitation of the North Sea-English Channel stock unit
outside the area fished by the UoC is implicitly taken into account in the assessments.
2.2.1 History of the fishery. Can the landings data by country in Table 1 be split into IVc and VIId? No, and exploitation in VIId is relevant to stock
dynamics in the North Sea, see above. The French and Dutch exploitation by trawl in IVc has potentially serious implications for the southern North Sea
―stock‖. Are the landings excluding or including recreational fishing? Quote ―Dutch recreational landings of sea bass in 2006 were estimated at 195 t
(Kroon, 2007).‖ Are these included in Table 1? Table 1 presents commercial landings only. It is acknowledged that recreational catches of sea bass
must have some impact on exploitation levels, but overall mortality is reflected in the catch-at-age data series that have been used in assessments.
Page 123 of 151