SGS Product & Process Certification - Marine Stewardship Council

Table 4.SICA tables from the MSC Fisheries Assessment Methodology.
Consequence scoring: The third step is to score the potential risk posed by each activity to
the sea bass population. This is done by considering four ‗components‘ of population
dynamics: population size, reproductive capacity and/or recruitment, age/size/sex ratio and
geographic range. The likely impact of each activity on each component is scored separately.
Fishing activities are then ranked according to their likely impact on the population dynamics,
identifying the highest risk activities along with the element of the population on which they act.
Given the lack of quantitative knowledge about the current level of exploitation on bass in the
North Sea (in particular, the mortality due to non-commercial fishermen, including recreational
anglers) and its impact on the population, the assessment team were undecided whether a
consequence score of 2 or 3 was most appropriate. It was concluded that there may be
detectable changes in age/size/sex structure resulting from the bass fishery, but that the stock
dynamics are mainly driven by environmental factors in the sense that the stock of bass in the
North Sea has increased due to warming.
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