The Marine Stewardship Council Programme - SEAFOOD Ecolabelling: Principles and Practice - page 87

Table 4.1 ( continued )

Certified/assessed
tonnage 2006 Fishery Certified?

Lake Hj almaren pikeperch, Sweden Yes 166

Pollock Bering Sea-Aleutian Islands,
Alaska, USA

Yes 1 520 000

Pollock Gulf of Alaska, USA Yes 80 000

Sablefish/black cod US North Pacific
sablefish, Alaska, USA

Yes 18 102

Norwegian North East Arctic saithe, Norway In assessment 175 500

Norwegian North Sea saithe, Norway In assessment 61 090

German North Sea saithe In assessment Not available

Alaska salmon, USA Yes 320 380

British Columbia salmon, Canada In assessment 25 608

California Chinook salmon, USA In assessment 2 832

Gulf of California sardines In assessment Not a Total Allowable

Catch fishery

Scallops Patagonian, Argentina Yes 42 000

Canadian northern prawn trawl fishery In assessment 68 000

Gulf of St Lawrence northern shrimp In assessment 28 880 (estimate)

Oregon pink shrimp, USA In assessment 7 174

Toothfish South Georgia, UK Yes 3 556

Tuna American albacore tuna, USA In assessment 3 600

Abbreviations: NESFC, North Eastern Sea Fisheries Committee; PFTA, Pelagic Freezer-Trawler Association; TAC,
Total Allowable Catch.

standard-setting organisation was further enhanced when the accreditation function
was handed to an independent organisation, Accreditation Services International, in
2006. Accreditation Services International, based in Bonn, now deals with all appli-
cant certification bodies to ensure that they are capable of carrying out assessments
against MSC's fisheries and chain-of-custody standards. The current versions of
the standards are Fisheries Certification Methodology Version 6 , September 2006,
and Chain of Custody Methodology Version 2 , August 2005 (www.msc.org).
Concerns have been raised about the time it takes to complete individual fishery
assessments, and also about the costs of certification. However, as noted elsewhere
in this chapter, these costs have to be compared to the benefits of certification
including market access, preference in the market, meeting buyer's expectation,
and for some fisheries, the creation of a modest price premium. The business case
is getting stronger and stronger as more and more retailers and processors around
the world build in the requirement for MSC certification into their procurement
policies. Grants can also be available to cover some, or in a few cases, even all
the costs of the independent assessment process. For example, half the costs for