Case Study 1: Toothfish – An MSC-Certified Fishery - SEAFOOD Ecolabelling: Principles and Practice - page 249

by Moody Marine in December, but in January 2003 the objectors persisted with
their objection, alleging that Moody Marine had failed to respond to their objections.
The MSC upheld the objection and convened an appeals panel consisting of five
internationally renowned fisheries experts who were independent of the original
assessment team to consider whether there were any grounds for the objection by
NET and TAP and to decide finally if the fishery met the MSC criteria.
The objections panel produced its draft report in October 2003 and made its final
decision recommending that the fishery should be certified as a sustainable fishery
on 16 March 2004. In its report (Cavalcanti et al. 2004), the panel noted that while
it dismissed some of the objections as unwarranted, it found others to be legitimate
and, as a result, recommended that the certification body impose some new and
revised conditions on the fishery.
Overall, the fishery achieved scores of 89 for Principle 1, 81 for Principle 2 and 90
for Principle 3 of the MSC Principles and Criteria (Holt et al . 2004; www.msc.org).
At the time when the South Georgia Patagonian toothfish fishery was certified,
only seven other fisheries had been certified under the MSC programme. They
were Western Australia rock lobster, Thames Blackwater herring, Alaska salmon,
New Zealand hoki, Burry Inlet cockles, Western Handline mackerel and Loch
Torridon Nephrops . Of these, only one fishery (the New Zealand hoki) had also
been submitted to a full appeals panel review, and in that case also, the fishery
was certified with a further revised set of conditions developed and imposed by the
appeal panel.

11.2 Substantive issues

The pre-assessment report identified the following issues as potential problems
for certification: the lack of knowledge of benthic environment in the area; lack
of knowledge of effects of bycatch on affected populations; and the extent and
significance of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing within the GSGSSI
Maritime Zone. During the main assessment, the issue of stock identity and the
robustness of the assessment model also developed as issues of concern.
Information on benthos was limited to occasional comments in observer reports.
Although the assessment concluded that the impact of longlines on benthos was
probably minimal, there was concern that occasionally deep-water corals were
recovered by the fishing gear. A condition was eventually placed on the fishery to
establish the extent and likely impact of longline fishing on the benthos of the South
Georgia shelf and slope.
Another concern of the assessment team was that South Georgia toothfish popula-
tion would turn out to be an extension of the Patagonian shelf population. Evidence
from tagging experiments and parasitological research suggested that rates of ex-
change between the Patagonian shelf and South Georgia were negligible but, at the
time of assessment, most genetic studies had focused on the Indian Ocean toothfish