Case Study 1: Toothfish – An MSC-Certified Fishery - SEAFOOD Ecolabelling: Principles and Practice - page 251

The original assessment report and decision in September 2002 that the fishery
should be certified specified seven conditions and three recommendations. The
seven conditions were as follows:
1. annual surveillance visits,
2. continuation of surveillance and monitoring levels,
3. research towards determination of sustainable bycatch rates of rajids,
4. codification of management procedures,
5. independent review of CCAMLR toothfish management procedures,
6. development of a method for taking account of IUU catch in total allowable
catch (TAC) allocation and
7. estimate and reduce hooks discarded in offal.
The three recommendations were as follows:

1. retrospective testing of robustness of decision rules in assessments,
2. develop an ecosystem model for the fishery and
3. identify areas of complex benthic habitat.
The objections panel modified condition 1 to require that TACs continue to be
set using the CCAMLR precautionary approach. They inserted a new condition 2
requiring more research on and confirmation of stock identity. They expanded the
research requirements for rajids (the previous condition 3) and effectively elevated
recommendations 2 and 3 to conditions requiring research on ecosystem relations
of toothfish and benthic impacts of longlining. The development of a full ecosystem
model was recognised to be very difficult and remained a recommendation. Two
new recommendations were added, both suggesting that the assessment model be
further developed (Cavalcanti et al . 2004).

11.3 The objection

The toothfish fishery suffered from being assessed at a time when the MSC was
reorganising its objections procedure in light of previous experience. The 'rules of
the game' changed substantially during the assessment procedure, and, as far as
the client was concerned, this change was managed very poorly by the MSC. In
June 2002 the certifier was finalising the draft report and preparing to send it out to
peer reviewers when it was informed of a new objections procedure (MSC interim
objections procedure as of May 2002 - now contained in MSC Fisheries Certifica-
tion Methodology, Version 6, September 2006), which would be applicable to all
fisheries undergoing certification with immediate effect. This fundamental change
to MSC procedure neither was discussed in advance with GSGSSI, although it was
obvious that it would have major implications for the certification of that fishery if
an objection was raised, nor was GSGSSI even informed that such reorganisation
was taking place.