Case Study 3: MSC Certification of the Alaska Pollock Fishery - SEAFOOD Ecolabelling: Principles and Practice - page 275

year longer than the original assessment - and that does not include an objection by
the New Zealand NGOs that was not resolved until October 2007 when the fishery
was eventually re-certified.
Each PI is accompanied by three sets of scoring guidelines, one for each of
the established scoring benchmarks (60, 80, 100) developed by the assessment
team for each PI (see Phillips et al . 2003 for a more detailed description of
the MSC assessment methodology). APA submitted a three-volume set of sup-
porting materials to the certification body making the argument that the Alaska
pollock fishery exceeded the 80 scoring guidelines for each indicator, which is
the benchmark set for an acceptable level of best practices within the MSC pro-
gramme. Including the links to supporting materials, APA's submission totalled
10 000 pages. WWF submitted comments generally supportive of the fishery but
identified areas where they considered that the performance of the fishery should
be approved. Trustees for Alaska, on behalf of other NGOs, submitted lengthy
comments asserting that the fishery failed to meet the MSC sustainability standard.
The 827-page certification body's report (www.msc.org/assets/docs/AK Pollock/
BSAIPollock FinalReport 14June04.doc) with its final certification determination
includes NGO stakeholders' comments in the Appendix and quotes APA's sub-
mission liberally throughout the text, indicating an awareness of the stakeholders
submissions and, generally speaking, an acceptance of the arguments submitted
by the industry. The certification body found that the fishery did comply with the
MSC sustainability standard, with a number of matters that required supplementary
conditions to address weaknesses, and this was ultimately confirmed in the findings
of the objections process.

13.5 Issues encountered by APA in the assessment process

13.5.1 A 4-year long assessment process

The Alaska pollock fishery entered the MSC assessment process in January 2001.
The certificate for the BS/AI pollock fishery was issued in February 2005. The
certificate for the GOA pollock fishery was issued in May 2005. In contrast to
the 4-year duration of the Alaska pollock assessment, the original assessments of
two other groundfish trawl fisheries conducted earlier were considerably shorter.
The original New Zealand hoki fishery assessment was completed in 6 months
with vigorous NGO activity and opposition emerging late in the process. The
South African hake fishery assessment was completed in 20 months. WWF-South
Africa/Birdlife International is the only NGO stakeholder identified in the final
report on the hake certification whereas five commercial fishing groups appeared
to play significant roles as stakeholders. There is some limited evidence in the fi-
nal report (www.msc.org/assets/docs/South African hake/Final Report.pd) of the
hake assessment that NGO stakeholders' involvement only played a minor role in
the assessment process.