The Marine Stewardship Council and Developing Countries - SEAFOOD Ecolabelling: Principles and Practice - page 287

Chapter 14
The Marine Stewardship Council and
Developing Countries

Stefano Ponte

14.1 Introduction

In the last couple of decades, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and con-
servation groups have repeatedly highlighted the plight of over-exploitation of fish
stocks around the world and the impact of intensive fishing efforts on the over-
all aquatic environment. To address these challenges, several fishery management
responses have been devised, such as (1) legal instruments, including global conven-
tions and national/local fisheries laws; (2) soft instruments, such as the FAO Code
of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries; and (3) market and civil society initiatives -
including ecolabels, single-attribute certification, report cards and information dis-
closure on hazard warnings (Allison 2001, Wessells et al . 2001).
Ecolabels are seals of approval that transmit environmental information to con-
sumers. They are devised to determine the environmental impact of a product or
service from point of production to point of consumption or disposal. Ecolabels are
awarded to products that are deemed to have less impact on the environment than
'functionally equivalent or competitively similar products' (Wessells et al . 2001,
Gardiner and Viswanathan 2004). Fisheries ecolabels can be categorised in three
broad groups: (1) first-party labels , developed by individual companies on the basis
of their own standards and consisting of a 'self-declared' label; (2) second-party la-
bels , developed by industry associations (sometimes with inputs from conservation
and consumer groups), applicable to the members' products, and verified internally
or through an external auditor or certifier; and (3) third-party labels , developed by
public, private or public-private initiatives, with third-party certification systems
in place (Wessells et al . 2001; see Chapter 1).
Ecolabelled fishery products are a growing segment of the seafood industry.
Their rise relates not only to increased concern with environmental issues, but
also to increased competition in the retail sector, prompting a search for additional
properties in products that may be able to add profitability and/or market share. The
history of voluntary seafood labels before the advent of the Marine Stewardship
Council (MSC) initiative was limited to two single-issue labels, aimed at reducing