Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
to help pass new legislation for gear restrictions, fishery-wide modifications or
implementation of research programmes (Zeke Grader, Executive Director, US
Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, personal communication,
December 2006).
15.3.5
Creating insurance
In addition to using the process of certification to create lobbying power for change,
small-scale fisheries that are under-represented or overlooked can use the MSC as-
sessment process as a way to create a justification of their operations - an insurance
policy of sorts for securing their rights to harvest the resources. Again, the third-
party international nature of the MSC programme creates a degree of recognised
credibility. This same credence can be used by a fishery that may be under threat
from, say other fishers competing for the same resource, to protect its rights. While
this benefit might be realised by completing a pre-assessment and sharing the re-
sults, it is most effective if the fishery is able to succeed in the full assessment
process. The pre-assessment allows the fishery to demonstrate what it is doing well
and how it could improve. The fishery, through negotiation with the management
authority, could then agree to terms that would allow the fishery to continue oper-
ations while making changes or re-engage in operations once changes are made.
By contrast, if a fishery is able to complete the MSC full assessment and become
certified it could argue that it is acting sustainably and that the authority should have
little concern about its continued operation on ecological sustainability grounds.
There are some obvious assumptions being made in this argument. First, it is
assumed that the MSC standard is more robust than the requirements of the man-
agement authority in question. Second, in the case where the standard and the
authority requirements are similar, it is assumed that the fishery is at least meeting
the authority requirements and that the MSC assessment process can document
these achievements.
15.3.6
Using the process as insurance
In South Australia, the Lakes and Coorong Fishery is a small-scale mixed estu-
arine fishery operating in a RAMSAR site (an estuarine site of high international
importance for migratory wading birds) (www.ramsar.org). One of the reasons that
this fishery initially entered the MSC assessment process was because they wanted
international third-party verification that their operation was compatible with the
RAMSAR designation of the site, and to be able to secure their resource allocation
against the pressures of a highly competitive recreational fishery targeting some
of the same species of fish (WWF-Australia staff, personal communication, 2003).
At the time that the fishery entered MSC assessment, the government of Australia
was reviewing its management of ocean resources and discussing what activities
should or should not be allowed in areas of high environmental importance. Prior to
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