Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
in the next millennium (Sutton 1998). Initial reaction was generally cautious and
guarded, with plenty of scepticism from environmentalists and industry alike. The
NFI board, in particular, and its global counterpart, the International Council of
Fisheries Associations, voted to not cooperate with WWF and Unilever in this
endeavour, hoping the MSC initiative would die of its own accord.
Meanwhile, WWF and Unilever recognised that the new entity would need to
be firmly grounded in science and have its own set of robust standards for effec-
tive fishery management. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) had recently published its Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, but
this was viewed by many NGOs as too weak and non-binding (voluntary) in nature.
WWF and Unilever convened two drafting workshops - one in 1996 in Bagshot,
UK, and the other in 1997 at Airlie House, Virginia - to develop a set of Prin-
ciples and Criteria for Sustainable Fishing that would underpin its programme of
environmental certification and labelling. Workshop participants included a veri-
table Who's Who of fisheries science and management, including Dr Sidney Holt,
co-author of
On the Dynamics of Exploited Fish Populations
, the bible of fishery
management (Beverton & Holt 1957). The framers of the MSC's Principles and
Criteria worked with the FAO Code of Conduct along with principles for sustainable
fisheries espoused by many other organisations including WWF and Greenpeace.
The MSC was formally created as an independent non-profit organisation in 1997,
and The Rt. Hon. John Gummer, MP, was chosen as founding chairman (WWF-
UK 1998). Gummer, a Conservative Member of Parliament in the UK, had served
for many years as both fisheries minister and environment minister in previous
governments. He immediately recognised that governments were seriously limited
by politics in their ability to resolve the fisheries crisis and grasped the need for an
organisation like the MSC. Gummer built a board of like-minded people, including
seafood industry executives and former government ministers from Brazil, the
US and other countries. The board then set about putting the MSC on the map,
politically. They recognised that while the MSC had to remain independent of any
particular political agenda, its purpose was nonetheless ultimately to affect the
politics of fishing.
Over the next 7 years, the organisation flirted with bankruptcy but slowly built its
credibility and market penetration. During that time, the MSC experienced tough
scrutiny by both the industry and the conservation community. Notably, the indepen-
dent evaluations conducted by several MSC funders in 2002-2004 helped identify
critical weaknesses in the organisation and its operations and management.
The two most rigorous evaluations of the MSC were carried out by the Bridges-
pan Group (on behalf of the Packard Foundation) and Wildhavens, a consultancy
retained by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Between them, the two reports advanced
nearly 50 recommendations for action. For example, the evaluations suggested
that the MSC improve the quality and consistency of fishery assessments and the
enforcement of corrective actions. They also recommended that the MSC should
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