This year, the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) celebrates 10 years of operations.
Under the title: "Celebrating ten years of partnership and progress", the MSC is planning activities throughout the year and across the globe to highlight the ethical leadership demonstrated by the seafood industry and the accelerating transformation of the seafood market towards a sustainable basis.
"Over the last ten years the market for sustainable seafood and the MSC have both changed and evolved tremendously. The MSC and the seafood industry have come a long way together," said Will Martin, chairman of the MSC board of trustees.
"Fisheries entering the programme have quadrupled over the past three years and sales and numbers of MSC-labelled products have matched that with exponential growth."
The number of fisheries involved in the MSC programme has risen from just three in 1999 to over 140 in 2009. Over the same period, certificate holders of the MSC's Chain of Custody, which ensures traceability of MSC-certified seafood from boat to plate, have grown to around 830. As a result there are now over 2,000 MSC eco-labelled product lines on sale in 42 countries around the world with estimated annual sales of over US$1 billion.
Since the very beginning, stakeholder consultation has been a key element of the MSC programme. Leading scientific, industry and NGO partners are represented in the MSC governance bodies and provide their perspective to policy development and strategic debates. MSC is continuously developing its programme with a strong focus on improving the quality and consistency of MSC fishery assessments.
Recent improvements include the release of the new Fisheries Assessment Methodology (FAM) which pre-defines the scoring indicators used to assess each fishery. The new methodology should lead to faster assessments whilst maintaining the rigour and thoroughness of the independent scientific assessment process.
MSC is also working hard to develop and introduce additional measures to improve the robustness of the supply chain. In addition to the requirement for independent traceability audits throughout the supply chain new measures such as DNA testing of certified fish and random product tracebacks are now being conducted.
"With the help of our partners MSC has managed to turn our founders' ambitious and bold idea into a reality. Ten years on the MSC is now perhaps the world's most widely recognised and trusted eco-label for wild caught sustainable seafood," said Rupert Howes, chief executive of the MSC.
