Author: Lynne Mandel

More Transparent than Ever

Written by Lynne Mandel on October 7, 2015. Posted in Blogs, News.

Posted by Graeme Parks

October 7, 2015

When the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation’s (ISSF) Participating Companies agreed to follow the Foundation’s list of Conservation Measures, they knew that independent compliance auditing would be necessary to independently assess conformance and also to track performance over time. With the level of detail in this year’s audit, it has become even more obvious that the independent audit is an indispensable part of the process. Not only does it keep things in check, it has proven to be the most effective way to track detailed progress and reveal gaps that need additional work. During MRAG Americas’ recent audit of the Participating Companies to assess conformance with the 2014 conservation measures and commitments, we took things further than in year’s past. We shared our preliminary findings with all of the individual companies and a dialogue period allowed all parties to discuss the information submitted and to provide additional information to assist us in reaching accurate and well-supported conclusions. The final audit results were based, then, on a more thorough review of all relevant information, resulting in the most clarity in ISSF auditing results MRAG Americas has ever been able to report, as well as the ability for ISSF to track continuous improvement. Not only does this serve the primary audit and compliance purposes, but perhaps more importantly, it gives a clear picture of where everyone is, and helps chart a course for where they need to be.

Companies participating in ISSF commit to follow 21 separate measures designed to facilitate real and continuous improvement across global tuna stocks. These measures represent science-driven best practices, approved by the ISSF Board, that have measurable positive impacts on tuna stocks. Conservation measures include a policy for prohibition of shark finning, ability to trace tuna from capture to plate, and other policies designed to improve the long-term sustainability of tuna and to provide transparency to purchasers and the public at large.

Without an auditing protocol and program, conformance with these voluntary commitments would be difficult to measure and tracking the progress of each company’s conformance over time would be next to impossible. That’s where MRAG Americas comes in. ISSF engaged MRAG Americas in 2014 to review and improve ISSF’s audit process, as well as to conduct an audit of the performance of the Participating Companies against the measures in-force in 2014. As a result, for 2014, ISSF is delivering an additional level of clarity to provide interested stakeholders with greater definition and explanation of conformance by individual measure.

As ISSF’s independent third-party auditor, our job is to make sure the Participating Companies’ commitments are real and have credibility outside of ISSF. MRAG develops audit protocols that describe the basic requirements of each measure and the expected means of verification that MRAG will audit against. MRAG audits conformance based on these protocols and provides audit results to the individual companies and to ISSF. In turn ISSF publicly reports on aggregate conformance at least once a year. My colleagues at MRAG, mostly marine scientists and seafood specialists, use their expertise in management, monitoring, traceability and observation to assess the ISSF Participating Companies’ conformance with the 21 measures. It’s a way of validating efforts by tuna brands to uphold their commitment, and showing those companies having difficulty where they need to improve.

In essence, what has happened is a group of diverse but likeminded companies and organizations have come together to make a difference in the global tuna market. This takes collaboration and transparency not just for the ISSF to succeed in its mission, but also for the auditing program to work. ISSF’s conservation measures clearly describe the commitments for the participating companies, but with the high diversity of participants, many of whom have not really done gone through this kind of process before, assessing conformance can be tricky. At MRAG we have a long history of auditing fisheries and fishing company procedures in a variety of settings, including third party standards like the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and standards developed in-house by major suppliers and retailers to implement traceability and sustainability policies. MRAG is one of the largest MSC Conformity Assessment Bodies, with more than 20 fisheries and more than 150 chain of custody clients globally.

The audit results, reported in the aggregate in ISSF’s Annual Report, show generally positive results: 79.8 percent of ISSF participating companies operated in full conformance across the 21 measures in 2014; 19 percent demonstrated minor non-conformance and 1.2 percent were in major non-conformance. But there is room for improvement. MRAG is currently following up with companies that did not have full conformance and is developing updated audit protocols for the audit of 2015 activities, which will begin in early 2016.

The results of the audit in 2016 will show whether the Participating Companies have maintained their performance where it is strong, have made the changes necessary after the 2015 audit to achieve full conformance and will review new commitments as they come in to effect. It’s truly an exciting time for our company because it sets a high bar for future compliance tracking projects. Collaborating with ISSF and their Participating Companies has allowed us to put together some truly innovative auditing procedures that demonstrate, with significantly more clarity than past audits, the level of compliance that each of these companies has achieved.

Dr. Graeme Parks is Vice President of MRAG Americas.

Fewer Boats, More Fish

Written by Lynne Mandel on September 30, 2015. Posted in Blogs, News.

Posted by Dale Squires

September 30, 2015

Fishing capacity is the amount of fish or fishing effort that can be produced over a period of time (i.e. one year or a full fishing season) by a vessel or a fleet if fully utilized. Proper capacity management seems like a simple enough concept: have fewer boats on the water so that pressure on tuna stocks relents to a more ideal level. If you could only explain it in one sentence, that might just be the best way to do it; however, like all issues associated to managing fisheries, we don’t have the luxury of simplicity, which is why I’m glad I have the opportunity to say more than a sentence about how we, as conservationists and scientists, can continue to move the needle to limit fishing capacity across all tuna fisheries to more sustainable planes.

The 1999 FAO International Plan of Action for the Management of Fishing Capacity notes that excessive fishing capacity contributes substantially to overfishing, the degradation of marine fisheries resources, the decline of food production potential, and significant economic waste. It’s no small matter, and it’s going to take an all-hands-on-deck approach to in get it under control.

The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) has led a series of progressive workshops on the topic of capacity management, bringing together negotiators, scholars as well as representatives of Regional Fishery Management Organizations (RFMOs), industry, environmental NGOs and other international institutions. This workshop series began in 2010 with the Bellagio Conference on Sustainable Tuna Fisheries. The Bellagio Conference Report highlighted the necessity of capping the current number of vessels and discouraging the addition of new ones. The report noted, “urgent action is required. Simply put, the global growth in fishing capacity must be curtailed and fleets reduced. The time is ripe to address these problems and their root causes.”

Rights-Based Management

Success in this sense, requires significant strides in rights-based management, which means that the rights of coastal states to expand their participation in a tuna fishery must be accommodated by mechanisms designed to reduce the participation of others. Rights-based management can be used to address overcapacity, as well as conservation and management issues and goals. This may seem like an obvious concept, but the allocation of capacity and rights requires careful attention to ensure that it benefits all participants, is perceived as fair or equitable, and that it reflects the role of historical participation in the fishery and position of developing countries and coastal states.

Former Director of the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), and the founding chair of ISSF’s Scientific Advisory Committee, Dr. James Joseph, wrote of the “need to address the issues related to common property resources and property-rights based management, the allocation of catches and fleet capacities among participants, the rights of access on the high seas, the authority for regional tuna organizations to deal with some of these matters.” That is precisely the next step.

Once capacity is limited, nations must work toward fairly allocating rights to existing capacity. To that end, ISSF has convened workshops to build on the Bellagio Conference Report that advance these aspects of capacity management.

The Cordoba Conference on the Allocation of Property Rights in Global Tuna Fisheries

The Cordoba Conference on the Allocation of Property Rights in Global Tuna Fisheries provided an opportunity for the participants to engage in debate and discussion in a collaborative, neutral venue on the issue of allocation of property rights and subsequent use rights in multi-lateral tuna management programs.

Concepts recognized by this conference included that the first step to allocation of rights is to close the pool of participants to which rights are allocated. I Two different levels of rights exist. The Property Right is allocated to participating states, while Use Rights are subsequently made available by those participating states to individuals or groups that operate in the fishery. In short, vessels wishing to fish within an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) (use right) must obtain permission from the coastal state (property right).

The Conference on Sustainable Fishery Agreements: Strategies for Enforcement and Compliance

The Conference on Sustainable Fishery Agreements: Strategies for Enforcement and Compliance followed, which provided an opportunity for a similarly diverse group to engage in debate and discussion on the issues of compliance and enforcement in the context of rights-based management in multilateral tuna fisheries. This is where policy development began to shine through.

The conference recognized that there was still significant work to do, and that each tuna RFMO was at a different stage in development of rights-based management and compliance and enforcement arrangements. They reiterated that these systems have to be designed with incentives to promote and encourage effective compliance, supported by effective enforcement. As some of the best minds on the issue of capacity agree on what needs to be done, it’s time for RFMOs and member nations to take capacity transfers and rights-based management more seriously.

ISSF Capacity Transfer Workshop

The outcomes of all of these workshops recognized that the issue of capacity transfers as a fundamental part of this equation and a way of accommodating coastal states’ rights. ISSF next launched the first workshop to discuss this issue – the ISSF Capacity Transfer Workshop.

The workshop articulated a number of key points, including objectives of, and options for, capacity transfer, indicators of success, and constraints and challenges. A key outcome was the recognition that capacity transfers are taking place, and that they may take many forms to meet the diverse development aspirations and choices of developing states. The workshop also identified a set of enabling factors that have contributed to the success of previous and ongoing capacity transfers, such as: stable legal and governance environments; including effective flag state control; identified property rights and security for a sufficient duration; and sustainably managed resources.

Managing Capacity

As the ISSF resolution on capacity management requires, ISSF will “continue to sponsor regional and global workshops on fleet capacity management, including mechanisms for capacity transfers.”

The first step that RFMOs must take toward managing capacity is to establish limited entry via a comprehensive closed vessel registry with an eye toward ultimately reducing the number of fishing vessels to an appropriate level.

So it’s clear that there isn’t a quick fix – there are economic, socio-economic, legal and a whole host of other factors at play when it comes to controlling capacity. ‘Fewer boats, more fish’ is a simplified way of saying it, but that doesn’t make it untrue, but let’s make sure it’s done right, without doing damage to economies across the globe or upending food security for the millions of people relying on tuna.