Balticsea 2020

Polish cod fishers break new ground with MSC

The Eastern Baltic cod fishery has become the first fishery from Poland to enter into assessment against the MSC standard for well-managed and sustainable fisheries. It will be assessed against the 31 indicators of the MSC standard covering stock abundance, the impacts of the fishery on the marine ecosystem, and the management of the fishery. The assessment will be conducted by a team of independent scientists under the lead of a third-party certifier. If successful, the fishery will be eligible to show the blue MSC ecolabel on its cod catch from the Eastern Baltic Sea. The MSC logo is the world’s best known mark for sustainably caught fish, with consumer recognition in major European markets of 23 to 55 per cent.

The Poland Eastern Baltic cod fishery is made up of five fishing organizations with 134 vessels. The fishers use trawls, long lines and gillnets to catch cod (Gadus morhua) in the Eastern Baltic Sea. Their annual total catch amounts to 5,500 tons on average. The cod from this fishery is sold mainly on the domestic market and is exported to European countries such as Germany and France.

The Eastern Baltic has benefited from reduced fishing pressure, increased recruitment and a long term management plan which has seen the cod stock rebuild to healthy levels. Danish and German fisheries harvesting the stock have already achieved MSC certification and report greater market recognition for their catch.

Environmental benefits in Eastern Baltic
Marcin Radkowski, president of the Kołobrzeska Grupa Producentów Rybs, one of the five fishing organizations says: “We are taking up the challenge and are having our fishing activities assessed for environmental sustainability. By means of the certificate we want to show that we use the fishing resource in a responsible manner and that we are ready to confirm this through an independent auditor. We are certain that we have made the right decision in applying for assessment as the MSC standard is considered the world’s most rigorous and comprehensive set of criteria for sustainable fishing and the MSC ecolabel has a high level of acceptance and recognition.”

Anna Debicka, MSC’s project manager in Poland, comments: “The MSC program is helping fisheries worldwide improve their performance, to the benefit of the marine environment and - ultimately - livelihoods. It is great to see a Polish fishery seeking to join other certified fisheries already harvesting Eastern Baltic cod. Their participation will bring further improvements to fisheries management in the region, and deliver more environmental benefits for the Baltic marine ecosystem. They are helping promote the transformation of the Polish seafood market to a sustainable basis, and maintain seafood as a key resource for the region.”

Support from BalticSea2020 foundation
MSC’s involvement in Poland is made possible by support from the Foundation BalticSea2020. The aim of the partnership is to accelerate the introduction of the MSC certification and to raise awareness of the MSC ecolabel in the entire Baltic Sea region.

“With 40 million inhabitants and a large Baltic Sea fishing fleet and industry, Poland is an important country for the MSC to be present in. We think it is of great value that a Polish fishery has joined the MSC program. If successful, the Polish people will know that the fish they purchase is fished on sustainable and well managed Baltic fish stocks,” says Conrad Stralka, executive director BalticSea2020.

More information
For more information please contact Anna Debicka, MSC Project Manager in Poland on +48 502 44 77 34 or e-mail anna.debicka@msc.org.  

Notes for editors:
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is an international non-profit organisation set up to help transform the seafood market to a sustainable basis. The MSC runs the only certification and ecolabelling program for wild-capture fisheries consistent with the ISEAL Code of Good Practice for Setting Social and Environmental Standards and the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation Guidelines for the Eco-labelling of Fish and Fishery Products from Marine Capture Fisheries. These guidelines are based upon the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fishing and require that credible fishery certification and eco-labelling schemes include:

• Objective, third-party fishery assessment utilising scientific evidence;
• Transparent processes with built-in stakeholder consultation and objection procedures;
• Standards based on the sustainability of target species, ecosystems and management practices.

The MSC has regional or area offices in London, Seattle, Tokyo, Sydney, The Hague, Glasgow, Beijing, Berlin, Cape Town, Copenhagen, Halifax, Paris, Madrid, Stockholm, Santiago, Sao Paulo, Singapore and Reykjavik.  

In total, over 300 fisheries are engaged in the MSC program with 212 certified and over 100 under full assessment. Another 40 to 50 fisheries are in confidential pre-assessment. Together, fisheries already certified or in full assessment record annual catches of close to ten million metric tonnes of seafood.  This represents over eleven per cent of the annual global harvest of wild capture fisheries. Certified fisheries currently land over seven million metric tonnes of seafood annually – close to eight per cent of the total harvest from wild capture fisheries. Worldwide, more than 20,000 seafood products, which can be traced back to the certified sustainable fisheries, bear the blue MSC ecolabel. For more information please visit the MSC website.