Evaluating seafood eco-labelling as a mechanism to reduce collateral impacts of fisheries in an ecosystem-based fisheries management context

Summary

This study compared and evaluated the performance of Marine Stewardship Certified fisheries to non-certified fisheries against metrics which derived from ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBMF) literature, such as marine mammal bycatch, finfish discard rates and gear impacts. The study found that finfish discard and bycatch rates were the same for certified as non-certified fisheries. Furthermore, the study found that MSC-certified fisheries had a lower rate of gear destructiveness when weighted by landings but not when weighted by the number of fisheries.