Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs): A global analysis of status and performance

Abstract

Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs) have been increasing in numbers worldwide over the last decade to improve fishery practices towards sustainability. This paper tries to analyse the current status and performance of fisheries currently involved in FIPs and listed in the website Fishery Progress (www.fisheryprogress.org). Out of the 126 analysed FIPs, 59 FIPs did not show any changes in status, in addition to 6 FIPs with no status information. These fisheries double the total landings of the fisheries that showed improvements. The results reveal that young FIPs (those 2 years old or less) account for 42 out of the 59 that did not show any changes in status. Weak relationship between the improvements in scores and actions completed or cumulative duration (spent time) of the project was observed. FAO areas with highest scores were in the northern hemisphere while the lowest were in the south. The finding of fisheries scoring poorly in the global south may reflect data gaps rather than poor performance, or a mixture of the two that demands care of interpretation.

Introduction

The conservation and sustainable use of the oceans, seas and marine resources was identified as one of 17 goals of the Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by the United Nations (Sustainable Development Goal 14; United Nations General Assembly, 2015). According to the FAO, 34.2 % of fisheries stocks are at biologically unsustainable levels (FAO, 2020). Some researchers pointed that the traditional management measures (e.g. gears and access restrictions) as well as ITQ system are insufficient alone to overcome the depletion of some fisheries stocks (Potts, 2006; Oosterveer, 2008; Smith et al., 2008; Sumaila, 2010; Samy et al., 2011; Samy-Kamal et al., 2014, 2015a, 2015b, 2015c), while others believe that stock depletion is a failure to manage rather than a failure of management measures themselves (Beddington et al., 2007; Hilborn and Ovando, 2014). Some countries such as USA and New Zealand showed a great ability to overcome such problems, though both still have some overexploited stocks. Yet, many other countries still struggle to implement successful management (Parkes et al., 2010; Muawanah et al., 2012; Muallil et al., 2014; Samy-Kamal, 2015, 2020a).

In response, over the past two decades, some consumer-facing and market-based initiatives, such as seafood eco-labels and sustainability certifications, appeared as an additional fisheries management tool. The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is a private third-party certification system that sets a global standard for sustainable wild fishing and seafood traceability (MSC, 2020). The certification offers fisheries a way to gain recognition, to create positive incentives and reward for good environmental practices. For transparency and objectivity, the MSC does not assess fisheries by itself. Instead, independent consultants from third-party certifiers (called Conformity Assessment Bodies or (CABs); sometimes referred to as certifiers) who are trained on the MSC standard and certification methodology, assess fisheries and decide on their certification. The MSC standard defines fisheries sustainability according to its three principles: Principle 1 (Sustainable fish stocks); Principle 2 (Minimising environmental impacts); and Principle 3 (effective management).

Due this market-based initiatives, Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs) also emerged as a private fisheries governance providing a platform for engaging stakeholders in the policy-making process and management of fisheries (Agnew, 2019). While the MSC is a private standards-setting organization, a FIP is a template that aim to provide a strategic plan for actions developed over time by multiple organizations (e.g. World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP)), to improve fisheries performance towards sustainability (Crona et al., 2019). Currently, the most recognized definition of FIP concept is set out by the Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solution (CASS; www.solutionsforseafood.org), which is an umbrella platform or a consortium of the major NGOs working in seafood sustainability (including SFP and WWF) (Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solution (CASS, 2015; Cannon et al., 2018; Crona et al., 2019). The CASS set out a list of criteria for credible FIPs that are in accordance with the MSC. These key elements of credible FIPs are also outlined on the MSC’s website as: (a) completion of an MSC pre-assessment; (b) development of an improvement action plan; (c) regular reporting on progress; (d) a mechanism to verify progress; (e) a clear timeline with an end date that should generally not exceed 5 years; (f) commitment to MSC certification.

Several studies have tried to improve our understanding about FIPs including; case studies in specific fisheries (e.g. Doddema, 2012; Deighan and Jenkins, 2015; Duggan and Kochen, 2016; Parkes et al., 2016; Tolentino-Zondervan et al., 2016a, b; Bush et al., 2017), global reviews and studies about FIP performance (e.g. Sampson et al., 2015; Cannon et al., 2018; Travaille et al., 2019) or its governance process (Crona et al., 2019; Packer et al., 2020; Barr et al., 2019).

A criticised effect of FIPs, is allowing some fisheries that still do not meet the MSC standard to gain market access, based on de facto claims of sustainability prior to any real progress, which partially was due the low verification capacity (Sampson et al., 2015). For this reason, a web platform (FisheryProgress.org) was established to list, verify and provide a transparency of FIP performance through self‐reporting and independent (desk‐based) verification (Packer et al., 2020). However, it is unknown if fisheries willing to publish their information are incentivized to do so because they are really seeking improvements, or because they are performing well but not enough to obtain MSC-certification, or simply to gain market access. This paper tries to analyse the performance of the current fisheries involved in FIPs and listed in the website Fishery Progress. The geographic distribution of these fisheries, their performance in relation to actions completed, spent time (duration) of the project and the aggregated status by FAO major fishing areas were analysed.