Product certification and ecolabelling can be valuable tools for achieving sustainable fisheries and healthy aquatic ecosystems. They can complement and strengthen conventional regulatory measures to achieve conservation and management outcomes.
Ecolabelling of fish and fishery products has the potential to create a market incentive to manage fisheries and aquaculture farms sustainably. Several benefits can accrue to the world community if this potential is realized:
But there are potential problems as well. With a growth in ecolabelling programmes comes even more possibilities for technical barriers to trade, particularly affecting developing countries, as each programme will have its specific requirements that may or may not apply equally well to all exporting nations. The growth in ecolabelling programmes implies a growth in the number of ecolabels. An increased number of ecolabelling programmes will mean the burden of costs each programme undertakes to educate the consumer, and to differentiate the ecolabels, becomes larger. With those increased costs, ecolabelling programmes may no longer be effective in educating the consumers regarding the meaning and credibility of the ecolabel. Consumers, when faced with a growing number of ecolabels on the products they choose from, may become confused and decide that none of the labels is credible. There may also be confusion if there is not a common definition. “Environmentally friendly” or “sustainably harvested” have no clear meaning. Many of the environmental claims made by manufacturers are subject to interpretation; at worst, they are potentially deceptive or misleading.
Within any labelling scheme, the criteria selected for inclusion in an ecolabelling scheme will reflect a compromise between the demands of the consumers and the capabilities and willingness of the producers, and intermediates, to meet those demands. Hence, in principle, ecolabelling schemes in fisheries should aim to encompass all or any subset of the environmental, biological, social, political or economic issues that enter into a fisheries venture.
The criteria used for ecolabelling should be developed in a participatory and transparent process, and the criteria selected should be “practical, viable and verifiable”. Practicality and verifiability are two important requirements where high levels of uncertainty, arising from poor understanding of important ecosystem principles in aquatic systems, and the difficulties of measuring what is there and what is happening in the sea, commonly prevent totally objective interpretation of the status of stocks and ecosystems. This may prove to be a substantial obstacle to widespread application of ecolabelling schemes in marine capture fisheries.
Developed countries may be in a position to make significant and costly changes to management systems as required by the principles and criteria. A significant concern arises from the fear that developing countries are not able to meet the environmental standards other countries set for product groups, afford the costs of certification, or find it more difficult to comply with all of the ecolabelling programmes’ chain of custody requirements.
Fisheries managers are using product certification schemes to support conservation and management efforts. These schemes exert monitoring and control over the product as it moves from the fisher and onto the marketplace. They appear to meet an acute need in high value international fisheries, where access controls are difficult to enforce by traditional means. Product certification can reward responsible fishing and potentially lead to higher prices, thus creating incentives for fishers to behave in an appropriate manner.
Like ecolabelling schemes, a key component of a product certification scheme is the confidence of its users. Schemes involving international fisheries therefore benefit from validation by government officials or people with delegated authority. Such an arrangement is a common occurrence in any case, as these schemes are often government administered, some having been initiated in inter-governmental fisheries fora.
When developing product certification schemes, fisheries administrations need to be careful not to imposing excessive burdens on sector participants. These burdens can create incentives for non-compliance - an unintended and unwelcome result. The growth in number of product certification schemes should therefore raise concerns not just amongst sector participants. Governments should try to minimise the burden of these schemes, trying instead to make them as consistent as possible with the approach of existing schemes and seeking common reporting procedures and standards. Such efforts can simplify matters for sector participants, reducing costs and improving the prospects for compliance.
Labelling for sustainability is here to stay. It is being increasingly recognised as a valuable tool to help bring about responsible fisheries. Ecolabelling offers the potential to harness market forces so that incentives are created in support of sustainability outcomes. Fisheries managers are using labelling to support their regulatory efforts to conserve fish stocks. Both approaches seek to reward responsible fishing. The challenge for the future will be to retain and expand the positive incentives of these approaches, and not diluting them by inconsistencies, ambiguities and unnecessary complexities.
