Promoting International Market Access for SADC Fishery Products Through Certification: quick guide

What we do

With growing consumer concern about the state of fisheries resources and the impacts of fishing on aquatic ecosystems, seafood retailers worldwide are incorporating sustainability standards into their seafood purchasing policy. As a result they are increasingly requiring environmental certification labels such as the Marine Stewardship Council's (MSC's) blue tick to appear on the seafood products they sell.

The goal of the RSP is to reduce poverty in the region by increasing incomes of those engaged in the agricultural and fishing industries. The RSP seeks to do this by promoting improved private standards compliance, leading to an increase in exports, higher levels of commercial production, employment creation and raised productivity.

The overall aims of this project are to raise incomes of fishing communities in Southern Africa and to improve the marine ecosystems of the region through an increase in the number of Southern African fisheries certified to the MSC Standard and benefiting from the increased market opportunities that certification - and the rapidly growing market for sustainable seafood - can offer.
The project:

• Increases awareness of the role of fishery certification as a marketing tool;
• Identifies potential candidate fisheries for certification;
• Encourages assessment of identified fisheries for certification to the MSC Standard and assists fisheries to become certified;
• Develops local certification capacity; and
• Identifies market opportunities for certified products from SADC region fisheries.

The project's target is to increase MSC certified fish sales from Southern Africa from 60,000 tons to 70,000 tons by 2010.

Beneficiary countries of this intervention include South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia, Angola and Tanzania.

Why this intervention

Seafood exports from SADC countries were worth US$1,099m in 2004, 34% of total seafood exports from Africa as a whole, but only 1.5% of world seafood exports. For some countries, seafood exports were a significant share of total merchandise exports: in Namibia 19%, Mozambique 8%, Mauritius 6% and Tanzania 9%. With imports of seafood into SADC countries totalling US$334m, there is scope for import substitution as well as exporting.
In this increasingly competitive market, a problem for fisheries hoping to develop more secure and reliable sales relationships with supermarkets and food service providers in potential importing countries is that they need to be able to demonstrate that they conform to best international practice for sustainable fishing. The benchmark has been set by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in its Voluntary Guidelines for the Eco-labelling of Fish. The MSC is the only marine certification and labelling programme in the world that is fully consistent with the FAO guidelines, and the MSC eco-label is accepted by major retailers as a sign of sustainability. As it provides market advantages to fisheries certified to use it, the MSC eco-label offers fisheries in the SADC region a mechanism through which they can secure international recognition for the seafood they want to export and hence the possibility of gaining market share.
There is growing anecdotal evidence that achieving certification under the MSC programme can lead to increases in income for successful fisheries. So real economic benefits for producers of certified seafood are possible through both volume and income effects on sales, especially exports from a fishery. To date only one SADC fishery - South African hake - is MSC certified.

What we achieve

The key feature of this project is that it has allowed the MSC to establish its first operational base in a developing country. This project has also started to show Southern African food producers that environmental labelling and standards certification can be used to differentiate them as suppliers and facilitate access to high value and more diversified niche markets.

How is this sustainable

With large numbers of people in Southern Africa dependent on fisheries for their livelihood, it is vital to ensure that the resource on which these communities depend does not become depleted. Adhering to the MSC's standard makes it possible for Southern African fisheries to exploit this resource in a sustainable and responsible manner. Moreover, this project helps Southern African fisheries to become more effective players in the changing international seafood market. Shifting production into an environmentally friendly segment of the market through certification has real economic benefits for producers. Access to these markets means increases in volumes sold, but also in prices paid for certified products.

Who we work with

Marine Stewardship Council

The MSC is an international, independent, non-profit organisation which works to reverse the continued decline in the world's fisheries. The MSC harnesses consumer purchasing power to promote environmentally responsible stewardship of the world's most important renewable food source and has developed an environmental standard for sustainable and well-managed fisheries. It uses a product label to distinguish environmentally responsible fishery management and practices, which enables concerned consumers to choose seafood products which have been independently assessed and labelled.