Review of certification experience in small-scale fisheries Global

Food and Agricultural Organisation FAO - Project Dates:
May 2009 - June 2009

Description of Project:
The globalization of fish trade offers the potential to bring about significant benefits to small-scale fisheries. Concerns have been expressed however about the extent to which market-based initiatives aimed at promoting greater environmental sustainability may disadvantage small-scale fisheries and prevent them from realizing these potential benefits. This project considered the extent to which this may already have been the case for small-scale capture fisheries, and in providing answers, examined three principal issues: a. How do buyers of fish determine whether fish is being caught in a sustainable manner? b. To what extent are small scale capture fisheries selling product into markets that are particularly sensitized to sustainability initiatives? c. Is there any evidence to suggest that the use of the tools available to assess sustainability have negatively affected market access or prices for exporters of products from small-scale capture fisheries due to a failure to demonstrate sustainability?