Attention: Members of the On The Hook campaign
Cc: MSC Board of Trustees; Rupert Howes, Chief Executive
Thank you for your letter to Dr Werner Kiene, Chairman, and Mr Rupert Howes, Chief Executive, dated 23rd June 2021. On behalf of Dr Kiene and Mr Howes I am pleased to reply to your letter and as noted in previous communications, I would be grateful if you could direct future correspondence to me as the responsible lead for the On The Hook campaign.
We acknowledge the content of your letter and proposal for an independent review of the MSC’s operations and Standard to be undertaken outside the organisation. We note that this request has been raised in previous correspondence, as well as through an in-person meeting we held with you back in late 2019 where our Chief Science and Standards Officer, Rohan Currey, and Head of Stakeholder Relations, Nikki Wood, met with the OTH campaign team and several of your members. We felt the outcome of that meeting was conciliatory, and with recognition for the effort the MSC has made regarding some of the campaign’s previous key asks, particularly related to compartmentalisation.
With regards to the relaunch of OTH’s campaign and calls for an independent review, our view has not changed. Our existing governance systems provide sufficient rigour and oversight to the MSC’s operations and Standards evolution. In addition to the five-yearly review of our Fisheries Standard, which is conducted according to international ISEAL and GSSI benchmarking tools, there is also a high degree of technical and assurance oversight provided by the MSC’s Board of Trustees, Technical Advisory Board, and Stakeholder Advisory Council. It is worth noting that each of these bodies comprise independent members and we therefore firmly believe that our governance bodies and systems combine to offer a high level of diligence and rigour within the MSC’s operations and Standard.
As a global organisation with ambitions to end overfishing across the world’s oceans, we strive to find new ways to engage with, and learn from, our stakeholders to maximise the broadest engagement, at all levels. Our multi-stakeholder, multi-sectoral approach is embedded in all the work that we do, and this is evidenced by the various stakeholder consultations currently underway on the Fisheries Standard Review (FSR) and Fisheries Certification Process (FCP), where we have welcomed OTH’s input throughout.
The MSC therefore maintains that an external review of MSC’s Standard and operations at the scale that the OTH campaign are requesting would not only be duplicative (given the current stage of the FSR and additional review procedures we have in place via our governance bodies and ongoing consultations), it would also create unnecessary complexity risking stakeholder fatigue and undermining – as well as delaying – current progress on the FSR.
We hope this letter goes some way to reassure you on the efforts of our stakeholder-engaged approach and the mechanisms and processes we have in place to help improve our Standard and operations over time, and which we believe will deliver the same outcome as any externally conducted independent review. Our stakeholder-centred process and continued consultations will remain our top priority throughout the
remainder of the FSR timeline to ensure we evolve in line with best practice in fisheries science and management.
I hope this response helps alleviate the concerns raised by your campaign regarding the need for an independent review and I encourage OTH to continue to engage with the MSC through our established stakeholder platforms and consultation processes.
Yours sincerely
Erin Priddle
MSC Regional Director – North Europe
