Marine Stewardship Council - The MSC and Aquaculture

The MSC and Aquaculture

The Marine Stewardship Council is a programme for wild fisheries and does not include aquaculture production.

Some types of ‘enhanced fisheries’ can be certified but there is a well-defined type of enhancement to which the MSC standard for sustainability can be applied:

• The fishery must rely on catching fish from the wild at some stage, either Catch and Grow or Hatch and Catch.
• Species must be native to the geographic region of the fishery.
• It is not possible to substantially augment the fishes’ food or give them medicines (except in the case of Hatch and Catch fisheries such as salmon hatcheries, where the fry are reared only to a small size prior to release to the wild).
• Habitat can be modified but it must be possible to reverse the impact the enhanced fishery has on the habitats and wider ecosystem.