Orange Roughy First MSC Surveillance Audit 2017

In 2016 three New Zealand orange roughy fisheries (ORH 3B East and South Chatham Rise, ORH 3B North West Chatham Rise, and ORH 7A including Westpac Bank) were certified by MRAG Americas against the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) Fisheries Standard (CR v1.3).

In December 2017 the fisheries will undergo their first surveillance audit to ensure they continue to meet the MSC's standard.

DWG undertakes to make all non-confidential information that is provided to the Conformance Assessment Body (i.e. MRAG) publicly available on this webpage to ensure all documents are easily accessible by all participants.

Principle 1

"A fishery must be conducted in a manner that does not lead to over-fishing or depletion of the exploited populations and, for those populations that are depleted, the fishery must be conducted in a manner that demonstrably leads to their recovery."

The intent of this principle is to ensure that the productive capacities of the resources are maintained at high levels and are not sacrificed in favour of short term interests.

Principle 2

"Fishing operations should allow for the maintenance of the structure, productivity, function and diversity of the ecosystem (including habitat and associated dependent and ecologically related species) on which the fishery depends."

The intent of this principle is to encourage management of fisheries from an ecosystem perspective under a system designed to restrain the impacts of the fishery on the ecosystem.

Principle 3

"The fishery is subject to an effective management system that respects local, national and international laws and standards and incorporates institutional and operational frameworks that require use of the resource to be responsible and sustainable."

The intent of this principle is to ensure that there is an institutional and operational framework for implementing Principles 1 and 2, appropriate to the size and scare of the fishery.