Successful Legal Toothfish Marketing: Consumers Get Involved

By J. Brock (FINN)

When consumers look at tins of Tuna, a friendly label states that the product has been caught with the safety of dolphins in mind. Indeed Longlining methods have improved to ensure minimal seabird deaths. But this brings up the question about whether legally caught fish can also be marketed using that legality and sustainability of the stock as a marketing tool. How do we determine whether the fish we eat is legally caught? SARTMA had some questions for the Director of Fisheries for South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, , Ms. Harriet Hall (HH). She started out by pointing out that terminology used by some lay people (SARTMA included) needed to be clarified.

HH: I think the use of the word, "tagging" is misleading here. I think you are referring to "profiling." Our scientific advisers do Genetic Profiling and Parasitic Profiling and these techniques identify stocks based on their genetic makeup or on the parasites in them. So, they are for a research purpose. One stock of fish is going to have one genetic makeup and one type of parasites and a different stock somewhere else in the world is going to have different genes and different parasites.

Some research has been done on this, especially on Genetic Profiling but it’s not actually used at the moment for identification of South Georgia stocks. Not enough work has been done on it.

If you are talking about tagging, it is that some fish that are caught are tagged and released so that we can follow the movement. It’s not actually for tracing the catch. If a fish with a tag is caught, that is, again, to trace where the fish has swum to, and ended up, whether it stayed in the same area of the sea, or whether it'’ moved. But that only relates to that one fish so neither tagging nor profiling can be used to trace the actual catch of a vessel.

On the Satellite tracking, the system is that all vessels are required to send data saying where their position is to their Flag State. So, British registered vessels send their data to us, Uruguayan vessels send their data to Uruguay, etc. In the South Georgia Fishery, we make it a condition of an application that a vessel that wants a licence has to provide us with data of where it’s been for the past year or two years, so that we can track where it’s been fishing. And, we can see where it’s been licensed to fish and match where it’s been to where it’s meant to have been and check that it has not been illegally fishing. It is possible sometimes to check whether that data has been falsified. Obviously, if you look at the pattern and it doesn't look like a normal pattern for a ship, or if it’s wildly out, then you might think that perhaps they put in false position co-ordinates. Possibly they faked where it’s been; in which case, we would investigate further whether the ship has been completely honest with us. That's’ how the vessel monitoring system works.

There are other satellite tracking methods that we use and they are operationally quite sensitive. So I don’t want to go into details. But we use satellites to see where vessels are within our zone during the season. And, we look out for vessels that shouldn’t be there.

HH: I partly dealt with this when I said that the Government of South Georgia requires vessels to show where they have been and to show that they have only been fishing in licensed areas. If we can prove that they falsified their records, then we would not give them a licence. It’s really for the flag states to take legal action against vessels, unless, obviously, in the case of the Viarsa, Australia apprehended them allegedly poaching, so Australia has a case against the Viarsa. But otherwise, it’s up to the Flag State to take action. CCAMLR itself, is not a legal entity so CCAMLR cannot take legal action against Port States. Obviously CCAMLR members would put diplomatic pressure on States whose vessels regularly transgress. And, they could even look to restrict the number of licences awarded to States that lets its vessels off lightly.

HH: There are no legal provisions within CCAMLR to take action but it’s implicit in the text of the Convention that there is an expectation that Member States will act, so, it’s up to Member States to take action.

HH: The Catch Documentation Scheme serves as an identifying mark for fish caught legally. So, when fish is caught legally it’s packed and frozen, a label is immediately put on the container to say where it’s been caught, under what licence, when it was caught and the weight of the amount of fish. At the same time, the weight of catch is reported to the licensing authority. So, when a vessel in South Georgia catches 5 Tonnes of Toothfish, they tell our Marine Officer they've got 5 tonnes of Toothfish. They pack it and they label it as 5 tonnes of Toothfish. The records that the Marine Officer has, which he sends to me as Director of Fisheries and also get sent to CCAMLR, show exactly what’s been caught. That is then matched up when the fish is landed with the actual fish. So, every legal consignment of fish is accompanied by that documentation, which stays with the catch from its transhipment to its landing, right up to its port of destination. During the fishing season, catch data is sent to CCAMLR as well, via the Flag States. We get the details of what was caught and the Flag State gets the detail and CCAMLR sits in the middle of all this matching up of what is caught where and then they should get spotted.

HH: I don’t actually think there is a mark that’s put on. It’s a question of making sure that all the numbers add up and that they are not landing extra. Every vessel has an international observer onboard to watch the fish being caught and check it’s done in accordance with the CCAMLR conservation measures. And, also there are random inspections, when the vessels will have to show how much they have caught so they can check the documentation. That’s really, the documentation that follows the catch. It provides the guarantee that that fish was legally caught.

HH: I don’t have information on actual cases,. Within CCAMLR, information is circulated on a regular basis about vessels and operators. Again, Flag States are encouraged to take action against them. And, diplomatic pressure is put on by Members of CCAMLR. Work is going on in introducing a CCAMLR blacklist of vessels. But obviously there are legal considerations to be sure that a vessel that goes on the blacklist can be proved to be illegally operating. And, you need a mechanism to take that vessel off when it cleans up its act – or not. If a vessel is blacklisted what should be done with iut? When can it be removed from the blacklist or is it only fit for the scrap heap? If it can’t fish, can it be converted into a tourist boat, say?

HH: I’m not sure how that would go down but obviously work is on progress on the whole subject .

HH: A consumer can ask but by the time it gets to the consumer, my understanding is that you can’t tell. That, really, has to be consumer demand driven. If more consumers turned up and said they only wanted Toothfish that was legally caught, then that is when a store will start putting pressure on the suppliers. That would be the way forward.

At the moment, as far as I know, consumers cannot identify the origin of their Toothfish. The appeal for consumers will, of course, lay in knowing that their Toothfish is caught sustainably and in a fishery that both sustains itself, manages its stock and protects the environment – and protects Albatross and other things.

There is the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) which is looking at certifying fisheries in a similar way to what the Forestry Council does, so that if your timber is stamped with the Forestry Sign, you know it’s sustainably produced. The MSC are looking to do that with fish. Hopefully that will raise consumer awareness.

So far, they have not certified any Toothfish fishery. They certify the request of the fishery following an exhaustive assessment process, which we are going through at the moment.