Ocean and Marine Stewardship in Africa: The Marine Stewardship Council Certification in Namibia and The Gambia

Abstract

Ocean and marine stewardship activities across different geographical areas contribute to global sustainability efforts, management, and conservation of ocean resources. The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), through its sustainability standards and market-based mechanisms, rewards best practices for wild-caught seafood. To date, very few fisheries in Africa have participated in the MSC’s full assessment and obtained its certification. This paper explores the MSC certification scheme in the African continent by examining two case studies: the Namibian hake (Merluccius capensis and M. paradoxus) trawl and longline fishery and The Gambian sole bottom set gillnet fishery (Cynoglossus senegalenis and Synaptura cadenati). Drawing on document analysis, institutional ethnography, and extensive collaborative research with actors in these fisheries, we utilize three stewardship dimensions, i.e., Care-Knowledge-Agency, to qualitatively analyze how the MSC program provides an opportunity of actors to design ocean stewardship tools and promote fisheries sustainability in Africa. The Namibian fishery demonstrates a large-scale fishery with the adequate agency, technical knowledge, and interest in self-design improvements and stewardship, compared to The Gambian fishery, a small-scale fishery motivated to achieve certification but depends largely on external support to coordinate improvements and stewardship activities. The key motivation for Namibia and The Gambia actors to participate in the MSC’s assessment is the interest in increasing their international market access while ensuring ecosystem-based management and sustainability of the fisheries. Successful engagement with MSC requires establishing good governance structures, involvement of local actors, technical knowledge, and sufficient financial resources. The paper demonstrates the need for practitioners, government/market-actors, and academia to encourage sustainable seafood management in Africa by promoting various national and regional sustainability campaigns, environmental awareness programs and ocean stewardship initiatives.

Pathway to sustainability: the Marine Stewardship Council certification standard as an improvement framework for African fisheries

“…Some of these fisheries went on to achieve certification (see below). The other three fisheries preassessed during this time includedthe Gambian sole (Nyiawung and Erasmus, 2022; and case study in Section 3.2.1.1); and a multispecies fishery in the Red Sea. In 2015, the Namibia hake fishery had an update to its 2010 pre-assessment and, in 2020, became the fourth fishery in Africa waters to be certified.…”

“…Other factors that may be limiting uptake of certification in Africa include limited availability of data and information to demonstrate sustainability, limited technical and institutional capacity, low performance of fisheries with respect to certification requirements on governance, ecosystem impacts and stock status, lack of support for certification from key stakeholders, and limited availability of economic resources. This may be especially true for small-scale fisheries (Nyiawung and Erasmus, 2022). A further possible factor is the increasing sustainability divide, wherein a combination of economic interdependencies and limited management and governance capacity in developing countries is leading to a lag in rebuilding and management of fish stocks in developing countries compared to developed countries (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2018).…”