SSI0005

Written evidence submitted by China Aquatic Products Processing and Marketing Alliance (CAPPMA)

China Aquatic Products Processing and Marketing Alliance (CAPPMA) was founded in 1994 as a national non-profit organization under the direction of China Ministry of Agriculture. It is dedicated to improving self-discipline among its members in their business operations, to standardize and maintain seafood market orders, to protect the members’ legal rights, to coordinate relationships among internal enterprises and international parties and to upgrade technologies and management in the seafood industry ensuring sustainable fisheries development.

With a shared vision of sustainable fisheries development, CAPPMA has been working closely with the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) to introduce this global, well-recognized fishery certification scheme in China. The program aims to improve domestic Chinese fisheries and long distance fleets to become more sustainable, and additionally, to strengthen the competence of the Chinese seafood industry in the global market.

CAPPMA participated in the full assessment process of the first fishery in China to be certified to the MSC Fisheries Standard, Zhangzidao Scallop Fishery, over a period of several years. The process included pre-assessment, fishery improvement program and 3rd party audit, with participation from several international and regional stakeholders, government, eNGOs and industry. Many changes have been made in this leading Chinese fishery company, with decision-making processes taking into consideration biodiversity and conservation concerns.

Since then, CAPPMA started to engage with different stakeholders to address the challenges faced by Chinese fisheries, such as stock assessment and sustainable fishery management policy, in line with core principles of the MSC Fisheries Standard. CAPPMA now is working with several local fisheries in fishery improvement programs (FIPs) with a goal of MSC certification, including Dandong Clam Fishery, Dafeng Crayfish Fishery and Dongshan Crab Fisheries. These small-scale fisheries need extra support to meet the MSC Standard, due to lack of scientific information on the fisheries, small-holder organization and strong market demand. Dafang Crayfish Fishery FIP has now invited an international expert to create a special module to review the biomass of crayfish according to the guidance of the MSC Standard. The result will help local fishermen to develop a better harvest strategy.

CAPPMA welcomes the MSC's new 2020 and 2030 target for increasing the number of sustainable fisheries, which would require even stronger commitments from different stakeholders, including regional government agencies, research institutes, fisheries and markets. In the strategy, China and other developing countries have been recognized as the priority countries and regions. The Chinese government, recognizing the pressures placed on the seafood industry, has begun to implement some measures to address the decline in stocks by acknowledging China has the world’s largest fishing fleet and catches, accounting for around 20% of the world’s wild caught seafood.  The outstanding issue of China's inshore fisheries is to understand bio levels of different species, and how to design a regional fishery management plan based on not only stock, but the information of biodiversity and ecological protection.  The focused experience and global impact of MSC fishery programs have been shared with the Chinese government and industry. 

In addition, the MSC has been supporting the Chinese seafood industry to maintain global advantages in their key role of processing and trading in the global seafood market. The MSC is still strong in the European market, where seafood with blue ecolabel has become a mainstream category, and consumers remain confident in the MSC as a transparent, science-based program to conserve the ocean. In the last 5 years, CAPPMA has witnessed the growth of the MSC in China, with the most attention paid to the concept of “from ocean to plate”. With the growing concern in environmental movements, Chinese consumers have expressed their preference for imported species from wild fisheries. MSC, as the only globally operated program, provides a solution to link fisheries and markets, safeguarding ecolabeled products with the certification program in place.

Taking into account the numerous efforts made from a wide range of stakeholders over the last two decades, the MSC is no longer a UK organization, it reaches even beyond the European Union. The MSC plays more and more roles in global fishery programs, regional fisheries improvements, and the international seafood market. One observation made is how does the MSC's global standard fit into the local Chinese context, a common topic of concern in the major less-developed fishery nations.

May 2018