Alaska salmon has become the first of the state’s major commercial fisheries to be awarded the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization based Responsible Fisheries Management Certification. The honors, announced this past week by the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, came after a 12-month independent assessment of the salmon fisheries. The certification covers king, sockeye, silver, pink and chum salmon deemed to be managed responsibly by effective management institutions using robust fishery management plans based on good science.
The certification lasts for five years and involves annual surveillance assessments of the fisheries. It means that Alaska commercial salmon fisheries have met the criteria for certification of responsibly managed fisheries at the time of the assessment, but doe not certify that the fisheries will remain responsibly managed in the future. Therefore there are annual surveillance audits to review changes in fishery management regime, operations and consistency of application to confirm that the management system does remain in line with the FAO code.
Anyone interested in submitting comments in response to this certification report or other information of relevance for future surveillance audit of the Alaska salmon fishery management to the FAO code may do so by logging on to http://sustainability.alaskaseafood.or/salmon-certification-3 ASMI will collect all inquiries and comments and submit them to the certification body for review and evaluation during the annual surveillance assessment in 2012.
ASMI announced back in March 2010 that Global Trust Certification Ltd. Had been chosen to do the independent, third-party certification of Alaska’s fisheries management systems. Under the agreed model, each major Alaska fishery is to be assessed for conformance to the FAO code of conduct for responsible fisheries and the FAO guidelines for eco-labeling fishery products.
