What is Medfish Project?

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) have jointly launched the Medfish project to carry out a rigorous and comprehensive analysis of French and Spanish Mediterranean fisheries using the MSC Fisheries Standard as a benchmark for sustainability.

This project is part of the MSC and WWF commitment towards fisheries sustainability in the Mediterranean Sea, therefore it aims to inspire replication in other countries of the region.

The project mapped 100 fisheries in France and Spain. Nineteen fisheries have been pre-assessed against the MSC criteria for sustainable fishing and action plans have been developed to address weaknesses and guide fisheries towards improvements. The project also aims to work with supply chain organizations to increase demand for sustainable seafood and develop a more sustainable Mediterranean seafood market.

To develop the project, MSC and WWF work with third party assessors. The mapping and pre-assessment steps have been carried out by two independent accredited certification bodies, supported by local experts: SAI Global in France and Acoura Marine in Spain.

This project benefits various actors in the seafood sector: it provides fisheries, producer organizations and managers with a thorough analysis of their current practices and work is done jointly with them to build a roadmap to sustainability for their fishery. The creation of synergies between fisheries and buyers are encouraged to facilitate the implementation of environmental improvements. On the long term it contributes to increase the supply of Mediterranean sustainable seafood, benefiting market actors.

The stages reports and data collected during the project are a great source of information for anyone interested in Mediterranean fisheries. The pre-assessment and action plans reports also provides scientists and research institutes materials and indication for area of interest for future research projects related to fisheries improvements in the Mediterranean.

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