Fisheries Certification Programs

Fisheries certification programs play an increasingly important role in the marketing and consumption of seafood. Fisheries certification programs are designed to address concerns about the quality, safety, and environmental sustainability of fisheries products and the processes through which they are produced. These programs serve as mechanisms through which stakeholders can access information about the quality and characteristics of fisheries or fisheries products that would otherwise be quite costly to obtain, thereby seeking to solve information asymmetries between fisheries producers and other actors in a supply chain. Fisheries that have been certified within a particular program are usually identified through labels, such as ecolabels attached to products sold in a supermarket. By understanding the particular standards, assessment tools, and procedures that are associated with a given ...