June 2014

Fishing & Living welcome the launch of the MSC Benchmarking tool: “As a company really entrenched in FIPs, to have a tool that we can use to consistently benchmark and track our projects, report on the milestones and gauge FIPs performance is phenomenal” Mark McPherson says to Seafood Source, at the MSC Developing World Conference in Bali, last April.

What is the BMT?

The Marine Stewardship council recently developed and released a Benchmarking and Monitoring Tool (BMT) for FIPs to help fisheries moving towards MSC certification to provide consistent and credible information about the progress of their FIPs to all interested stakeholders. The tools is easy to use and shows progress of fisheries against the MSC Sustainable Fisheries standard in a very simple manner.

The BMT will help improve the reporting and transparency of FIPs. BMT reports should be used by someone with a good understanding of the MSC standards and is involved in the fishery as a coordinator, manager or consultant.

How does the BMT work?

1. Each MSC performance criteria (PI) is given a score (<60; 60-80; >80)

2. Each score corresponds to a BMT score (0; 0,5; 1)

3. The BMT Index reflects the average BMT score and ranges from 0 to 1. As the BMT Index moves closer to 1, the fishery is moving towards all of the PIs being at least at the 80 level.

4. The BMT also provides reporting on the number of PIs that fall in each scoring category (<60; 60-80; >80). This allows users to see where the fishery is in (most) need of improvement and differentiate fisheries that may have the same overall BMT Index.

5. Progress is evaluated against expected outcomes & milestones (as described in the FIP Action Plan)

Current BMT scores of FIPs where Fishing & Living is involved:

• Indonesian FIP current MSC scoring

• Vietnam FIP current MSC scoring

• Cook Islands FIP current MSC scoring