Denmark goes all-in for fisheries ecolabel – Fishupdate.com

Denmark goes all-in for fisheries ecolabel Published:  01 September, 2009

The Danish Fishermen’s Association plans to have all Danish fisheries certified as sustainable under the Marine Stewardship Council eco-labelling scheme before the end of 2012.

At a meeting today in Taulov, Denmark, the Danish Fishermen’s Association kicked off the MSC assessment and certification of the Danish fisheries for North Sea plaice, saithe and Eastern Baltic cod. This is the first step of a plan, also unveiled at the meeting, which vows to certify all Danish fisheries that can be certified before the end of 2012.

Chairman of the Fishermen’s Association, Svend-Erik Andersen explained, ‘Denmark is known around the globe for our production of windmills. Having our fisheries MSC certified we expect to be a kind of windmill as well – good for our economy by being a benefit to the environment.’

Denmark is the world’s fifth largest seafood exporter by value. While a large part of this is due to the country’s central position in the international fish trade, the mainstays of the Danish fleet are a large export of a great variety of high-quality chilled fish and shellfish to the most demanding European markets, as well as the largest fish-meal fisheries in the EU. ‘With such an excellent set of customers, we want to be able to assure them that the products they buy from Denmark are not part of the bleak picture sometimes painted of the status of our oceans,’ Mr Andersen said.