12 Petra Alekseeva str., PO Box 132 Moscow, Russia, 121471 Tel./fax: (495) 640-84-92 E-mail: [email protected] URL: http://marcert.ru Bratsk Reservoir Perch Fishery MSC Final Report Co-clients: Bratsk Fish ltd., Bernard Wolf SA Conformance Assessment Body: Marine certification LLC Authors: Steve Nelson, Dmitry Sendek and Dmitry Lajus 17 February 2016 Document: MSC Full Assessment Reporting Template V2.0 page 1 Date of issue: 8 October 2014 © Marine Stewardship Council, 2014 Table of Contents 1. Executive Summary ............................................................................................. 3 2. Authorship and Peer Reviewers ......................................................................... 5 3. Description of the Fishery ................................................................................... 7 3.1 Unit(s) of Assessment (UoA) and Scope of Certification Sought .................................. 7 3.3 Principle One: Target Species Background ............................................................... 11 3.4 Principle Two: Ecosystem Background ...................................................................... 25 3.5 Principle Three: Management System Background .................................................... 47 4. Evaluation Procedure ......................................................................................... 64 4.2 Previous assessments ................................................................................................ 64 4.3 Assessment Methodologies ........................................................................................ 64 4.4 Evaluation Processes and Techniques ....................................................................... 64 5. Traceability .......................................................................................................... 67 5.1 Eligibility Date ............................................................................................................... 67 5.2 Traceability within the fishery ....................................................................................... 67 5.3 Eligibility to Enter Further Chains of Custody .............................................................. 69 6. Evaluation Results .............................................................................................. 70 6.1 Principle Level Scores ................................................................................................. 70 6.2 Summary of PI Level Scores ....................................................................................... 70 6.3 Summary of Conditions ............................................................................................... 72 6.5 Determination, Formal Conclusion and Agreement .................................................... 73 7. References ........................................................................................................... 74 Appendix 1: Scoring and Rationales ..................................................................... 78 Appendix 1.1 Performance Indicator Scores and Rationales ............................................. 78 Appendix 1.3: Conditions and Cient Action Plans ........................................................... 139 Appendix 2: Peer Review ..................................................................................... 160 Peer Reviewer # 1 ............................................................................................................ 160 Peer Reviewer # 2 ............................................................................................................ 174 Appendix 3: Stakeholder submissions .............................................................. 182 Appendix 4: Announcement of full assessment ............................................... 190 Appendix 5: Surveillance Frequency .................................................................. 194 Appendix 6: English-Russian Glossary ............................................................. 195 Document: MSC Full Assessment Reporting Template V2.0 page 2 Date of issue: 8 October 2014 © Marine Stewardship Council, 2014 1. Executive Summary Marine Certification, LLC assigned a three member fishery certification team to conduct a MSC fishery assessment of the Bratsk Reservoir perch fishery in Irkutsk oblast, Russia. Steve Nelson served as team leader and led the assessment for Principle 2. Dr. Dmitry Sendek led assessment activities for Principle 1 and Dr. Dmitry Lajus for Principle 3. Mr. Nelson is an MSC certified Fishery Team Leader and Drs. Sendek and Lajus have MSC certification experience. All members of the team have worked in Russian fisheries. The certification process started with an MSC Pre-Assessment completed in March 2015. After assembling the assessment team, Marine Certification began the Full Assessment in June with a formal Announcement on the MSC website. The team conducted a site visit from 6 to 10 July in Bratsk and Irkutsk, Russia. During July and August the team reviewed results and scored the fishery according to the MSC Default Assessment Tree. In September the team completed the Prelimiminary Draft Report listing ten conditions. Co-Clients Bernard Wolf, SA iand Bratsk Fish ltd responded to the ten conditions with a Client Action Plan in November. Two peer reviewers provided comments and the assessment team responded to them in the Public Comment Draft Report (PCDR). On 22 December Marine Certification posted the PCDR on the MSC website and received stakeholder comments for 30 days. In response to comments received, the assessment team provided additional details to the Final Report, but did not change scores. Based on final scores presented in Table 6.5, the fishery team recommends the Bratsk Reservoir fishery for MSC cerification. Table 6.5: Final Principle Scores MSC Principle Score Principle 1 – Target Species 83.3 Principle 2 – Ecosystem 80.3 Principle 3 – Management System 80.2 Unit of Assessment and Unit of Certification. The Unit of Assessment is defined as the perch stock in Bratsk Reservoir harvested with trap nets by fishers operating in small boats. The Unit of Certification is defined as the perch stock harvested in trap nets by listed fishers of Bratsk Fish ltd. in the Bratsk district of Bratsk Reservoir operating in small boats. Scientists consider Bratsk Reservoir perch to be a unit stock and manage it with data and stock assessment models for whole reservoir. Therefore, the UoA covers perch stock in the whole reservoir. The Bratsk Reservoir extends 570 kilometers and covers three administrative districts: Bratsk, Balagansk, and Usolsk. In these districts fishers use three types of gear: trap nets, gill nets and beach seines. Fishers in Balagansk and Usolsk districts use more beach seines relative to trap nets and they target roach more often than perch. Fishers in the Bratsk district catch 96% of their perch catch in trap nets and only 4% in gill nets. To more accurately reflect sustainable harvesting practices in the fishery and impacts of the UoC, the assessment team determined the UoA to include only trap nets. Marine Certification received approval for an MSC variation to modify the UoA to include only trap nets on 1 September 2015. Bratsk Reservoir. The Bratsk Reservoir is a large, man-made, freshwater reservoir created from a dam built on the Angara River in the 1960s. The dam dramatically changed an iconic Siberian river ecosystem into a large lake/reservoir system with related changes to the aquatic communities. Within a few years, lacustrine (lake) species such as perch, roach, and bream replaced reophillic (river) species such as sturgeon, starlet, taimen, and lenok. Moreover, rising reservoir water levels submerged large areas of forested coastlines and created underwater habitats of submerged woody debris. These newly created, shallow water habitats provided prime spawning grounds for perch and fish of the cyprinid family such as roach, bream, and Prussian carp. These fish quickly became the basis of a multi- Document: MSC Full Assessment Reporting Template V2.0 page 3 Date of issue: 8 October 2014 © Marine Stewardship Council, 2014 species commercial fishing industry supported by a good Russian fishery management system. Fish stocks and Principle 1. The current fishery harvests growing stocks of perch, the target species, along with roach, bream and Prussian carp, the primary main species. In addition to these stocks, fishery mangers set quotas for nine other fish representing MSC primary minor species. In recognition of these healthy stocks, the assessment team scored Performance Indicator 1.1.1, target species stock status as 100 and Performance Indicator 2.1.1, primary main species stock status as 100. These healthy stocks and growing commercial catches represent the strongest part of the fishery. By defining the UoA as the perch stock in the whole Bratsk Reservoir, the assessment team evaluated available data and stock assessment models scaled to the entire reservoir. This simplified analysis of Principle 1 and provided evidence for high scores related to target stock status. Habitats, ETP species and Principle 2. Due to the passive nature of trap nets and the characteristics of the reservoir, the team determined minimum fishery impacts to habitats and the ecosystem in Principle 2. These characteristics also represent strong parts of the fishery and the team gave high scores to Performance Indicators related to habitats and ecosystems.