New Zealand's three largest orange roughy fisheries have been certified as meeting the international gold standard for sustainable fishing by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC).

Deepwater Group Chief Executive George Clement says the achievement further demonstrates New Zealand's commitment to sustainable fisheries management.

'This milestone achievement validates the seafood industry's ongoing investment into sound, scientifically grounded fisheries management and our desire to have our main fisheries recognised as meeting the world's most rigorous sustainability standards.”

In partnership with the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), quota owners have invested heavily over the past 20 years to rebuild the orange roughy fisheries after their decline in the 1980s and 1990s.

This investment includes the development of new scientific techniques to measure and assess stock sizes to ensure these fisheries can be managed sustainably. Catch reductions and very conservative harvest levels have resulted in substantial stock size rebuilds.

These new approaches include working with Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIRO) since 1998 to develop a world-leading multi-frequency Acoustic Optical System (AOS) used to assess the stock sizes in each of New Zealand's main orange roughy fisheries.

'Not only can we now accurately assess the numbers of orange roughy, we can also see video in real time of what's going on 1000 metres below the surface. This enables scientists to estimate the stock sizes of orange roughy with much greater certainty.

'We now know a lot more about these valuable fish than we did 30 years ago. The science and management is far more advanced – what we are doing is world-leading.”

In the 1980s, management of these fisheries was based on the assumption orange roughy are fast growing and relatively productive. Since then, they have proven to be slow growing and to have low productivity so these early approaches didn't work – resulting in catch limits being set too high and their stocks declining in size.

Since 2000, there has been a complete change in the way these fisheries are assessed and managed. Today, underwater cameras and acoustics are used to accurately assess the population sizes. Along with improved stock assessments, these results are used to inform the setting of conservative and sustainable catch limits.

Management now ensures plenty of orange roughy are left untouched to continue to reproduce and sustain healthy populations. For every 100 adult orange roughy counted, less than five each year are harvested, leaving at least 95 to continue to breed and to sustain the population. In the early years, 20 out of every 100 orange roughy were being taken – too many to be sustainable.

These new management responses have proven to be very successful, with the stock sizes continuing to increase in size and the fisheries in good health. Achievement of MSC certification is independent confirmation of these successes, says George.

'The benefits of improved science, which has provided more conservative fisheries management, are demostrated in that our three largest orange roughy fisheries have achieved the gold standard for sustainable management, from MSC, the globally recognised world authority on sustainable fishing.

'Having this level of assurance that these valuable fisheries are being sustainably managed is good for the environment, good for consumers and good for New Zealand's economy. Orange roughy now produce some $60 million of New Zealand's $1.8 billion annual earnings from seafood exports.”

Over 70 per cent of New Zealand's deep water catch is now certified as sustainable by the MSC, including the fisheries for hake, hoki, ling and southern blue whiting. Quota owners aim to have all the main deep water fisheries performing at, or above, a level that meets the MSC standard.