These `eco-labels' will be administered by the London-based Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), founded by the World Wildlife Fund and the Unilever fishing giant.

They hope the use of the world's first set of standards will encourage fishing fleets to stop over-exploiting the world's fisheries by creating consumer demand and awareness for fish caught sustainably.

``The crisis in marine fish stocks is a global problem that requires a global solution,'' MSC Chairman John Gummer, a member of the British Parliament, said recently.

``By harnessing the power of commerce in favour of sustainable fisheries, the MSC can complement the existing regulatory regimes and safeguard both ocean and ecosystems and people's livelihoods,'' Gummer said.

The MSC certification ``seal'' willbegin appearing before the end of 1999 on packaged fish, in stores and restaurants in industrialised nations, after they have been obtained from MS Certified sources.

``Ideally, all seafood companies should want to use the MSC logo and adjust their practices in order to obtain it. All seafood buyers and consumers would buy only sustainable produced products,'' said Carl Sabina, director of the National Audubon Society.

The announcement was made during the recent two-week meeting of the Commission for Sustainable Development, the annual assessment of how nations are implementing environmental agreements made at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992. Ocean issues, including overfishing, topped the agenda at the meeting.

Because of increased efficiency and the number of fishing fleets sailing the world's oceans, at least 60 per cent of the global fishing grounds are fully exploited or over-fished, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Many of the heavily subsidisedfleets in the northern industrialised countries are increasingly moving toward waters of developing countries as fish stocks in northern waters become depleted.

Fisheries provide jobs for millions of people around the world. So if the fisheries collapse or disappear, so do the livelihoods of many families, said Gummer.

An estimated 75 per cent of the world's population is expected to live within 50 miles of a coastline by the year 2010 and this dependence on sea food is expected to grow, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.

Creating a market incentive in addition to government and international efforts to reduce subsidies for fleets that overfish is the key to the future, Gummer said.

It has become clear that, although the millions of people associated with the fishing industry would be hit hard by the depletion of fish stocks, international government regulation alone are not enough to achieve sustainability, he said.

So, using a process similar to thatestablished by the Forest Stewardship Council, which certifies wood products, the MSC will accredit independent firms to conduct a review process of certified fisheries. These firms will monitor the fisheries to comply with MSC standards that aim to ensure the long-term survival of the stock and health of the surrounding ocean ecosystem.

Many fishing industry representatives already are signing on to the programme. ``We have a vested interest in fishery sustainability,'' said Roger Berkowitz, president and CEO of Legal Seafoods, a prominent Boston-based fishing processor and restaurant. ``If the fish supply is no longer sustainable, then Legal Seafoods is no longer sustainable.''

Thomas Boyd, president of the factory trawling giant, British based Boyd Line, agreed. ``A company that manages deep sea fishing trawlers needs to know that marine fish stocks are going to be available in the future,'' said Thomas Boyd, president of Boyd Line, a British based factory trawling company. ``I hope that this consumerled initiative will achieve more in the long term than some fisheries managers have achieved world wide in the past.'' Mark Kurlansky, a former fisherman and author of the bestselling book, Cod-A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, said there will be an interest in sustainable fishing only if there was a market for it. ``If a fish caught in an environmentally sustainable way will bring in money, fishermen will become environmentalists,'' he said. Gummer said the guidelines and process of certification were still evolving as the programme acquired more practical experience.

To evaluate how MSC's certification process is working in practice, it has set up a number of feasibility studies of certified fisheries in Ecuador, Australia and Alaska. The fisheries used by the MSC-certified Lobster fishery cooperatives of the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador, for example, will be monitored by the non-governmental Charles Darwin Research Station. Officials in Ecuador were enthusiastic about thenew eco-labels for fish since factory trawlers based in industrialised countries were depleting fish stocks used by local fishing communities. ``Certification allows the creation of a local market that is attractive to tourists that come to the Galapagos hoping to support conservation,'' said Yolanda Kakabadse, the Ecuadorian environment minister. ``It allows for creating a regime that guarantees fishing in the long term.'

--Inter Press Service