Plaice & Lemon Sole

European plaice in the North Sea was successfully certified to the MSC Standard in 2018. The timeline for the North Sea lemon sole FIP came to an end in April 2023 and the final annual review indicated that no performance indicator would be expected to fail in an MSC assessment.

However, there are still activities underway to ensure the lemon sole fishery demonstrates best practice against the MSC Standard. The main outstanding actions for the lemon sole FIP relate to the development of harvest strategy and harvest control rules. Lemon sole is managed through the North Sea Multi Annual Plan, as a bycatch species, and is currently fished using a joint Total Allowable Catch with witch. Defra are working with ICES to split the TAC and implement a single species TAC in 2024, which will progress the remaining Principle 1 actions.

To reach the best practice level of the MSC Standard (SG 80), this FIP is focussing on:

Principle 1 (stock status):

Defining appropriate reference points;

Development of harvest strategy in line with the North Sea Multi Annual Plan; and
Developing harvest control rules and tools at stock level.

Principle 2 (environmental impact):

Understanding the catch composition and appropriate management measures;
Reviewing alternative measures to reduce unwanted catch;
Identifying interactions with endangered, threatened and protected (ETP) species and developing additional management requirements in an ETP Strategy; and
Assessing the impacts of the fishery on commonly encountered habitats and vulnerable marine ecosystems (VME) and implementing appropriate management.

Principle 3 (management):

Developing a Fisheries Management Plan (FMP), which also documents stakeholder roles and responsibilities; and
Developing short- and long-term fishery objectives.

Progress and Updates

The priorities and challenges of each plaice and lemon sole fishery are highlighted in the MSC Performance Indicator Graphs (right) and correspond to the three principles of the MSC Standard. More detail on the progress against these actions can be found in the FIP Action Plan.

The plaice and lemon sole FIP is independently assessed by FisheryProgress.org. The FIP pre-assessments (conducted in 2016) are available here for plaice and lemon sole.

In 2022, the funders and Steering Group members reviewed the impacts of Brexit and the global pandemic on the progress of the FIP actions. They agreed to extend this FIP by one year to ensure that all identified actions impacted by these unforeseen events have the time and attention required to complete them. The updated action plan focuses on progressing the harvest strategy and harvest control rules, in alignment with the national requirements set out in the Fisheries Act 2020 for Fishery Management Plans.

More information about the FIP’s activity in its final year can be read in the Project UK Annual Report (2022-2023)

Scoring levels across MSC Performance Indicators for each lemon sole fishery at the end of Year 6

The plaice and lemon sole FIP is supported by dedicated experts representing a range of stakeholder organisations.

Participants

Centre for Environmental & Fisheries Science (Cefas) • Co-op • Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) • Flatfish • Hilton Seafoods • Lowestoft Producer Organisation • Marine Management Organisation • Marks and Spencer • Morrisons • New England Seafood International • Poseidon • Sainsbury’s • Scottish Fisheries Sustainability Accreditation Group • Scottish White Fish Producers Association • Seafish • Waitrose • WWF • Young’s Seafood