With growing concerns about global overfishing, market-based eco-certification programs like the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) can incentivise adoption of sustainable practices. Several studies investigated drivers of improvement in market-driven Fisheries Improvement Projects, but failed to use detailed, standardised measures of progress, or considered small samples. We considered the relative influence market, governance and fishery-specific drivers have on MSC certification speed and success in 208 fisheries. To evaluate improvement we compared pre-certification scores from MSC pre-assessments—rapid high-level audits against the MSC Standard—to scores from full MSC audits. Drivers considered included measures of pre-assessment quality, as this initial advice might contribute to later certification success. National fishery management capacity, percentage of MSC catch and landed value were the strongest drivers of successful and rapid certification. Environmental improvements occurred for stock management, ecosystem health and governance aspects. While only 48% of fisheries with favourable pre-assessment outcomes went on to be certified, improvements in many fisheries with lower pre-assessment scores were observed in their lead-up to full assessment. Random forest analyses allowed for considering multiple interacting variables simultaneously and revealed influential drivers under specific fishery contexts. For example, higher certification probability was associated with greater percentage of MSC catch under the full dataset, but not under subsets representing fisheries facing more challenging contexts for certification. Fisheries from lower/middle-income countries had lower overall probability of certification, but this increased with higher management capacity. This suggests multiple drivers interact in instigating fisheries improvements, and MSC pre-assessments provide valuable resources to understand this journey.

中文翻译：

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渔业迈向海洋管理委员会认证的成功、速度和绩效的驱动因素

随着人们对全球过度捕捞的担忧日益加剧，海洋管理委员会 (MSC) 等基于市场的生态认证计划可以激励采用可持续实践。一些研究调查了市场驱动的渔业改进项目的改进驱动因素，但未能使用详细、标准化的进展衡量标准，或考虑了小样本。我们考虑了市场、治理和渔业特定驱动因素对 208 个渔业的 MSC 认证速度和成功的相对影响。为了评估改进情况，我们将 MSC 预评估（根据 MSC 标准进行的快速高级别审核）的预认证分数与完整 MSC 审核的分数进行了比较。考虑的驱动因素包括预评估质量的衡量标准，因为这一初步建议可能有助于以后认证的成功。国家渔业管理能力、MSC 渔获量百分比和上岸价值是成功和快速认证的最强驱动力。种群管理、生态系统健康和治理方面的环境得到改善。虽然预评估结果良好的渔业中只有 48% 最终获得了认证，但许多预评估分数较低的渔业在全面评估之前却取得了进步。随机森林分析允许同时考虑多个相互作用的变量，并揭示了特定渔业环境下有影响力的驱动因素。例如，在完整数据集下，更高的认证概率与更高的 MSC 渔获量相关，但在代表面临更具挑战性认证环境的渔业的子集下则不然。来自低/中等收入国家的渔业获得认证的总体概率较低，但随着管理能力的提高，这种概率也会增加。这表明多个驱动因素在促进渔业改进方面相互作用，而 MSC 预评估为了解这一过程提供了宝贵的资源。