SEAFOOD.COM NEWS [Seafoodnews.com] — November 8, 2013 — NGOs expressed little shock to the recent dismissal of an objection filed against the certification of Alaskan salmon against the Marine Stewardship Council's standard and undermines the goal of seafood sustainability.
The Wild Fish Conservancy, SkeenaWild Conservation Trust, Watershed Watch Salmon Society, and Raincoast Conservation Foundation received notice from the “Independent Adjudicator” on Tuesday that their Notice of Objection to the Marine Stewardship Council certification of the Alaskan Salmon fishery had been dismissed.
But for some of the NGOs the adjudicator's decision came of little surprise and is undermining efforts to preserve endangered Alaskan salmon fisheries in the Pacific Northwest.
“This decision is hardly surprising given the way the MSC decided to allow the certifying body to exempt the catch of several endangered salmon populations from the assessment, and the weak mandate of the MSC’s Adjudicators when considering objections like ours, which focused on that outrageous exemption.” said Greg Knox, Executive Director of the SkeenaWild Conservation Trust in British Columbia.
Knox's reference to endangered Alaskan salmon stocks includes non-Alaskan salmon that get intercepted in the southeast fishery. According to Knox In March 2013, without informing the stakeholders or the public, MSC allowed the certifying body to exempt the southeast Alaska salmon fishery from a much more rigorous assessment by labeling those intercepted non-Alaskan fish as ‘Inseparable or Practically Inseparable’ (or ‘IPI’) from the true Alaskan salmon.
"The Chinook (or ‘king’) salmon fishery is considered the most problematic, for its impacts on endangered runs. The report that MSC has accepted from the certifying body acknowledges that over 96% of Chinook salmon caught in the Southeast Alaska fishery originate from rivers outside Alaska, many of which are severely depleted. Salmon from these endangered populations are routinely sold in the market as 'wild Alaska salmon,'" said Knox.
Meanwhile Melanie Carter, the Independent Adjudicator who levied the dismissal, said the rub with her decision appears to be with the assessment process.
“It may be that the objector’s real concern here is not so much with the [certifying body] but rather with the way in which this assessment had to take place under the applicable criteria, once the IPI status and exemption had been granted”.
But beyond issues with IPI's and the MSC's assessment process, Seattle's Wild Fish Conservancy said the real harm in upholding the salmon certification is against Alaska's carefully built salmon brand.
"This is actually bad news for the Alaskan brand, because it means that instead of relying on MSC to reduce the overfishing of endangered stocks in southeast Alaska, through certification conditions, we're going to have to engage the market directly”, said Kurt Beardslee, Executive Director of the Wild Fish Conservancy in Seattle. “We will do our best to minimize collateral damage to the Alaskan salmon fisheries that are well-managed , but our focus will have to be on protecting those endangered stocks from further overfishing."
Moreover, British Columbia's Watershed Watch Salmon Society said in addition to the potential damage to the Alaskan salmon brand, the MSC's process is undermining seafood sustainability efforts across the board.
“This outcome is also bad news for seafood consumers who want to be able to trust that ecolabels — like the MSC’s blue check mark — will not be put on salmon from endangered populations”, said Aaron Hill, biologist with the Watershed Watch Salmon Society in British Columbia. “The MSC’s failure to address these overfishing problems in Alaska seriously undermines its credibility.”
This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.