Saving Seafood

NAPA study claims Atlanto-Scandian herring fishery could collapse in two years without action

March 2, 2024 — A study commissioned by the North Atlantic Pelagic Advocacy Group (NAPA) indicates the Atlanto-Scandian herring stock in the Northeast Atlantic may be nearing a collapse if steps aren’t taken to halt overfishing.

NAPA is one of the groups behind persistent calls for action to end overfishing of Atlanto-Scandian herring, which has faced severe sustainability issues for multiple years. The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) suspended its certification for the species in 2020, and since that time, coastal states have continued to exert more pressure on the stock than the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) recommends.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Marine Stewardship Council Fisheries Head Jay Lugar clarifies revision process for Version 3.0 standard

February 10, 2024 — Jay Lugar is the head of fisheries for the Marine Stewardship Council. In an SeafoodSource interview, Lugar addressed in more detail the problems with MSC’s Version 3.0 standard that have resulted in a delay in its implementation.

On 9 February, activist coalition Make Stewardship Count, which has been sharply critical of the Marine Stewardship Council for years, said it opposed the delay.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

FLORIDA: While fish are plentiful off Wakulla County coast, marine heat waves concern environmental groups elsewhere

December 26, 2023 — The following transcript was released by WTXL:

“The fishing is greater than ever.”

Captain Joel Weir runs a fishing charter that goes around the world and in these waters off Panacea. “The fish we have the grouper the snapper fishing everything is phenomenal.”

He says business is good, but the Marine Stewardship Council tells me they’re concerned about the future of fishing in our oceans.

“They’re experiencing water temperatures that are higher than normal.”

Conagra defends its MSC sustainability labeling as class-action lawsuit continues

October 22, 2023 — Conagra Brands has filed a new brief supporting its motion to dismiss a class-action lawsuit claiming the company’s use of Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification for sustainability claims are “deceptive.”

The lawsuit, filed earlier this year, seeks at least USD 5 million (EUR ) in damages and heavily criticizes both Conagra and the MSC, claiming the sustainability certification organization “blatantly violates its own standards and puts the very ecosystem MSC feigns to protect in serious danger.” Plaintiffs in the case, Abdallah Nasser and John Bohen, claim the sustainability promises made by Conagra on its packaging using MSC certification “deceives and misleads reasonable consumers.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ISSF review of MSC’s ghost gear policy development provides lessons for the industry

October 12, 2023 — The Marine Stewardship Council’s updated fisheries standard includes new requirements for preventing the loss of fishing equipment, such as nets and lines, and more stringent monitoring of the impact of lost gear, also known as “ghost gear.”

In a peer-reviewed paper, a team of scientists led by Victor Restrepo, the vice president of the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation, has documented the process the Marine Stewardship Council underwent to revise its policies around gear management for MSC-certified fisheries.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Op-ed: Marine Stewardship Council: Urgent international collaboration needed to safeguard our ocean

September 13, 2023 — The Marine Stewardship Council is an international nonprofit organization that sets globally recognized standards for sustainable fishing and the seafood supply chain. Fisheries representing 19 percent of the world’s wild marine catch are engaged in its certification program.

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), the non-profit responsible for the world’s leading sustainable seafood eco-label, is calling on global leaders to recognize the vital role of sustainable fishing in delivering urgent progress to safeguard our ocean, livelihoods, and food supplies.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Alliance of Historic California Squid Producers Achieves MSC Certification

August 2, 2o23 — California’s historic market squid fishery is making history again: It has achieved Marine Stewardship Council certification.

The premier market squid fishery in California has a long history, dating back to the mid-1800s, when Chinese immigrants fished out of skiffs in Monterey Bay, using torches of burning fat pine to attract squid. Now, an alliance of six historic California squid processors recently announced that California’s market squid fishery has achieved MSC certification, the recognized pinnacle of sustainability in fishery management.

The California market squid purse seine fishery also is being evaluated under a different certifier, for a different client group.

The Alliance of California squid processors includes Cal Marine Fish Company, Monterey Fish Company, Southern Cal Seafood, Southern Coast Trading, Neptune Foods and J. DeLuca Fish Company. The group represents multiple generations of fish buyers and fishermen, dating back 80 years or more, who have produced the lion’s share of the market squid landed in the Golden State, according to a press release from the group.

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

ALASKA: Alaska Official Hits Out at Marine Stewardship Council Over Russian Fish

July 27, 2023 — Alaska’s fish and game commissioner has tough words for the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), the seafood certification body whose familiar blue-fish logo can be found in every supermarket. MSC certifies the sustainability of fisheries around the world, based on stock levels, management practices and environmental impact – but not the politics or warfighting posture of the coastal state. Alaska Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang disagrees: he believes that Russia’s belligerence in Ukraine should be a disqualifier for Russian fishing vessels, and that Russian fish should not be marketed with the same “sustainable” check mark as Alaskan fish.

“MSC . . . has observed Russian actions in Ukraine, assessed the implications for its Russian client fisheries, and chosen a path of accommodation and appeasement,” Vincent-Lang argued in an editorial this week.

Vincent-Lang took a step further and accused MSC of ignoring the invasion in order to keep receiving revenue from Russian members. “[This] gravely misleads consumers and markets who believe that the seafood they are buying is certified to the highest environmental and ethical standards,” he asserted, and letting Russian fishermen keep MSC certification “denigrates the certification” of Alaska fishermen by association.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

New review shows bottom trawling is sustainable (when well-managed)

July 20, 2023 — The following is an excerpt from an article published by Sustainable Fisheries UW:

Seafood produced by bottom trawling can have a lower environmental impact than chicken or pork, according to a new review paper published yesterday. Writing in the ICES Journal of Marine Science, Hilborn et al. 2023 argues that banning bottom trawling would increase negative environmental impacts by increasing terrestrial protein production.

Hilborn et al. 2023, reviewed dozens of papers about bottom trawling impact, including stock sustainability, bycatch, ecosystem impact, and carbon footprint. Though bottom trawling is generally the most impactful kind of fishing, well-managed bottom trawl fisheries produce food with a much lower environmental impact than any terrestrial animal protein.

A review paper summarizes the current knowledge on a particular topic by combing through and presenting conclusions from recent publications. In this case, Hilborn et al. 2023 reviewed the existing literature on the environmental impacts of bottom trawling and summarized four major impacts: Sustainability of target species, impact on benthic ecosystems, bycatch and discard, carbon emissions.

The key to reducing impacts and sustaining fisheries is management. Bottom trawling can be a low-impact form of food production in places with effective management. Bottom trawling can be highly destructive in areas with little capacity for environmental management (like many developing nations in Asia).

In this post, we summarize the findings from the four major impacts, discuss what effective bottom trawling management looks like, and compare the environmental impact of bottom trawling to other forms of food production.

Read the full article at Sustainable Fisheries UW