Fishy goodness
I’m a big fan of mackerel. It’s a fantastic fish. Not only is it healthy and nutritious, but it reproduces quickly, breeds in large numbers, and often benefits from effective and precautionary management. Good stuff. In fact, saba has been a sushi staple of mine for years, and I encourage you to give it a shot in the place of other more troubling sushi items (like unagi or hamachi, for instance) next time you visit a sushi bar.
That being said, some troubling news from the Atlantic has forced me to revisit my standard double-fisted endorsement.
The mackerel fishery off the coast of the British Isles has been growing in popularity now that the more traditional seafood options, such as haddock, have been depleted. One would hope that we can learn from our previous mistakes and manage this fishery in a precautionary manner that will prevent us from repeating the depressing boom-and-crash pattern that we’ve seen with cod, plaice, and other North Atlantic species.
Everything looked positive at first. A pole-and-line mackerel fishery in Cornwall, as well as several midwater trawl fisheries elsewhere in the British Isles, sought and received Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification. Management seemed to be sound and bycatch was low. Now, however, climate change has reared its head, and a new set of challenges is looming on the horizon.
Go north, young fish... actually, wait
Global climate change is affecting the water temperature of our oceans. The surface waters of certain areas of the Northeastern Atlantic are beginning to warm slightly, and this has driven the mackerel stocks further north. Their migration has taken them into Icelandic and Faeroese waters — the territories of two massive new predators whose presence had not been foreseen by management or certification authorities.
The mackerel stock in the Northeast Atlantic is managed under a joint quota that is split between the European Union, Norway, and Russia. Iceland, which has never fished this stock in the past, has now unilaterally declared that it will take over 100,000 mt of mackerel annually. The total quota set for the fishery for the EU, Norway, and Russia combined is just over 500,000 mt. The Icelandic fishing industry is taking an additional 20% on top of this, and is doing so in spite of the current international management efforts. The Faeroes have also announced that they will be substantially ramping up their mackerel fishery, which may compound the problem even further.
For cod and country
These international tugs-of-war over our fishery resources are never good. This kind of competition can lead to overfishing, increasing pirate fishing activity, and even — especially in the case of Iceland and the UK — direct confrontation. A few decades back, these two countries had a prolonged series of naval skirmishes over fishing rights. These “Cod Wars,” as they came to be known, included ramming, net cutting, and even shots being fired. Luckily no one was harmed, but the importance of this issue to the Icelanders and the British was underscored several times over.
A few days ago, the MSC stated that additional Icelandic and Faeroese fishing pressure on the mackerel stock may end up costing certified mackerel fisheries their blue stamps, which has caused outrage in the UK. Groups like the Scottish Pelagic Fishermen’s Association are up in arms — not just because they may lose their quota, but also because the MSC’s distant deadline of January 1, 2012 puts very little pressure on the relevant authorities to resolve the dispute.
It remains to be seen how the EU will respond to Iceland’s actions, but until we know more, we should exercise a bit of caution with our consumption of Atlantic mackerel… or, even better, buy domestic.
Tags: cod wars, cornwall, iceland, mackerel, msc, Norway, quota, russia, saba, scotland, trawl
Posted by Casson on Jun 10, 2010 in
News and Announcements 
Mine! Mine! All mine!
In an age where we are pushing our planet’s limits in search of resources, we find more and more poignancy in questions of corporate social responsibility. What obligations, either ethical or legal, should govern an a extractive operation as it roots around in the rainforest, slurps up the oceans, or grinds its way into the Earth’s crust in search of coltan, cod, or crude oil?
We have reached a point where the simple ability to access a resource can no longer be interpreted as right to do so. This kind of anachronistic thinking has gotten us into a world of trouble. The fact is that we are an incredibly powerful species, with the technological capacity to perform jaw-dropping feats. We can build immense transit tunnels below the ocean, launch intricate networks of satellites to enrich communication, and splice vegetable DNA into a chicken. This kind of space-age tech lends perceived legitimacy to business plans which make endeavors like offshore oil drilling appear safe and massively profitable. A few people make a lot of money, something goes horribly wrong, and we all pay the price.
Crude behavior
The toxic results of this kind of unmitigated rapacity have been spurting into the Gulf of Mexico for weeks now. A small group of people decided that they were willing to gamble with the health of our planet for their own personal gain. We should be furious. Who do these pompous egoists think they are, and why, for God’s sake, are we allowing them to compromise our future for their own profit?
This appallingly selfish approach to business must be stopped. Given that we live together on a finite planet, the corporations of the future must be those that are willing to take responsibility for their actions.
The concept of sustainable seafood is predicated on the idea that seafood purveyors, which have for decades served as implements of oceanic destruction, must start standing up for the planet regardless of traditional consumer preferences. The fact is that the average seafood diner or sushi patron simply does not have the time to educate him/herself on the environmental impacts of the vast and ever-changing array of seafood options available to consumers in today’s world. Diabolically efficient fishing technology coupled with cheap refrigeration and well-organized global freight networks allow us access to countless seafood items for all corners of the globe, some environmentally acceptable and some quite the opposite. As such, chefs, merchants, and restaurateurs that take the initiative to defend the ocean and its future. After all, if you work in the seafood industry, it is the ocean that is providing your paycheck.
The face of the future?
Thankfully, we are seeing a gradual shift towards this more responsible way of thinking. In the seafood world, I can think of no better example than Martin Reed and his sustainable seafood delivery business, ilovebluesea.com. Reed shoulders the burden of sorting the proverbial wheat from the chaff himself, so his customers really can’t make a mistake in terms of the environmental repercussions of their choices. Ilovebluesea.com refuses to offer seafood items that are in the Seafood Watch “avoid” category or on the Greenpeace red list, and demands transparency and traceability on the part of his suppliers. Gear type, catch location, and other important information must all be provided before ilovebluesea.com agrees to offer the fish. The company is even addressing packaging and shipping issues by using recyclable and/or biodegradable containers rather than Styrofoam and similar petro-synthetic nightmares.
A much larger company also recently took an impressive step towards corporate social responsibility in the seafood world. Maersk, the shipping giant, has declared that it will not transport any whale products, any shark products (including fins), any Patagonian or Antarctic toothfish, or any orange roughy on its ships due to concerns about the sustainability of these products. This is a very powerful message, especially when one considers that Maersk ships about 20% of all of the world’s internationally traded sea-borne seafood products.
Full steam ahead
The Greenpeace seafood retailer rankings also help to shed some light on seafood purveyors that are – or are not, as the case may be – doing the right thing. Companies like Target and Wegmans are taking positive steps and working towards truly sustainable seafood operations, while others, like Costco, are charging full steam, hands clapped over ears and yammering loudly, propelling us all in our mutual handcart down to Hades.
We obviously do not have the legal framework in place to reign in this kind of behavior. Otherwise, one could surmise, we would never have had a Deepwater explosion, and Costco wouldn’t be selling Chilean seabass and orange roughy in the first place. Given that, it is up to us as consumers to act.
We need to reward businesses that are making the change towards legitimate corporate social responsibility. Buy seafood from honest purveyors that don’t try to pull the wool over our eyes. Some companies are willingly selling out our oceans to line their bank accounts – so why are we shopping there?
If you want to make your money from my ocean, you’d better treat it with respect. It’s about responsibility, jerk.
Tags: bp, chilean sea bass, corporate social responsibility, costco, csr, deepwater, fin, greenpeace, gulf, ilovebluesea, loggerhead, maersk, martin, oil spill, orange roughy, reed, seafood watch, shark, target, toothfish, turtle, wegmans, whale
Posted by Casson on Jun 3, 2010 in
Guest post,
News and Announcements Guest posts at sustainablesushi.net do not necessarily represent the opinion of the owner/operator of this website (Casson Trenor). In fact, they are often chosen specifically because they offer an alternative perspective and can give rise to interesting debate. Guest authors neither pay nor receive any sort of compensation for their participation.
Salmon with a side of certainty
One Way to Buy Supermarket Fish – Frozen
By Mark Bittman
I (Mark) found this salmon fillet at Shaw’s, in Berlin, Vermont. Frozen hard. It looked good, and the price was right ($12 a pound, I think, which for real sockeye isn’t at all bad), so I bought it. I had no idea what the numbers meant, so I asked Casson Trenor.
His response:
“Accurate species name — Latin name — certification # — FAO catch area — verbatim wild-caught language – Yes, this is very good. It’s nice to see grocery stores putting Latin names on their seafood – it helps consumers avoid confusion. Some fish are plagued by this problem – a big one on the West Coast is Sebastes spp., or the Pacific rockfish. You see that sold as all sorts of things – rock cod, Pacific red snapper, whatever. If we added a Latin name on the label it would be a lot easier. So it’s great to see stickers like the one on this salmon. Where did you find it?”
When I told him, he was surprised:
“This issue that I have is that Shaw’s is owned by SUPERVALU, which is notorious for their disregard of seafood sustainability. They continue to languish near the bottom of the Greenpeace rankings. In fact, a SUPERVALU executive once told me that their company was so decentralized that they literally did not even know what seafood they sold. How can you build a sustainable seafood operation on that? It’s terrifying.
“So while I see this labeling system as a positive trend, it is anomalous in terms of how SUPERVALU operates as a larger conglomerate. I strongly suspect that label was created and applied by the supplier that the salmon was purchased from, not by Shaw’s itself. You can see the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) coding on the label, so may have just been handed down. That’s fine, but why only in Shaw’s? What about at Albertson’s, or Jewel-Osco, or Lucky? And does this mean that SUPERVALU is looking at improving their labeling overall?”
Just to give you an idea of the size of SUPERVALU, here is a quick line-up of its US banners:
I said, “No doubt they’re opportunistic, but us showing this fish to markbittman.com readers is not exactly implicit support of Shaw’s or SUPERVALU – it’s demonstrating that sometimes you can find what you’re looking for in unlikely places.
“Fair enough,” Trenor responded. “That product itself certainly merits support. Sustainable, fairly priced Alaskan sockeye salmon, frozen and clearly labeled. I’m all for that. It’s just a shame that it’s such a rare occurrence at SUPERVALU that you and I can justify writing a blog post about it.”
Illustrations provided by author (Mark Bittman). Captions provided by sustainablesushi.net.
Tags: albertson's, bittman, frozen, jewel-osco, label, lucky, mark, msc, sake, salmon, sebastes, shaw's, sockeye, supervalu, traceability
