The rainy saison
Last week, the world’s fish geek community converged on a frigid, misty Paris to form the 2010 Seafood Summit, an annual event organized by the Seafood Choices Alliance and designed to facilitate discussion about the current state of the seafood industry and the future of our planet’s fish. Over 600 representatives of industry, academia, the environmental movement, government agencies, and intergovernmental bodies came together to exchange ideas, intelligence, and insults while firmly ensconced in a Parisian conference hotel.
A wide swath of topics was covered by a diverse medley of panels and presentations over the three days of the summit. Fisheries were analyzed, certification schemes were compared and contrasted, and environmentalists sparred with industry hardliners. Through it all, gossip ricocheted down the corridors of the conference center, partnerships were forged in the fires of crisis, and luminaries rained wisdom down on a parched audience.
Fortunately for seekers like myself, the conference was blessed by the attendance of the most illustrious group of aquatic icons since the cast reunion of Finding Nemo.
Pauly pulls no punches, people
Dr. Daniel Pauly, preeminent fisheries scientist at the University of British Columbia, opened the event with a keynote speech that magnificently wove candor, charisma, and the statistical equivalent of howitzer fire together to illustrate the grave state of our oceans. He pulled no punches. Notable quotes from the address include: “Ladies and gentlemen, there is no such thing as a sustainable trawler,” “[Carnivorous] aquaculture is robbing Pedro to pay Paul,” and my personal favorite, “You are all too fat! You don’t need to eat so much protein!”
The peaceful yin to Pauly’s blood-and-thunder yang came at the end of the summit in a gentle, supportive, and passionate closing speech by Julie Packard, the executive director of the Monterey Bay Aquarium and a chairman of the ocean-worshipping Packard Foundation. Packard’s words helped to sooth nerves rubbed raw by the energy and fervor that had electrified the Summit. Eco-freaks, ocean plunderers, and everyone in between sat in silence during the address, thankful for the clarity and the solace in Packard’s words.
Clover combats culinary catastrophe
Charles Clover, author of The End of the Line and one of the planet’s most valiant defenders of the bluefin tuna, brought his mission to the Summit as he engaged in any number of discussions with key figures from the industry, academia, and the environmental movement. His unique ability to meld the twin facets of his personality — “dashing eco-warrior” and “stodgy old tory” — into a surprisingly charming duality worked wonders as he promoted his newest venture, the environmentally-oriented restaurant review website fish2fork.
There were a number of themes that influenced the general direction of discussion. Target’s decision to eliminate farmed salmon was a major focus of discussion, as was the progress being made in France towards the inclusion of Northern bluefin tuna under CITES Appendix 1. The was a great deal of interest in the emergence of new and lesser-known fisheries, such as salmon runs in the Russian Far East, and there were some powerful discussions comparing and contrasting various sustainable seafood “approval” schemes and certification systems — this proliferation of rankings, stickers, and seals is clearly one of the most important issues facing the industry today.
While some of the same old baggage was trucked in yet again — I found myself in yet another hard-headed shouting match with a salmon farmer, for example — there was actually a great deal of progress visible at this year’s summit. People were actually discussing real issues. An entire day was devoted to tuna, and while some of the weaker industry-WWF collaborations (such as the Marine Stewardship Council and the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation) did receive an inordinate share of unjustified back-slapping, there was some positive, reality-oriented talk as well. No one stood up to defend ICCAT during the discussion on bluefin stock management, for example. One can only hope that those days are over.
A light in the darkness
As we move forward into 2010, I am optimistic and full of hope. There was a genuine, palpable desire for change rippling through the attending body at the Summit. Our patience for the plausible (and implausible) denial of the changes our planet and our oceans are undergoing seems to be at its end. I sincerely believe that if we work together and challenge old, broken paradigms without fear, we will be able to capitalize on this desire for change, and rebuild the seafood industry into something that works.
Tags: 2010, alliance, aquaculture, bluefin, choices, CITES, clover, conference, fish2fork, greenpeace, ICCAT, issf, monterey, msc, nemo, packard, panel, paris, pauly, seafood, summit, target, UBC, WWF
Setting the stage for sustainable aquaculture
There is no debate about the part that aquaculture will play in tomorrow’s seafood industry. It will be huge. The titular role. The eponymous lead. The center-stage dynamo that gets the snazzy technicolor jacket and all the catchy solos. Lo, for we have seen the future of seafood, and like it or not, that future is farming.
Just in the last decade or so, we’ve watched the percentage of the overall seafood supply that is sourced from aquaculture operations grow from 25% to 50%. No doubt we will soon see a world where most of the fish we consume are raised in farms. With this in mind, it’s no wonder that the seafood world is all agog over a long-awaited development in the aquaculture industry that finally came to pass a few days ago.
First to the finish line
The World Wildlife Fund, in conjunction with industry, government, and NGO representatives, has created a standard for tilapia farming through a multi-stakeholder process known as the Tilapia Aquaculture Dialogue (affectionately referred to as “the TAD“). This is the first of many forthcoming standards stemming out of the larger Aquaculture Dialogue process, which focuses on species rather than on countries, regions, or technologies. The TAD standard is the result of a exhaustive four-year process that has resulted in an ISEAL-compliant set of certification metrics by which the performance of tilapia farms can be measured. Participating farms that meet the standard’s benchmarks are eligible to receive certification.
In the future, this standard (as well as all future Dialogue-driven standards) will be held by a body known as the Aquaculture Stewardship Council, or ASC (sound familiar?) The ASC is slated to open its doors in 2011. In the interim, the TAD standard will be temporarily held by GLOBALGAP, a veteran agriculture certification organization which ironically may soon find itself in an rivalrous relationship with the nascent ASC.
Um... no
I did not participate personally in the development of the TAD, but I have been fortunate enough to be involved in the Pangasius Aquaculture Dialogue (that’s right… the “PAD.” There’s also the “BAD,” the “ShAD,” the “SCAD,” the “TrAD“, and the “SAD“. Can you guess what they stand for?) As I wrote in a recent post, I’ve learned a lot from my involvement in the project and I do think that it has the potential to lead to positive change. That being said, I have to ask — are we chasing the right paradigm here? Can certification really play the panacea to all our seafood woes?
What are your thoughts on this? Is certification the way forward? Will a “sustainable” certification be enough to both appease demand for eco-friendly seafood and to protect the natural world?
To catch an eel
We’ve seen what happens when unchecked aquaculture is unleashed upon the environment. The 1980s and 1990s saw the destruction of countless square miles of mangroves by relentless shrimp farming operations. The cost of conventional salmon farming on the ecosystems of British Columbia and Chile is too high to compute. American and European eel populations have declined by 90% in the last 20 years due in part to the insatiable elver abduction scheme that fuels the unagi industry.
There are some that would say that certification falls short; that we need top-level policy that governs the way fish farms operate. By way of example, the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has drawn fire for dubious decision-making in regard to numerous fisheries. New Zealand hoki is MSC-certified “sustainable”, yet it is considered an unacceptably destructive option by many environmental organizations and has even been boycotted by Waitrose, a major retail chain in the United Kingdom. More recent MSC certification projects, such as Ross Sea toothfish and Pacific hake, have drawn fire as well.
The people's swamp
Still, fisheries are not the same as fish farms. They are national resources, not industrial enterprises, and thus are managed (at least ostensibly) by a central governing body. Fish farms are largely beholden to their shareholders and operate as designed by their architects. They are not pulling from the same communal resources, per se, as a national fishing fleet… or are they?
When a salmon farm dumps pollutants and parasites into the nearby ocean, causing harmful algal blooms and sea lice infestations in wild fish, are they not drawing on a natural resource? When a shrimp farmer turns a mangrove swamp into a pile of mulch, does he not deprive other stakeholders of ecosystem services?
So what’s the way forward? Does it make sense to pursue a third-party certification system?
Notorious notary?
We’ve already taken a few stabs at this, but have come up short each time. The classic example of certification causing unease is the Marine Stewardship Council — an organization which, although originally predicated on good intentions, now threatens to undermine the very credibility of seafood sustainability on a conceptual level by brandishing its rubber stamp of approval so liberally. In the aquaculture arena, the current standards (primarily those developed by GLOBALGAP and the ACC/GAA) have been heavily targeted by scientific and environmental groups critical of their weak benchmarks, closed-door standard development process, and industry-dominated governance structures. The Aquaculture Dialogues, ostensibly based on an open stakeholder process, were supposed to be a response to these shortcomings. But is a better standard what we should be working towards?
Some would argue that rather than putting our resources into third-party standard development, we should be pressuring governments to institute domestic policies that will eliminate wasteful and polluting aquaculture practices and reward responsible and innovative producers. But is this feasible? Do the governments of major aquaculture centers in the developing world — Vietnam, Indonesia, and India come instantly to mine — have the capacity to develop and enforce these policies?
Signs of the times
Still, it’s not just about the effectiveness of the process. Equally important is the perception of that effectiveness in the eyes of the consumer. To put it another way — which course of action will best promote the growth of a sustainable economy by increasing the sales of environmentally responsible seafood? When you go to your local grocery store to buy seafood, which gives you more confidence at the point of sale: a third-party “sustainable” certification stamp, or a “Product of Thailand” label coupled with the awareness that Thailand has instituted a sustainable aquaculture policy? Which do you trust? Which one makes you want to buy fish?
It’s a thorny issue, no doubt about it. I’m eager to hear your thoughts on this.
Tags: acc, aquaculture, bad, certification, dialgues, eel, gaa, globalgap, hoki, mangrove, msc, pad, policy, ross sea, sad, scad, shad, shirmp farm, signage, tad, tilapia, toothfish, unagi, waitrose, world wildlife fund, WWF
Feeding the world
When Sustainable Sushi was being developed, the Alaska pollock fishery — the 2nd largest fishery in terms of total biomass in the entire world — seemed relatively healthy and stable. At the very least, it provided a traceable and ostensibly well-managed seafood source that was superior to the random mash of imported whitefish that provides the ersatz fish protein underpinning our fish stick and surimi industries. In fact, the Alaska pollock fishery has been considered a “Best Choice” by the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program for years, and is an MSC-certified fishery.
Things seem to be taking a turn for the worse, however. Recent developments in the fishery seem to suggest that all may not be well in pollock country.
Bottoming out
For five years running, the stock has seen lower levels of recruitment (new fish in younger age classes) than historical trends would lead researchers to expect. Overall stock levels have severely declined as well, taking the overall populations to levels only previously reached in the late 1970s — a time when the fishery was open to international fleets and was being heavily over-exploited.
Bycatch levels are also higher than one would like. An increase in overall CPUE (Catch Per Unit of Effort — a measurement of the amount of resources and manpower needed to produce a given amount of fish) has led to increased mortality among co-habiting salmon. Local sea birds and marine mammals are also being affected; strong links are being drawn between the pollock fishery and a downturn in northern fur seals and the endangered Stellar’s sea lion.
Trawl victims
Pollock trawls are impacting sensitive seabed habitats as well — new explorations in the Bering Sea have revealed rich areas of endemic corals. Unfortunately, these areas are not yet protected from fishing, and the pollock fleet is freely operating in coral beds which should ideally be listed as no-take zones.
Most troubling, however, is the reaction on the part of the Northern Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC), a federal body that is responsible for setting the yearly pollock quota. Rather than use the aforementioned concerns as justification to pare down the fishery and reign in some of its more worrisome aspects, the NPFMC instead did the exact opposite and increased the allowed amount of king salmon bycatch to 60,000 fish.
This is poor management from an environmental standpoint. The pollock fishery’s regulations are such that when the bycatch cap for salmon is reached, the fishery is immediately shut down for the year. This increase in tolerable bycatch numbers reflects the rising CPUE within today’s pollock fishery, but rather than move to rebuild the fishery, it simply allows for greater and more damaging exploitation.
Can you spot the pollock?
The pollock fishery is no longer what it once was. It is clear that federal management cannot be depended upon to make wise and environmentally sound decisions in the face of the economic and industrial short-term interests that dominate the pollock industry. Given the current situation, I have no choice but to urge readers to refrain from purchasing products that contain Alaska pollock. In the sushi industry, this means the California roll and other items that include kanikama (imitation crab).
This is by no means an irreversible situation. The Alaska pollock is an incredibly resilient and fecund fish that has the capability to bounce back. Proper management can restore the fishery to its former productive glory, just as was done in the early 1980s. The greater worry is for other impacted populations, primarily Stellar’s sea lions, Alaskan king salmon, coldwater corals, and northern fur seals. If the pollock fishery is to continue, it must reinvent itself to be more sensitive to these co-habiting species.
I have no doubt that other environmental organizations have this issue on their radar, and that we will in the very near future begin to see more criticism of the Alaska pollock fishery from groups much larger and more established than Sustainable Sushi.
Tags: Alaska, bycatch, coral, CPUE, kanikama, msc, no-take, NPFMC, pollock, sake, salmon, sea lion, seafood watch, seal, Stellar, surimi, trawl, Update
Those of you that follow my musings on the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) know that I tend to waffle a bit on this subject and am quite vocal about not giving the organization my full support. This is a great example of why.
A recent press release from the MSC states that “the Northwest Atlantic Canadian longline and harpoon swordfish (Xiphias gladius) fisheries have announced their entry into the full assessment process for MSC certification.” Ordinarily, this would be something that I would see as a positive step. MSC certification, while not a perfect system, tends to help identify fisheries that have stronger levels of scientific rigor in assessment and quote management, and are generally more sustainable overall.
MSC certification for North Atlantic Canadian swordfish, however, may not be cause for celebration.
It’s important to note that this certification is covering not one fishery per se, but rather two fisheries that are drawing on the same population. What I mean is that the certification extends to encompass two distinct fleets — a flotilla of swordfish longliners, and a small navy of swordfish harpoon boats.
These two fisheries target the same swordfish populations but do so in radically different manners. The longlines, which take the lion’s share of the overall quota (90%), use similar gear to that which has caused such problems in Pacific tuna fisheries. In essence, these are sturdy ropes, often several miles in length, which consist of countless hooks that can indiscriminately impact any number of other co-habiting species, such as sharks and whales. Longlines are problematic by their very nature, as there is simply no easy way to prevent non-target species from biting at these hooks (and subsequently dying.)
The harpooners, by contrast, use what is potentially the most precise type of fishing gear on the planet. Harpooners search for an appropriate target, scope it for size, and shoot to kill. There is virtually no bycatch in a harpoon swordfish fishery as the fishermen have already identified and sized their quarry before the harpoon is launched. To top it off, there is a marked quality difference between harpooned and longlined swordfish — harpooned swordfish tends to be firmer and less “washed out” than longlined product. Unfortunately, it is all mixed together before export, and consumers are never given enough point-of-sale information to identify the particularities of the swordfish at their local fish market.
Currently, the harpooners are in difficult straits. The Cape Sable Harpoon Fisherman’s Association, which represents the few old salts that still fish in this time-honored fashion, is continually being squeezed out by the expanding longline fishery. In fact, the Canadian government is moving to strip the harpooners of even more of their tiny share of the total quota. This would effectively replace the few remaining harpoon boats with additional longline boats, and result in a higher level of bycatch overall.
The problem with this upcoming MSC certification is that, as it is applicable to both fisheries, it continues to downplay the important differences between them. Harpooned swordfish needs to be set above what the longliners are bringing in, not mixed in with it and forgotten. Not only that, but what does this say about the rigor of the MSC itself, knowing that these longliners are able to attain certification even though their bycatch levels are unacceptably high?
The bottom line: Consumers need to be able to differentiate the two products appropriately as well as understand the ramifications of the methods used by the two fisheries. The MSC, which so loftily prides itself on transparency and traceability, isn’t going to help this time. In fact, by giving a green light to the longliners, it’s just going to make things worse.
Tags: canada, cape sable, certify, harpoon, longline, marine stewardship counctil, msc, swordfish
Ok, so it’s no secret that I love sardines. They’re a great example of the kind of fish that we should be eating more of. They reproduce in large numbers, breed at a young age, and are exceptionally fecund. They’re low on the trophic scale and thus are an efficient source of protein, so it’s not tough for me to bang the drum about them when I talk about how we can eat fish more sustainably.
Sardines are low in mercury, PCBs, and other contaminents due to their short lifespans and to where they live in the water column. Also, like many cold-water oily fish, sardines are high in Omega-3s. Awesome.
But there’s a problem.
The vast majority of the sardines we get in this country are sealed away in funky little pull-tab tins that make me think of oil drum fires, harmonicas, and shady alleys in East St. Louis. This unfortunate image problem makes it difficult to put the humble sardine back on the menu in American restaurants. We’ve developed a taste for “fresh” fish (don’t get me started on how ridiculous the concept of “fresh” is).
Our sardines are not fresh. They languish in decade-old cans in the back of the pantry, waiting for some catastrophic event when the infrastructure of the country collapses and we are forced to live on tinned food in underground bomb shelters with half of the neighborhood.
The fact is, though, that the sardine is a diamond in the rough. Sashimi-grade sardines are healthy, delicious morsels that give us an excellent option for positive change at the sushi bar as well as the seafood counter. Any decent sushi bar should offer iwashi when sardines are in season, and I highly recommend giving them a try.
That being said, there’s still one problem… and yes, it’s sustainability related.
The vast majority of the sardines that come into this country are from enormous foreign fisheries that have little or no transparency and management. Morocco, Thailand, Portugal, Scotland, Spain, Poland, and countless other countries have sardine fisheries. But which ones are sustainable?
The answer: I don’t know. I’m not sure that anyone has a good answer.
The folks at FishWise and Seafood Watch have been wrestling with this issue for a while. There really isn’t much information available on most sardine stocks. It’s probably due to an ongoing issue that permeates much of our relationship to the ocean — we like big fish. And pretty fish. And brightly-colored fish. And fish with sharp teeth.
But little fish with no “personalities”, no stories, no flashy colors — people don’t really seem to care about them too much. There’s an historic trend of these “forage fish” (small fish like sardines and smelt that form the lower levels of the food web and support many larger fish) being ignored by fishery management schemes. Even after the train wreck at Cannery Row, it’s still common to think that these tiny carbon-copy fish are infinite in number: they are all too often of negligible importance to the scientists and policy-makers that spend their time dealing with sharks and salmon.
But little but little, this is starting to change.
A new announcement by the Marine Stewardship Council showcases a great example of this paradigm shift. The French purse-seine sardine fishery in the Bay of Biscay is now officially in full MSC assessment. Those of you familiar with the MSC are likely aware that any fishery that makes it into full assessment has a very high chance of gaining certification.
I have issues with the MSC, mainly based around stringency of benchmarks and their process for demanding and monitoring fishery improvements, but even I have to admit that the MSC brings one very important piece of the sustainability process to the table: traceability. MSC-certified products are tracked in such a way that it is possible to determine nearly everything about the fish in question — stock status, catch method, even load/unload data and break-of-bulk points are recorded. This is an incredbibly important step forward for most fisheries, but for sardiners, it’s an unheard-of leap.
Sardines have a lot going for them. They’re the kind of animals that have a good chance at supporting our seafood demand due to inherent physiology and life history. But if we don’t give them the attention they deserve and fish for them in a sustainable and traceable manner, well, those old tins in your pantry might start to look a lot more appetizing.
Tags: iwashi, mercury, msc, PCB, sardine, sardines
Posted by Casson on Feb 4, 2009 in
News and Announcements I apologize for not being more on the ball with this update; this conference has been a bit overwhelming.
Anyhow, there’s been a lot of talk here about the growing (?) sustainable seafood movement in Japan, the world’s #1 seafood consumer per capita. The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is claiming that there’s a burgeoning awareness within the Japanese consumer public: In 2004, there were no MSC-certified products available in Japan. Today, there are 150.
While I’m certainly glad to see that more and more fisheries are being certified by the MSC, I don’t necessarily agree with their conclusion. The MSC-certified products available in Japan are largely imports from fisheries that also sell their product to other countries, especially in Europe and North America, where the public is much more aware of the MSC. Commitments like those made by WalMart (all wild seafood to be MSC-certified by 2014), or the entire country of Holland (only MSC-certified wild fish to be sold) help to drive demand in these areas.
One could argue that Japan is importing the same products they had been five years ago, but the products simply happen to be MSC-certified now and weren’t previously. So is this really indicative of a growing awareness in Japan?
As of March 2008, a study undertaken by the Japan office of the MSC indicated that only 8% of the surveyed public were aware of the MSC label. That number decreases to 5% when the survey is narrowed to pregnant women and mothers (a demographic which is often responsible for shopping for food and domestic goods, including fish).
The story becomes even more telling when you start to look at the actual products coming from Japan that are being certified by the MSC: Products like snow crab and skipjack tuna. These are items that have garnered popularity beyond Japan with the expansion of the sushi industry into a global phenomenon. Compare this to those fish that were “left behind,” as it were — fish like sayori and kohada that are only rarely encountered in other countries but have immense popularity and cultural value in Japan.
One could imagine that if awareness of and value for MSC certification was growing among the Japanese public to a level where it was driving demand, we would be seeing certification efforts on these domestically-driven fisheries as well. And yet…?
Tags: gizzard shad, halfbeak, japan, kani, katsuo, kohada, msc, sayori, skipjack, snow crab
