Market-Based Mechanisms – Improving Fisheries Management? - SEAFOOD Ecolabelling: Principles and Practice - page 200

At the smaller end of the supply scale, many specialist suppliers of sustainable
seafood, such as EcoFish in the US, also have procurement policies that exclude
species deemed unacceptable. Influential individuals involved in the food trade
are also having an influence. In Australia the UK and the US, well-known food
identities such as celebrity chefs are using their positions of influence in the media
to promote their views about sustainable seafood.
The current growth in the seafood choices movement appears to be exponential.
As this chapter goes to press a new initiative to promote bycatch (seabirds and
turtles) friendly tuna is underway in the Pacific, co-ordinated by the Blue Ocean In-
stitute (E. Gilman, personal communication). The tuna initiative involves the catch-
ing sector, retailers and the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council (US). In
Australia, a group of restaurants and the Australian Conservation Foundation have
announced an intention to work with Ocean Wise, a sustainable seafood initiative of
the Vancouver Aquarium, Canada. Ocean Wise will provide guidance on sustainable
choices for restaurant menus and follows similar initiatives in the US (New England
Aquarium - see Chapter 16; and Monterey Bay Aquarium - see Chapter 17).
The views of developing countries on these sorts of initiatives are unknown.
Unlike ecolabel programmes, some of which at least try to integrate into glob-
ally recognised systems (such as the International Accreditation Forum, Interna-
tional Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labelling Alliance, and the
International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements), there is rarely any
co-ordination amongst the perspectives of developing countries (with the possible
exception of the Seafood Choices movement in the US and Europe) due to com-
mercial competition. Thus although the CSR choices by individual companies may
be having an impact on seafood trade, the responses of developing countries are
difficult to determine.

9.8 Species bans and advisory cards

Curbing trade by stifling demand has also been an approach pursued by environ-
mental groups. Arguably one of the first campaigns run in this regard was the Give
Swordfish a Break campaign (see Chapter 7). This campaign dealt primarily with
swordfish caught in the Atlantic but may have had impacts on swordfish entering the
US from other areas as well. The overall effectiveness of such campaigns is unknown
due to lack of evaluation (Jacquet & Pauly 2007) but may be detectable in certain
cases (e.g. Give Swordfish a Break campaign and the MSC; Anon 2005). Possibly
the major problem of such approaches is their indiscriminate nature. For example,
there are well-managed stocks of toothfish as demonstrated by the certification of the
South Georgia stock to the MSC standard. However, the cards and ban campaigns
do not differentiate between poorly managed and well-managed stocks of toothfish.
A more widespread approach to curbing demand has been through the production
of advisory documents for consumers (see, e.g., Lee 2001, and Chapters 18 and