Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
campaign as a boycott and vowed to discredit and defeat it. They were concerned
that the campaign would merely put US swordfishers out of work while having no
effect on imports of juvenile swordfish from European suppliers.
But the tactics that had worked so well for the seafood industry in the public
policy arena - such as discrediting science and fostering uncertainty - were not
well suited to deal with a high-profile campaign led by celebrity chefs and based on
social marketing and strategic communications. Ironically, the campaign was aided
by the 2000 Hollywood film,
A Perfect Storm
, starring George Clooney and Mark
Wahlberg as fishermen caught by a storm far offshore, where they had to travel to
catch large swordfish no longer found inshore. The film was based on a true story
chronicled by former New England swordfish Captain Linda Greenlaw, who was
ultimately enlisted by the seafood industry in an unsuccessful effort to defeat the
Give Swordfish A Break campaign.
The swordfish campaign ran until 2000, when it was ended by its founders after
the US closed more than 11 000 square miles of the Atlantic to swordfishing and
convinced ICCAT to adopt a recovery plan for the species. For the first time, the
campaign succeeded in bringing fishing industry representatives to the table and
forcing them to negotiate reductions in catch and the closure of areas of ocean to
longline fishing (the preferred method of catching swordfish). Blue Water Fish-
ermen's Association claimed that the campaign had affected the livelihoods of
its members due to cancelled and diminished orders for swordfish from retailers
(Nussbaum 1998). What began as a consumer awareness effort ended up having a
reportedly profound economic effect on the seafood industry.
20.3
From stick to carrot: The Marine Stewardship Council
In 1995, the Endangered Seas Campaign of WWF International, based in Lon-
don, began discussions with Unilever Corporation that would ultimately lead to
the formation of the world's first independent certification and ecolabelling pro-
gramme for wild-capture fisheries. Surprisingly, the world's largest conservation
organisation (with offices in more than 50 countries) had much in common with
the Anglo-Dutch transnational consumer products giant. At that time, Unilever was
one of the leading processors of frozen fish, supplying about one-quarter of the
US and European market with products such as fish sticks (known as 'fish fingers'
in Europe). Unilever executives read with growing alarm of the press reports of
overfishing and destructive fishing practices. They saw these as significant risks to
their successful frozen foods businesses such as Bird's Eye in the United Kingdom,
Gorton's of Gloucester in the US and Iglo in Germany. Unilever had also recently
experienced the 'Mad Cow' crisis in the UK, where a public scare over tainted
beef that caused the disease bovine spongiform encephalopathy had cost the com-
pany millions of pounds sterling as consumers across Europe lost confidence in
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