Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
To fill these needs, the leaders of the sustainable seafood movement realised they
had to move quickly. The MSC and its funders agreed to dramatically increase the
pace of fishery assessments and certification. The Walton Family Foundation, for
example, made the largest grant the MSC had ever received to help accomplish this
goal. The funders, notably the Packard Foundation and the Walton Family Foun-
dation, also agreed to support a new type of organisation known as the Sustainable
Fisheries Partnership. The partnership seeks to 'improve access to information to
guide responsible seafood sourcing, and enhance the ability of seafood companies
and partners to influence government fisheries policies and management practices
to improve fisheries'.
By mid-2007, more than 60 fisheries were engaged in the MSC programme (see
Chapter 4), including 22 certified fisheries, 24 fisheries in full assessment, including
the large-volume Pacific hake fishery, and more than 20 fisheries are in the confi-
dential pre-assessment stage to determine whether they stand a reasonable chance
of achieving MSC certification. If it is certified, the Pacific hake fishery will rank
second only to the MSC-certified Alaska pollock fishery in size. These 60 fisheries
together have annual catches of more than 3.5 million metric tons, representing 42%
of the world's wild salmon catch, 32% of the world's whitefish catch and 18% of
the world's lobster catches. More than 600 seafood products bearing the MSC label
are on sale around the world (Sustainable Food News 2007). The organisation is
well on its way towards supplying the needs of those large-volume seafood buyers
that have made commitments in favour of sustainable seafood.
In late 2006, a group of leading marine scientists published a paper in the journal
Science
on marine ecosystem services that projected humanity will exhaust the
supply of wild-caught seafood by 2048 if present trends continue (Worm
et al
.
2006). This finding was widely publicised and caused both controversy in the
scientific community and consternation among government agencies charged with
managing fisheries. Industry and conservation leaders agreed that the development
of market-based approaches to conservation of the oceans should be accelerated.
Sustainable seafood as a new commercial norm has always been a leading goal
of the sustainable seafood movement. That goal now seems within reach. Ecola-
belling will play a leading role in achieving that goal. However, moving the market
is only the first step towards improving the effectiveness of fishery management
and ultimately the health of the oceans. One of the leading challenges for the
sustainable seafood movement will be to move beyond commitments to change
seafood sourcing policies to collaboration with industry to directly influence fish-
ery management itself. Today, it is difficult to imagine industry officials testifying
in support of stricter management measures at congressional hearings or before
regional fishery management councils. But unless that happens, the sustainable
seafood movement will at best have an indirect influence on fishery management.
Market-based approaches can never supplant or replace effective public policy,
nor should they be expected to do so. The sustainable seafood movement represents
an opportunity to create powerful new incentives for public officials to make better
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