UK oceans campaigner
Willie MacKenzie - tells us why we need
to be picky when it comes to buying tuna.
There’s a well-known model of how dodgy
big business deals with campaigns against
them. To summarise, it goes a bit like this:
Company X gets some bad press for doing
something wrong, especially bad press if
it kills lots of charismatic megafauna.
Company X initially retaliates saying ‘it’s
all lies, honest’.
Company X then admits
it isn’t all lies, but comes up with some
way of kicking the issue into the long grass,
usually some Commission, or Foundation (ideally
with a word like ‘conservation’ or ‘sustainable’
in its title) or some interminable period
of gathering research… in the hope it all
blows over and people forget what they were
upset about.
Step forward Princes,
Bumble Bee and the other big tinned tuna
brands as well as lesser-known entities
such as Trimarine - a major trader of tuna.
As a result of Greenpeace’s shaming of the
tinned tuna industry’s record on bycatch,
and destructive fishing methods, a huge
‘industry NGO’ was formed. It’s called the
International Seafood Sustainability Foundation
(ISSF). Over 60% of the worlds' tinned tuna
is sold by ISSF members.
Obviously bringing together
that much of the world’s tinned tuna trade
under one umbrella has huge potential for
good. And unsurprisingly, the ISSF (which
focuses on tuna, despite the broader remit
suggested by its title) has been making
some positive noises. They have said some
encouraging things in particular about some
threatened tuna stocks. The ISSF is also
funding some much-needed scientific research,
which everyone welcomes.
But the sad truth is,
this in itself doesn’t amount to much. Even
the best scientific research is not useful
if it is used as an excuse to delay action
to deal with obvious problems that we already
know about. Above all, what ISSF is not
tackling yet is the problem of FAD use leading
to shameful amount of bycatch of sharks,
turtles, rays, juvenile tuna and other fish.
The ISSF’s raison d’etre
should be cleaning up the industry, not
encouraging the status quo. At a recent
meeting with ISSF they told us that they
were “not an organisation that is out to
radically change the industry” but that
they “feel it’s important to show progress”…
so it seems pretty clear then, ISSF is about
generating good PR (they have been ‘outreaching
aggressively’ to key journalists, apparently),
and industry joining up to take on its critics?
They tried desperately to explain that they
were moving forward with things, but gave
lots of reasons why things had to progress
very slowly.
At the same time we
see some nefarious defenders of FAD-focussed
tuna fishing doing their best to undermine
progressive alternatives like pole-and-line
fishing. Nice to see their efforts are being
targeted positively, then.
But it doesn’t have
to be this way, some companies take the
criticisms on the chin, engage in dialogue
with NGOs like Greenpeace and actually start
to change things for the better. MW Brands
trading as John West in the UK and Nirsa
SA from Ecuador for example.
MW Brands and Nirsa
SA are members of ISSF of course, but clearly
not all members of the ISSF are moving at
the same speed. Others, like Princes, seem
to see ISSF as a protective cloak, which
absolves them of taking any action, or any
difficult decisions, themselves.
18 months after Greenpeace
UK launched a tinned tuna report, and despite
repeated meetings and communications with
Princes, they have yet to even come forward
with a policy on the sustainable sourcing
of skipjack tuna, let alone any other seafood.
Heck, it still doesn’t even say on their
tins if it is skipjack tuna!
It seems that you, dear
consumer, are supposed to believe that Princes
being part of ISSF, and ISSF doing its best
to maintain business as usual (but hey,
they have the word ‘Sustainability’ in their
name!) is good enough.
Meanwhile thousands
of sharks, rays, and non-target fish are
being killed in tuna nets. And endangered
species of turtles, sharks and tuna are
caught up in them too
Luckily, YOU have a
choice, pretty much wherever you shop. If
you are going to buy tinned tuna – go for
pole-and-line in the can, if you can. Whatever
you do, avoid Princes, until they start
taking your concerns seriously.
