The MSC eco-labelling process has been the focus of renewed attacks from both scientists and environmentalists for its use of commercial consultants, paid by the industry, and a Danish similar organisation accuses MSC of “irresponsibility, bordering to swindle”.
Since the London-based Marine Stewardship Council started its operations ten years ago, almost 60 fisheries have been certified to be sustainable, with a further more than 100 in the process of being assessed.
The fact that the applicants pay commercial firms to do the assessments raise doubts about the fairness and the objectivity of the process, leaving the door open, according to critics, to “special arrangements”. The fee for the evaluations usually ranges between €10,000 – 80,000.
The latest batch of criticism comes after the Moody Marine consulting firm, a company that makes about one half of all MSC evaluations globally, recently recommended certification of the toothfish fishery in the sensitive Antarctic Ross Sea.
It did so, despite written arguments of 40 marine scientists from seven nations who have worked in the Ross Sea for decades, as well as opposition from NGO Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC) and its member organizations.
The groups are planning to appeal the recommendation, but it should be noted that over the ten years MSC has been operating, no such objection from outside groups during the certification process has ever led to a rejection, and only one fishery overall — for lobsters, in British waters — has been turned down after an assessment has been paid for.
One of the major grounds for the objections to toothfish and krill fisheries in the Ross Sea has been that so little scientific knowledge is at hand about these sensitive ecosystems.
“We are really upset that the MSC has decided to get involved where there is so little information and a lot of controversy”, said ASOC Executive Director Jim Barnes to the IntraFish news organisation. He added that scientists consulted on the assessment “weren’t given any credence by Moody Marine … they feel like they were treated like high school students”.
On the whole, “Moody Marine’s analysis is shocking”, he concluded. “Certification of the Ross Sea toothfish fishery ignores the very inexact science surrounding the fishery, including the age at which fish are fully mature and how often they breed.”
The assessment from Moody Marine has met a similar outcry from Greenpeace.
“Last year, an independent analysis of human impacts on the world’s oceans published in the journal Science classified the Ross Sea as the least affected oceanic ecosystem remaining on Earth. Awarding Antarctic toothfish the MSC seal of approval will stimulate demand and dupe the public,” said Karli Thomas, Greenpeace oceans campaigner, to IntraFish.
Meanwhile, the Danish Society for a Living Sea announced that it will arrange a “People’s Climate Summit” on December 16, paralleling the somewhat larger United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen December 7-18.
The topic for the hearing will be “Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and the Climate”.
The Danish Society for a Living Sea began an eco-labelling program already in 1995, four years before MSC, but says it aims at a much wider approach, taking the full impact of fisheries on the environment and the climate into consideration.
It claims MSC is too focused on biological sustainability when handing out certificates and gives too little consideration to energy criteria.
“MSC is legitimizing unsustainable fisheries that have massive negative impacts on the climate by giving the fish consumer a false eco-label for fish and fish products”, the society declared in the invitation to the hearing, referring to “the extreme use of fusil energy in the trawl fishery”.
On another note, German fishermen recently announced plans to seek MSC certification of fisheries in both of the controversial Baltic cod stocks.