reLAKSation 350. Callander McDowell
Well defined!: An IntraFish editorial suggests that Greenpeace’s latest attack on the seafood sector has exposed a rift within the environmental community about what kinds of fish are and aren’t sustainable. The problem is that everyone has a different perception of sustainability that is tailored to their own position. This means that the definition of sustainability ranges across a whole gamut of ideas. However, we recently came across one definition that seemed to us to exactly fit the bill. It appeared in a review in the Daily Telegraph written by UK journalist Jasper Gerard.
"sustainable" - a euphemism for a fish that no one has the appetite to drive into extinction!!!
Colour blind?: Greenpeace appear to have upset much of the US retail sector by suggesting that many of the leading supermarket chains are ignoring scientific warnings about the crisis facing global fisheries and the marine environment when they stock their shelves with fish and seafood. According to seafoodintelligence.com, Greenpeace have published a new report, ‘Carting away the Oceans’ which attacks the retail sector. Greenpeace have also issued a red list of fish species, both wild caught and farmed, which they consider unsustainable.
Whilst we, at Callander McDowell regularly monitor some European supermarket chains, our capability does not extend to the US and therefore we are not qualified to respond to Greenpeace’s criticisms. Instead, we would like to address our comments towards Greenpeace’s red list of unsustainable species. It was of little to surprise to find that their red list included farmed salmon. This is because it is almost ‘de rigueur’ for any environmental group to include farmed salmon in any damnation of so called unsustainable fish production. Greenpeace have proved to be no exception.
One of the fundamental issues which has prompted Greenpeace to include farmed salmon appears on this red list is that of feed. They say that the input of wild caught fish used to make fishmeal exceeds the output of farmed fish. Greenpeace argue that this results in a net loss rather than a gain of fish protein. They claim that carnivorous fish like salmon are especially bad at converting fishmeal to salmon protein with 3kg of fishmeal producing only 1kg of salmon flesh. Greenpeace suggest that rather than alleviating the pressure on wild stocks, aquaculture increases it, albeit with different species.
This is such a spurious argument that it hardly merits a response yet environmental groups like Greenpeace are so blinded by their own views that a response does need to be spelt out. In this instance, it is tantamount to colour blindness with a species that they have placed on their red list being repositioned on their green list instead.
We, at Callander McDowell, have argued from even before the formation of the MSC, that aquaculture is the best management tool available for the protection of threatened wild fish stocks. The only reason why stocks are threatened at all is because of growing demand for fish and seafood. Clearly, if this demand can be met from elsewhere; aquaculture, then the fishing pressure on wild fish stocks can be eased.
Whilst Greenpeace do not actually produce a green list of acceptable fish species, it must be concluded that any fish not appearing on the red list merits a place on the green list. One such species is Pacific salmon which is relevant here because it is similar in many ways to red listed Atlantic salmon. Like their Atlantic cousins, Pacific salmon migrate out to sea to rich feeding grounds where they gorge on oil rich small fish. The conversion rate of these live feeds to salmon flesh is higher since the fish expend a lot of energy in their migration and hunt for their natural feeding grounds. The conversion of wild fish to salmon protein occurs out in the far oceans, well out of sight of man and especially of Greenpeace.
By comparison, farmed salmon do not have to migrate for many hundreds of miles as their natural feed is brought to them so they can convert it more efficiently into edible salmon protein. It is effectively the same feed that they would eat in the wild and therefore there is absolutely no difference between Pacific salmon, which is acceptable to Greenpeace and farmed Atlantic salmon, which is not. What do Greenpeace expect these fish to be fed on? They would be the first to complain if farmed salmon were reared on diets that contained non-natural feeds. What do Greenpeace suggest; salmon farmers should send out for a take out order for their fish from MacDonalds or Pizza Hut?
As concern about sustainability has grown, aquaculture has been increasingly criticised for the depletion of wild stocks caught for fish meal. As we have pointed out, this is just another presentation of their natural food. Yet, there has been increasing pressure on feed manufacturers to reduce the fishmeal content of aquaculture feeds and replace them with vegetable proteins instead. The logic for such change is beyond belief on a number of levels.
Firstly, there is the question of whether the natural marine food of marine animals should be substituted with a vegetable terrestrial replacement but this makes even less sense when the fate of most fishmeal is fully explored. Although the use of fishmeal in fish feeds has dramatically increased in recent years, at least a third of world fishmeal production is used outside aquaculture. In fact, most of this is used in terrestrial animal feed destined for pigs and poultry. So to put this in context, environmental groups are urging the replacement of fishmeal with vegetable protein, whilst terrestrial animals that naturally eat vegetable protein, are fed with marine protein from fishmeal. Surely, the first step to reduce the fishing pressure on fish destined for fishmeal production should be that fishmeal should be removed from land animal feeds. Only then, can the question of removing fishmeal from aquaculture diets can be really considered.
Yet, far from reducing terrestrial fishmeal demand, it seems that there is actually pressure to increase it. FIS.com reported recently that the a team of veterinary experts from the European Commission have approved a project reintroducing fishmeal in the feed of young ruminant animals such as calves and lambs. The idea is to use fishmeal in the production of liquid milk substitutes.
One reason for doing this besides the benefits on ruminant animal health is that meat, milk and eggs from farm animals fed fishmeal are beneficial for human health. The obvious question is why they wouldn’t promote the increased consumption of oil rich farmed fish instead!
Whilst the environmental groups suggest that stocks of fish destined for fishmeal manufacture are under threat, the Director General of the International Fishmeal and Fish Oil Federation told the Aquaculture UK 2008 conference in Aviemore that fishmeal supply is unlikely to be an obstacle to aquaculture development. IntraFish reported that Jonathan Shepherd has said that market forces and evolving technology will ensure future supplies continue to be available.
Greenpeace simply do not like the idea that some fish are caught simply to feed other fish and thus aquaculture species have found their way onto the organisations red list. Using the same criteria, we assume that Greenpeace will soon issue a new red list that includes pigs, poultry and possibly even lamb and cattle.
No surprise: According to seafoodintelligence.com, the Marine Stewardship Council has reconfirmed that it will not expand the scope of its wild capture certification to include aquaculture, despite a great deal of pressure from various retailers to do so. Instead, the MSC intend to remain focused on its core mission ‘to help transform how the world’s seas and oceans are worked and to influence the choices people make when buying seafood’. If there was a clear case for the inclusion of aquaculture in eco-certification, then the MSC’s mission statement seems to ably make it. Obviously, the MSC doesn’t seem to recognise that aquaculture is a part of the working aquatic environment nor that consumers are presented with a mix of fish from both wild catch and farming production when buying fish from retail fish counters and that their refusal to certify aquaculture species confuses the consumer rather than making certification simpler to understand.
The MSC claim that their decision is operational rather than part of a definite policy to exclude aquaculture. They told IntraFish that they don’t have the internal resources to deal with aquaculture at the moment. However, we, at Callander McDowell, are not sure what resources they would need. After all, the MSC’s purpose is sustainable certification yet when we spoke to them at the European Seafood Exposition, they made it extremely clear that the MSC does not certify fisheries itself as there are independent commercial certification companies who do this on their behalf. So why would they need more resources to include aquaculture in their remit, except for perhaps an aquaculture specialist to oversee the process.
Perhaps, one reason for this reluctance to include aquaculture remit is that the certification of aquaculture as sustainable may highlight deficiencies in the certification process for wild catch fisheries. It has always been a puzzle as to when so much of the world’s fisheries are in crisis, there are so many fisheries that have been certified or undergoing the process of certification as sustainable. Were these fisheries not considered sustainable beforehand?
Certainly, there seems to be some major questions arising as to their credibility as sustainable fisheries. Notably, Greenpeace have placed two MSC certified fish species on their red list. Greenpeace consider Alaskan Pollock and New Zealand Hoki fisheries as unsustainable because of the destructive trawling methods used to catch the fish. For example, last year the Alaskan Pollock fishery was responsible for a by-catch of 130,000 Chinook salmon even though these fish were destined for fisheries that had been restricted because of concerns of declining stocks. Both fisheries have had fishing quotas cut since eco-certification which is a clear sign that the fisheries are not sustainable. In our view, fisheries are only sustainable if the fish harvested are replaced by new recruitment so the population is in balance. This is clearly not the case in these fisheries. It has always been a puzzle how independent commercial assessors, often from overseas countries, are supposed to know more about the sustainability of a fishery than the local government fisheries department.
Greenpeace may not be the best example of an unbiased view on what is sustainable and what is not. News has just broken that the Alaska Department of Game and Fish has just closed the Deshka River, the most popular King fishery in the Susitna Valley because of dismal returns of fish; fish which are considered sustainable through the MSC certification of Alaskan salmon. All sorts of reasons are being put forward for the exceptionally poor returns on this and other Alaskan salmon rivers, including the famous Copper River. Suggestions include predation, high river temperatures and habitat changes but none seem to have any validity.
One possible reason is because not just one salmon species seem to be affected is that salmon may be struggling to reach maturity whilst feeding out at sea. The Alaskan salmon industry is not a true wild catch fishery but is boosted with hatchery reared fish. These fish have an advantage and may better survive at sea competing with the wild fish for a limited feed resource. This would affect the balance within the fishery making it highly unsustainable. It is not yet clear whether this downturn is just a blip or the start of a declining trend.
Meanwhile, more sustainable fisheries are coming on-stream. The first Norwegian fishery has attained MSC certification. This is the 266,000 tonnes saithe fishery. Audun Maarak of the Norwegian Fishing Vessels Owners Association said that the MSC label will be particularly valuable for the sale of Norwegian saithe in markets where consumers are already demanding eco-labelling of seafood.
Although saithe is not at the top of popularity charts for UK consumers, the UK market does seem to have become a target for a great number of eco-labelled products especially those made from Alaskan pollock. Yet interestingly, in the past months, the MSC eco-label has started to disappear from some of these as the processors have focused on other selling points instead. We wonder whether this is an indication that many consumers are failing to respond to the eco message. Maybe they prefer to leave it to the retailer to make the decision to stock only species which are considered sustainable. If this is the case then rather than the MSC excluding farmed fish from their certification, they may find that the retailers are embracing farmed species and instead it is the MSC that is excluded. The latest show of commitment by Sainsbury’s to farmed fish may be a better indication of what is yet to come.