The Marine Stewardship Council has taken a step towards certifying British Columbia's sockeye salmon fishery as ecologically sustainable, a move critics say risks the international organization's credibility.
“MSC certification of B.C. sockeye fishers is corporate eco-fraud,” said Vicky Husband, a senior adviser to the Watershed Watch Salmon Society. “It's credibility will be lost to its consumers and markets.”
MSC's announcement comes in a year when Fraser River sockeye returns collapsed from an expected 10 million fish to around a million. In November prime minister Stephen Harper called a federal inquiry into the collapse.
“It's nuts to certify the Fraser above all when we've got a judicial inquiry into its management,” said Husband. The MSC should at least withhold its certification until after the inquiry is complete, she said.
The MSC's decision comes after nine years investigating the sustainability of the fishery, she said. There is now a 15 day period where people can raise objections, though Husband added certification appears to be a done deal. “Our experience in looking at objections is they never overrule.”
The MSC process appears to be more about certifying fisheries than about conservation, she said. “From its inception the MSC process has been a failure.”
Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee’s Legislative Bureau Chief in Victoria. Reach him here.
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Illahie
2 years ago
Last years Sockeye run failure.
Was a result of extremely poor ocean survial, not inept fisheries management.
In 2007 a large number of Sockeye smolts headed down the Fraser to the sea. They were large and healthy smolts. They probably died in the lower Strait of Georgia, not far from Vancouver.
The reasons for the high mortality are unclear, but such a large migration would heavily crop down the zooplankton stocks in the lower gulf. It is possible that the fish starved to death after overgrazing the zooplankton crop.
freebear
2 years ago
Few, if any, modern human activities are actually
sustainable.
Eco-certification is Campbell like greenwash.
Certified, so people only consume certified; supply goes down from more demand; supply is increased or price is increased.
Result no longer sustainable as only rich can purchase and those tat can not afford-switch to other fish species!
We can not keep 'mining' planet Earth!
Illahie
2 years ago
Sockeye are an environmentally friendly fish
Sockeye get top marks for being eco friendly.
They feed low down on the trophic scale, which is very good. They feed on zooplankton, no herring for them. They are therefore more eco friendly than Coho or Chinook which are Piscivores.
They generally spend the first two years of their lives in lakes, with very little environmental impact.
They are often fished as single stocks, and therefore they can avoid the complications of mixed stock fisheries. For instance in the Fraser, the Early Stuart Sockeye come first, so it is quite easy to let them swim by unfished when conditions warrant.
blackie
2 years ago
MSC credibility
is non-existent, and has been ever since they gave an eco-certification to the Alaskan wild fishery, ignoring the fact that nearly half the Alaska "wild" harvest come from antibiotic-laced hatchery fish. They weren't troubled by that.
Illahie
2 years ago
Confusion about the Marine Stewardship Council
Many people may be confused about the goals of the Marine Stewardship Council.
Many of the fisheries of the world are being severly overharvested, a great example is the Northern Cod off the east coast. By mismanaging these fisheries we are destroying our planet.
Some fisheries are very well run, such as the Spot Prawn and Halibut fisheries off the BC Coast.
The goal of the Marine Stewardship Council I think is to allow consumers avoid the worst managed of the worlds fisheries. If so that is a very noble goal.
I think that Blackie misses the point above with regards to hatchery fish being mixed in with wild fish. The MSC would only be concerned with the sustainability of the Alaskan wild fishery. The presence of hatchery fish is completely irrelevant.
Perhaps Andrew could have explained why the Watershed Watch Salmon Society are ticked off.
Illahie
2 years ago
MSC and Watershed Watch
I was unclear in my blurb above with Andrew and the Watershed Watch Salmon Society.
Perhaps I should take another stab at it.
Bad things happen in fisheries management.
Bad things happen in farming. A farmer may plant a crop in good faith, do everything right, and have a poor result at harvest time. It may be due to flood or cold or heat or drought, but it does not mean that the farmer is incompetent.
The 2009 Fraser Sockeye run collapsed, but DFO mostly managed the stock well. There has been a chronic problem with ocean survival for Sockeye since the mid 1970's (it coincides with the earth's temperature switching from cooling mode to warming mode in the mid 1970's). The ocean survival has been chronically low.
DFO's failing may have been inadequate monitoring of the smolts migration northward, after they have left the Fraser (perhaps they were in the Broughton's instead). Better monitoring would not have changed the result, only the expectations for the returning run.
DFO has many failings, but I do not think that the management of the Sockeye fishery is one of them.
One of the poorest managed fisheries on the planet is the Blue Fin Tuna fishery. A single fish at auction may bring in $100,000.00. There is a huge incentive to mismanage the stock and the stock is hugely mismanaged. These fish are in grave danger of going extinct, yet the fishery continues.
If DFO did not mismanage the stock and the Marine Stewardship Council is praseing our efforts, why is Watershead Watch dissing our fishery?
dloewen
2 years ago
MSC certification
some interesting comments here - can't say I agree with all; however, that's the great part of online discussions.
by-catch in sockeye fisheries is a problem. On the Skeena for example, there is an assumption that sockeye populations are healthy. Some are, such as the largely-enhanced one from the Babine - yet, the Morice stocks from up the Bulkley are in deep trouble. There has also been issues in the past with Steelhead caught in the sockeye fishery.
I've made some comments on the soon-to-be MSC certification fisheries on my website and other salmon-related issues:
http://salmonguy.wordpress.com/
Frankly, the concept of Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) for fisheries management has most likely led to the UN suggesting 70% of world's fisheries are in trouble. In the case of BC's salmon MSY has allowed salmon fisheries to catch 80% of the estimated population and therefore expected 20% of runs to reproduce in perpetuity (as well as feed all the other critters that depend on salmon returns - e.g. bears, eagles, and so on).
At some point, something had to give. Ocean conditions, fish farms, or whatever other potential culprit - if you skim off 80% of any population for decades, the tipping point towards crash will be reached.