From Hakai Magazine:
Analysis: A decade’s worth of research says that an ecolabel for industrial bluefin tuna fisheries is a sham.
Buying fish with a clear conscience isn’t easy these days. The ocean is so depleted and the demand so high that only half of the world’s seafood comes from the wild. The rest is farmed. Well-intentioned consumers want to know how to minimize harm through their purchasing power when at retailers such as Marks and Spencer, Walmart, and Whole Foods. The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) offers one of several guides. I’m afraid it’s a sham.....MUCH MORE
For nearly 25 years, the MSC has positioned itself as the fishing industry’s gold standard for ecolabeling. To be MSC certified is to be identified as the best choice in wild-caught seafood, so the branding goes. Authorized contractors paid by fleets seeking certification are supposed to remain independent and take a science-based approach to verify for consumers that the fish they buy meets MSC standards: whether a fish is abundant, legal, subject to robust regulations, and caught with methods that minimize by-catch. Other aspects, such as whether a fish is high in mercury or sourced from fleets respecting human rights, are outside MSC’s criteria.
But certified does not mean sustainable. The MSC has had major run-ins with conservation groups for certifying fisheries they regard as unsustainable, poorly managed, and tolerant of by-catch, habitat destruction (from fishing gear), and worker abuse. Fisheries for Ross Sea toothfish (Chilean seabass) and Antarctic krill (for fishmeal) are examples of particularly egregious cases.
Be that as it may, even more scandalous would be certifying Atlantic bluefin tuna fisheries as sustainable—a move the MSC is now considering. For decades these fisheries have drawn widespread global criticism for corruption, mismanagement, lack of transparency, bad science, and use of destructive gear. I have spent the last decade studying the demise of the once giant Atlantic bluefin as a nonaligned, accredited observer of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), the intergovernmental regulatory agency that for a half century has overseen the capture of commercial fish on the high seas. Recently, member states seized upon the slight glimmer of hope that the population is rebounding and tripled the quota for bluefin tuna in the eastern Atlantic. They boosted catch targets for eastern bluefin from their lowest in 2010 to their highest ever in 2020, even though ICCAT’s scientific committee, who recommended the hike, predicts biomass will continue to deteriorate.
Despite high mercury contamination, the bluefin make the best sushi money can buy. These sublime beings fetch such an exorbitant price that they have shrunk significantly in size and number since the advent of the global sushi economy in the 1970s. In a word, endangered. The bluefin’s sky-high valuation creates the conditions for black markets to proliferate. A 2018 Europol report revealed that the volume of the illegal trade in eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna was double the legal one, despite multilateral investment since 2011 in electronic traceability programs to stop pirate fishing. To make matters worse, a warming ocean, increasingly plastic and acidic, portends a precarious future for giant tuna....
Related:
Tuna Farming In The Mediterranean
"The certificate that could kickstart a renaissance in tuna aquaculture in Europe"
As noted in 2013's "Single Tuna Sells for Record $1.76 Million in Sign of Prices to Come":
We've been on the Bluefin beat for a few years, links below....
*****
The record price for a single fish is now $3.1 million. set last January[2019] June 2009
Mitsubishi Tries a Corner in World's Bluefin Tuna Market
I can't recall another attempted corner in an endangered species, usually the perps sell as soon as possible.
Mitsubishi freezing fish to sell later as stock numbers plummet toward extinction
July 2009
How to Break a Market Corner: Breeding Breakthrough Helps Sushi Baron Create Sustainable Tuna
As a follow-up to "Mitsubishi Tries a Corner in World's Bluefin Tuna Market" comes news that may bring sorrow and sadness to Mitsubishi.
(and is reminiscent of a scene from January 1980*)....
...*In January 1980, as the Hunt Brothers were gunning the price of silver toward it's historic high, the CEO of one of the world's largest trading firms said "Those boys don't know what deep pockets are", rather an amazing statement when talking about billionaires.
Within 48 hours both U.S. silver futures exchanges had gone "Liquidation only", the corner was broken and the Hunt's had lost their fortunes.May 2010
I'll leave it to you to guess the CEO.
Sushi: "European Researchers Advance Toward Farming Endangered Bluefin Tuna"
Anyhoo,
I'll probably never again be able to do a tuna and/or provenance story without thinking of this:
....Izabella Kaminska's Alphaville post "Tuna blockchains and Chilean Seabass"
back in 2016 was the first time I saw someone mention the pluses and
minuses of using blockchain databases to keep track of animals, in that
case fish.
I was so taken with her illustration for that post that I swiped it for December 2017's "Synthetic Rhino Horns Are Being Created to Flood Markets and Eradicate Poaching":
Relatedly there is also September 2017's "ICO of the day: Synthetic rhino horn erection pills, on the Blockchain".
Whichever approach is best will soon be determined in the market as long
as we keep uppermost in mind the cause of the slaughter of the big
beasts:
September 5, 2016Blame Rhino Killings On Speculators
