Sustainable Seafood Labeling Comes Under Fire in New Study

A study published in Marine Policy has claimed that many fish stocks certified
as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and Friends of the
Sea (FOS) are nevertheless overfished or subject to overfishing as defined
by the international standards accepted by both certifying organizations.
Rainer Froese and Alexander Proelss, “Evaluation and legal assessment of
certified seafood,” Marine Policy, May 2012. The two researchers apparently
examined data from 71 MSC-certified stocks and 76 FOS-certified stocks to
determine how many fish were present in each stock and how many were
being removed. They ultimately found that, of the fishing stocks with available
status information, 19 percent of those certified by FOS and 31 percent
certified by MSC were overfished or subject to ongoing overfishing.

According to the study, a stock is deemed “overfished” if its biomass falls
below “the level that can produce the maximum sustainable yield” or “subject
to overfishing” “if removals… from the stock are higher than those that would
allow the stock to grow to and maintain a size that can produce the maximum
sustainable yield.” The authors urge MSC and FOS to revisit their certification
criteria by giving more weight “to the status of stock,” closing any loopholes
and engaging independent reviews of stock assessments. They also call on
the certifying agents to revise their labeling to show consumers and retailers
which products are from stocks “that still need to rebuild biomass.”

“States may ban the import of seafood products from overfished stocks, but only in very specific cases,” notes the report, which nevertheless concludes that certified seafood is still worth purchasing “because the percentage of moderately exploited, healthy stocks is 3-4 times higher than in non-certified seafood.”