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Frozen Foods International News
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| Krill Certification by MSC Draws Fire |
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), which has been certifying
sustainable fisheries for 15 years, has come under attack for
approving operations of a Norwegian company that makes dietary
supplements from Antarctic krill.
Krill, tiny pink shrimplike organisms that dwell in vast schools,
are an essential link in the Antarctic food chain, a food source
for penguins, seals and many species of whales in the Southern
Ocean. Fisheries have harvested them as food for farm-raised
salmon and for their oil, rich in omega-3 acids, used in human
dietary supplements.
Last month the MSC certified the krill fishing of Norways Aker
BioMarine as environmentally sustainable. In essence, it said
that the operation was in keeping with its core principles --
namely, that fisheries must maintain a healthy population, must
not damage the ecosystem and must be effectively managed.
But Gerald Leape, director of the Pew Environment Groups
nonprofit Antarctic Krill Conservation Project, said that the MSC
ignored evidence of threats to the Antarctic ecosystem in
granting the certification, which gives Aker BioMarine the right
to label its krill-oil pills with the councils blue logo.
No one is suggesting that krill stocks are in imminent danger of
extinction. But opponents of certification say that scientific
data on the fisherys impact is lacking, and that the councils
decision is thus based on guesswork rather than on research into
the long-term effects.
The MSC argues that the harvest -- at 150,000 tons in the 2007-8
fishing season -- amounts to less than one percent of total
estimated krill biomass for the area. There seems to be at least
a grudging acknowledgment that Aker BioMarines fishery -- which
is a single, technologically sophisticated ship -- is relatively
well run. But opponents say that the council should have looked
at the overall impact of krill fishing, and not just assessed one
company.
Some of the friction comes down rather to a growing sense among
the MSC's critics that no industrial fishery can really be
sustainable. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
warned last year that 80% of the oceans' commercial fish stocks
were either being fished at maximum limits or were overexploited.
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| 24-Jun-10 |
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