An open letter and fact sheet to address negative and inaccurate statements about the MSC program by ASMI, Alaska elected officials and trade journal reporting. more@fishradio via Deckboss 02:37
NILS STOLPE: The New England groundfish debacle (Part IV): Is cutting back harvest really the answer?
While it’s a fact that’s hardly ever acknowledged, the assumption in fisheries management is that if the population of a stock of fish isn’t at some arbitrary level, it’s because of too much fishing. Hence the term “overfished.” Hence the mandated knee jerk reaction of the fisheries managers to not enough fish; cut back on fishing. What of other factors? They don’t count. It’s all about fishing, because fishing is all that the managers can control; it’s their Maslow’s Hammer. When it comes to the oceans it seems as if it’s about all that the industry connected mega-foundations that support the anti-fishing ENGOs with hundreds of millions of dollars a year in “donations” are interested in controlling. Read the article here
However, in the face of escalating misinformation by ASMI, elected officials, and inaccurate and unsupported conclusions by John Sackton in particular in writing for the Seafood News and Undercurrents trade journals, MSC is compelled to speak out against falsehoods regarding the MSC. The debate around MSC not only is being framed wrongly, but narrowly. What is really at stake is our entire conservation agenda, as a nation and as a player in protection of seafood–a vital global food resource that provides 16 percent of the world’s animal-based food protein. The September 24 U.S. Senate Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard Subcommittee hearing on sustainable seafood certification is a recent and particularly egregious example of biased and inaccurate discussion of the MSC program.
With due respect to Chairman Begich, exclusion from the hearing of the MSC, the world’s leading seafood sustainability certification program and a main subject of the hearing, suggests the purpose of the hearing was not to gather informative testimony on the subject but to posit a particular position based on misinformation. We are particularly concerned that ASMI, with the apparently unquestioning engagement of Alaska’s elected officials, has not only launched a negative and misleading campaign against the MSC, but called into question major retail and foodservice companies that have shown great leadership and have had appositive impact in the sustainable seafood movement through their use of and support of the MSC program among other efforts. To be clear, this commitment by these companies has not resulted in any intention or action to discontinue selling or serving Alaska seafood, as was misreported.Why is a segment of the Alaskan industry doing this? Statements regarding National Park Service vendors or major retail and foodservice companies refusing to buy Alaska seafood were not accurate.
Senator Murkowski accused the MSC of “disparaging” Alaska’s fisheries. We have never done so.
Claims of costs being too high, lack of transparency, MSC meddling in fisheries management or MSC being able to change the standard at its discretion are not true. These and other inaccurate statements are addressed in the attached fact sheet and important information is contained there for anyone who wants to discern facts from rhetoric designed to mislead. For the record, the Governor and U.S. Senators from Alaska have never contacted the MSC to obtain information from us on our program.
The majority of the ASMI board members are large Seattle-basedprocessors of Alaska’s seafood.
.An open comment to MSC from Bore Head – Stick your Blue Tax Stamp into your third party blow hole.
Wonder if there’ll be an alert! lol