Time is running out for making RFMOs work for sustainable tuna

The 5 regional tuna fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) that rule the waves. At least they should. (Source Pew Charitible Trusts)

We just celebrated this year’s annual (e-mail) meeting of the international fisheries management organization for the Atlantic ICCAT and its Indian Ocean sister’s IOTC (online) meeting. The Covid-pandemic heavily limited the agenda of both organizations.  Only next year ICCAT will take new management decisions on its Eastern Atlantic bluefin stock. But it is necessary to reflect on the ever-growing importance of the Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs) that guard our global tuna stocks. The more so, because what will be decided (or not) in these RFMOs will have far reaching consequences for the sustainability of the tuna stocks and the related certification of such sustainable tuna in the coming years.

Let’s start with bluefin tuna. There was quite a bit of disagreement about the first sustainably certified Atlantic bluefin tuna that is now marketed with the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certificate. Two leading NGOs in the field, WWF and the Pew Charitable Trusts, have objected to the MSC certification, the most reliable standard of sustainability certifications. According to both, there were too few scientific guarantees that the current fisheries policy would sustain the species sustainably. There were also concerns about the independence of the application of the MSC standard. WWF and Pew were both unsuccessful in their objection procedures: an independent arbitrator decided to admit the Japanese fisheries for MSC certification.

For several reasons this MSC certification of bluefin has attracted a lot of attention. That our sustainable conscience applies so strongly to tuna, and perhaps to all fish, is mainly due to the massive rescue operation that took place at the end of the previous decade to save the bluefin tuna from destruction that took place at the end of the previous decade. It was a kind of tipping point. After all, it looked like we were catching this endangered and most spectacular member of the tuna family up to the point that the last one living in the oceans would end in top quality sushi and sashimi.

The bluefin tuna drama brought together everything that possibly could go wrong in managing sustainability in tuna fisheries

The bluefin tuna drama brought together everything that possibily could go wrong in a global fishery in terms of managing sustainability. The Japanese sushi industry had invested heavily in fishing techniques and fattening farms in the Mediterranean Sea, without much supervision and management. The bluefin tuna nursery rapidly became the scene of boundless greed and massive fraud by corrupt North African dictators, fraudulent tuna farmers in Malta, black traders in Italy, Spain and Croatia and an industrial fishing fleet that did their utmost to sabotage international fisheries policy. ICCAT, where fishing nations and coastal states were supposed to come together to manage Atlantic tuna stocks, was widely regarded as a powerless entity which let things run completely out of hand. It is not without reason that it was nicknamed 'International Conspiracy to Catch All Tuna'.

Fortunately, the massive campaigns to save bluefin tuna worked as a turning point. In unprecedented unity, the pillage of the bluefin has been denounced by nearly all marine environmental organizations involved, sustainable fishermen, scientists, and concerned consumers alike. It was one of the most successful campaigns to save a fish from destruction, bringing together radical liberation actions of illegally caught tuna from the nets by Sea Shepherd, the campaigns of organisations like Greenpeace, WWF and Pew, and a ban in the posh Monaco restaurants by Prince Albert.

It worked. Contrary to the gloomy forecast that the Atlantic bluefin tuna would have disappeared by 2010, the population turned out to recover again. ICCAT policy contributed to this on a number of essential points, such as a ban on fishing for young, not yet mature tuna.
Gradually bluefin tuna disappeared from the campaigns. But what remained was the realization that a sustainable choice of fish and good management can make a real difference.

And now there was this disagreement about the first sustainably certified Atlantic bluefin tuna that came available on the Japanese market. Family-owned Usufuku Honten fisheries has a single longline vessel. With a catch of around 55 tons of Atlantic bluefin tuna in the North Atlantic, it is a small-scale fishery that does not carry much weight. But the MSC certification sets a precedent. Other, bigger bluefin fisheries might become certified too. Just at the end of October SATHOAN, a small-scale artisanal fishery based in the South of France, successfully passed the MSC assessment for sustainable fisheries of Eastern Atlantic bluefin in the Mediterranean. It catches 200 to 300 ton a year for local consumption. This time, the independent assessor included contributions from WWF and Pew Charitable Trusts in its recommendations to improve the bluefin fishery. One can see it as a first step to create a common front to fight a problem that will be key in sustainable tuna fisheries in the coming years.

Whether tuna can keep its sustainability certificate all has to do with the RFMOs

Whether tuna can keep up its sustainability and the related certificate all has to do with the way rhe RFMOs manage our tuna stocks. In the case of the bluefin the uncertainties of ICCAT's scientific forecasts and the fishing quota based on them are being questioned, let alone that any Harvest Control Rules are in place. Current catch policy might cause the population to plummet again in the long run. The persistent fraud with bluefin tuna and the lack of enforcement of the rules is not very sustainable either. In a Europol investigation called 'Operation Tarantelo', millions of euros worth of illegal tuna were seized two years ago and 79 suspects were arrested in Spain, Italy and Malta. An estimated one-fifth of the official catch quotas still disappeared into the black circuit, and so far, very little has been done to prosecute the usual suspects.

MSC argued that certification is the logical consequence of the improvements in fish management that the organization strives for. Where fisheries help to improve the management significantly, there should be a reward. That is right. A fishery that meets sustainable standards must get access to the sustainability certification. There is certainly space for improvement for ICCAT management on bluefin tuna, MSC acknowledges. The certification is therefore conditional: until 2025 there is time to improve the approach. ‘It requires the fishery to work with ICCAT, its member states and other fishing organizations - with support of the Fisheries Agency of Japan - to allow this bluefin tuna stock to recover further’, according to the MSC press release. The success of sustainability depends, once again, on the ability of the ICCAT to improve itself.

The bluefin case shows us the way through the complex maze of international sustainable fisheries governance. But at the end of the line, it is more than ever important for international fishery management organizations such as ICCAT to guarantee the sustainability of the stock in the longer term. If not, you can forget sustainable stocks and the corresponding certification.

And that is the point to make: we all know that potentially devastating situations are lurking in the near future concerning the management rules of many other important tuna resources and the way they are managed in the Indian Ocean, the Western and Central Pacific, the Eastern Pacific and the Atlantic. Many of those tuna fisheries which got the MSC-certificate over the past decade will be at risk losing them due to the lack of effective management policies of the RFMOs.

The situation in the RFMOs puts sustainable tuna fisheries in a pressure cooker

This puts sustainable tuna fisheries and the MSC certification in a pressure cooker. In the case of the yellowfin in the Indian Ocean we are in the middle of a growing boycott by European retailers to avoid sourcing their tuna from the Indian Ocean, because of the failing management of the stocks by the IOTC. Consumers want more sustainable seafood, NGOs defend these interests, retailers and traders want to deliver sustainable sourced products to satisfy the increasing market demand and coastal states with a vested interest in sustainable stocks will deliver sustainable tuna.

It is how the theory of Change should work. The weak point in the chain increasingly seems to be found in the RFMOs. Instead of providing international platforms that defend the sustainability interests of fish-eating, fish-trading and fish-owning nations, RFMOs are instead acting as undecided, consensus-oriented organizations where the supply-driven interests of the major fishery fleets and their powerful lobbies usually prevail.

That may have had its own internal logic when the RFMOs were created under the umbrella of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in the second half of the last century. But the conceptual thinking about whose common interests of sustainability are at stake when it comes to tuna, moved on to ideas that involve a much broader group of stakeholders. And these demand-driven interests are usually at collision course with the supply driven interests of fisheries when it comes to sustainability.

The case of bluefin tuna shows how an organization like MSC and NGOs like Pew and WWF, who all strongly agree on designing robust harvest strategies that will ensure sustainable and efficient management of the fisheries for the future, might even end up in a confrontation, just because of the failing management structure of the RFMO involved. While their joint interest is to enforce the demand driven interests for managing sustainability on a RFMO level.

The table shows the revised deadlines for each ocean and RFMO based on the MSC March derogation. (Source Atuna.com)

Therefore, the challenge is to make RFMOs work. This is not some abstract future objective. Right at this moment there is a list of agreed deadlines for the Harvest Control Rules to be in place in order to maintain the certifications of MSC-approved fisheries and to apply it in the assessments for those fisheries that want to obtain such certification. (See table above) They relate to skipjack, yellowfin, bigeye and albacore tuna in all big RFMOs. Completion dates are in 2021, some in 2023 and 2024. Practically all the important MSC certifications of skipjack and yellowfin, including the PNA in the Western and Central Pacific and the Maldives pole and line, are at risk losing their certificates. Deadlines are extended due to the delay caused by the corona-virus, but that gives only a short respite.

We need to make sustainability work at the RFMO-level. Time is running out.

Happy World Tuna Day

“Why we should keep in mind the warnings of a Spanish monk to be on guard for the big fisheries industry and their claims for sustainability.”

Fool’s gold and the race to the bottom

Since 2017, after a vote of the General Assembly of the United Nations, we officially celebrate the 2nd of May as World Tuna Day. World Tuna Day is an initiative that was first started in 2011 by the PNA (Parties to the Nauru Agreement), 8 small Island states in the Western and Central Pacific, that stock in their waters approximately 50 per cent of the global skipjack of our big world-wide tuna stockpile for the canning industry.

This makes World Tuna Day strongly related to sustainable tuna fisheries. The PNA countries are frontrunners in sustainability. Their Vessel Day Scheme is an innovative way to manage their skipjack stocks. And with the marketing of Pacifical they were the first to successfully introduce an industrial scale tuna fishery under the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) label.

So, World Tuna Day is a great yearly occasion to ask the question: what is the state of governance on sustainable tuna fisheries?

 Don’t jump out of the window when you read this: I will try to give a simple and very partial answer to this difficult question. Just some points I would like to make. Of course, the answer to the question what is a sustainable tuna fishery, is only getting more complicated with the years. Sustainability has many faces, and to makes things worse, these faces are changing constantly. It can be hell for those who sincerely think that we should work for a sustainable future, and a blessing for those who are more interested in putting up a sustainable charade.

 As you can read in my book, sustainability all started with an eighteenth-century Spanish monk called Martín Sarmiento in a Madrid monastery. Sarmiento, the David Attenborough of his time, was asked by the leading Spanish blue fin tuna monopoly of the house of Medina Sidonia, to thoroughly research into the question why their bluefin catches at the south coast of Spain were dwindling. The monk published his study in 1757. Though his advice was not very conclusive (he was convinced that tuna were fond of acorns, so oaks should be planted next to the shores to supply more food) he was the first to define the need for governance and management of the stocks. Only this would guarantee a sustainable future for the fish and fisheries, according to Sarmiento.

Fool’s gold which raised their own income in the short term, while destroying the source

 Governance had to solve the tension that had always existed between fisheries industry and sustainability, the monk wrote. ‘…Fishermen are not remotely interested in the fact that tuna fishing was declining due to their actions, as long as they were able to reap large short-term profits…’ In the end this would also destroy business itself, ‘…with fool’s gold which raised their own income in the short term, while destroying the source.’ A simple but effective observation, and well considered a miracle for its time. A miracle for which Sarmiento deserves a sainthood, if you ask me.

Happy Monk?

 So, is Martín Sarmiento a happy saint when from his heavenly cloud he surveys todays panorama of sustainability governance on tuna? On first sight one would think he should be, because even big tuna business itself is taking all kind of sustainability initiatives. Take the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF), a powerful club that has been active since 2009 that represents 75% of the global canning industry. The ISSF research has been thorough and very useful. But when it comes to effectively practice sustainability policies, things tend to become blurry. Last month (April, 16) the ISSF published two ‘comprehensive reports’ for its members and others that might be interested: recommendations for both purse seine and longline fisheries pursuing Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification. At first sight a helping hand of the big industry for those who would like to become certified by MSC, at this moment still the only certification standard that we can take seriously when it comes to sustainability in tuna fisheries.

 But close reading reveals something quite different. ISSF advises on the MSC standards not to be used to enter an assessment for MSC certification but ‘intended to be used as a practical resource for purse-seine and longline fisheries in Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs)’. Quoting Monty Python: ‘And now for something completely different’…

FIPs

 For those who do not know what FIPs are: these are projects that are increasingly popular to be applied in fisheries that want to improve their sustainability and getting access to markets, but have problems to reach the MSC standards. It is applied in small scale fisheries, as a sympathetic way to reach out and start a process that would end up with an application for MSC. But then the big industry conveniently captured the concept. They handle their FIPs as an alternative for going straightforward into MSC certification assessment. A FIP is far less costly and lacks an independent auditor that keeps track and trace of the improvements. Meanwhile, a FIP gives the industry a green face. Many traders and retailers take it for granted that a FIP is a kind of sustainability guarantee, just like the membership of ISSF itself.

 Well, it definitely is not. At best it is no more than a road towards sustainability. And many times, less, because you always hear when a FIP is started, but seldom when it ends in an assessment for MSC certification. FIPs have a natural tendency to evaporate in the tropical sun. Shortly before ISSF came with their recommendations, an investigation on FIPs was published by CEA consulting (2020 Global Landscape Review of Fishery Improvement Projects), an excellent research that I recommend to everybody interested in FIPs. The study shows that of the 250 FIPs until now 92% never ended up in an assessment for MSC certification. Excluding the WWF projects in Indonesia, only two of them where tuna FIPs. After the first two years of their existence, most FIPs usually disappear from the radar. Verifying that products are sourced from FIPs is exceedingly difficult and rarely required. Greenwashing was a likely consequence, just as creating non-tariff trade barriers.

A FIP can work as a MSC-light, adding to a race to the bottom of sustainability claims

 The fact of the matter is that until today many big companies instead of creating more sustainability of fisheries under MSC certification, effectively use FIPs as an alternative sustainability claim that avoids MSC certification. A MSC-light, if you like. Not at all a thing that is very supportive for the label one would say, let alone for those companies who took the trouble to apply for the costly MSC-certification. It only ads to a race to the bottom of sustainability claims.

APR

 Unfortunately enough, this kind of abuse by big companies is not an exception. One other example is the Spanish Organization of Associated Producers of Large Tuna Freezers (OPAGAC). It is no exaggeration to state that OPAGAC, with its excellent lobby apparatus, is an industrial powerhouse that for a large part effectively decides the external tuna policies of the European Commission and management organisations like ICCAT. Not surprisingly OPAGAC and ISSF work closely together. OPAGAC introduced its own FIP. But it even went one step further: it created its own label, Atún de Pesca Responsable (APR).

 So, what exactly is ‘responsibly’ fished tuna, you might wonder. That is tuna fished with boats where a standard is complied for labor and social rights for the crew members, checked by an independent Spanish auditor. OPAGAC is very proud of its APR, and with reason. Not only was it a hurdle that did not take much effort, since the working conditions on the Spanish boats already were excellent. But the APR is a great selling point for their clients, who mistake this social responsibility issue for an ecological sustainability standard. A clever kind of mixed up sustainability claim, much cheaper than MSC and maybe even cheaper than a FIP.

There is more. OPAGAC itself is very honest about it on its website: ‘The APR is intended to form the base for the development of a CEN (European Standardisation Committee) standard, which OPAGAC expects to become a reference so that the European market can demand these requirements for tuna imports.’

Riding the waves of indignation about slavery and deplorable working conditions in Asia, OPAGAC is setting up a non-tariff trade barrier

 Cleverly riding the waves of indignation about slavery and deplorable working conditions in Asia, OPAGAC is setting up not less than a non-tariff trade barrier. Already for years OPAGAC has been trying to block their European home market for the import of tuna loins from their Asian competitors. This has led to (almost literally) fights with the Spanish canners, who like to buy more and cheaper loins as raw material. If APR is accepted as a CEN standard, OPAGAC has effectively blocked their home-market for these imports. And since the officials and politicians on EU level can hardly distinguish the APR from a real sustainability certification, they might well succeed.

 A race to the bottom of sustainability claims: creating your own simulated sustainability label that narrows the standard definition to social conditions you were applying anyway, avoiding the need for MSC certification to put up your green face, undermining your competition that did a costly assessment to apply for MSC,  give your buyers an argument to feel sustainable when buying your stuff and meanwhile creating a non-tariff barrier you were longing for.

 Fortunately, not everything is dark and cynical when it comes to the sustainable governance of our global tuna stocks. We managed to save our Atlantic bluefin from extinction. There are a lot of efforts to make the work in the tuna management organisations or RFMOs more effective, though there still is a long road to go. The notion for the need of sustainable tuna resources is getting more and more common in the chain of stakeholders, like processors, trade, retailers and finally consumers. MSC is still expanding in the tuna fisheries, and increasingly aware of the room for improvement in their certification schemes. We might hope for a trend that the retail-sector is getting more involved in the scheme and in defending their sustainable interests in the RFMOs.

 Happy World Tuna Day. But always keep Martín Sarmiento’s wise words in the back of your mind.

TUNA WARS, Book now released

TUNA WARS, the book of everything you wanted to know about Tuna, is now available…. As e-book and in hardcover. You can buy Tuna Wars using this link.

Tuna Wars is published amidst eye-catching developments in some of the ongoing epic tuna wars that figure in the book. The Dolphin Safe certification as well as the presumed price fixing conspiracy are the central issues to be judged in the current US court in cases against the Big Three American tuna canners, Bumble Bee, Starkist and Chicken of the Sea.

These wars will shake up the Tuna World. The federal judge ordered Starkist to pay a criminal fine of $100 million. More civil claims will add to the burden. ‘Charlie the Tuna’  Bumble Bee, the brand that has supplied tuna for generations of Americans, is about to collapse under the weight of the depending massive claims of retailers. Sorry Charlie! 

The Big Three are also being sued by consumers alleging that the Dolphin Safe label, probably the most widely used sustainability label on canned tuna worldwide, has been used in a way that very much resembles consumer fraud. Tuna Wars readers will come to understand the background of these battles and the impact and role that sustainability claims have in the wicked world of tuna. 

Meanwhile in Madrid, the Climate top is heading for a bumpy road towards goals that seem difficult to be accomplished. This poses new challenges for managing our global fish stocks, not in the least the tuna populations. Tuna Wars will provide the reader with updates on how we try govern our global stocks. Sometimes with remarkable success like in the case of bluefin tuna. But with policies and instruments that still need a lot of care and future development to become effective.  

Wherever tuna is hauled ashore, the sound of battles is never far away. Read more in Tuna Wars.

Tuna Wars: published by Springer editorial.

A sustainable, European Tuna Giant?

As a tuna consumer you probably didn’t notice, but the tuna industry was hit by an earthquake. Or tsunami if you like that better. In July the Bolton Group, one of the giants in tuna trade, took over the tuna supply business of another giant in the market, Tri Marine.  Both names are hardly known outside the closed circuit of tuna business, specialists and other freaks. But the fact of the matter is that this is a major step of power concentration in the tuna business. And that has, inevitably, a fall out on the sustainability of tuna fisheries.

Mystery

Bolton, huge as it is, is a bit of a mystery. The privately-owned Group emerged in postwar The Netherlands as a trading and distribution company, owning small distribution companies in consumer goods in Italy. Founder-owner Joseph Nissim, a Jewish-Greek-Italian business man who had escaped Thessaloniki from the Nazi’s and fought bravely with the British army in World War II, kept an extremely low profile. He died earlier this year at the age of 100. Although a bigger than live character, and a ‘tuna-legend’, I never saw any interviews with him.

Just to get the picture: we are talking about the real big tuna traders in the chain of canned tuna, with strong vertically integrated tuna-interests. Unlike fishers, processors, brands and retailers, traders are usually not a very well-known part of the tuna world to the broader public. But in the chain, they play a powerful and often crucial role as lead firms. There are three big global traders in the chain for canned tuna:  Tri Marine, the Taiwanese FCF and the Japanese Itochu. The last one is a relative outsider that operates mostly as an entity on the Japanese market. FCF from Taiwan developed as a global trader from being owner of a vast fishing fleet. Tri Marine was originally an Italian government-owned tuna supplier based in Singapore. In the eighties Tri Marine privatized under the current CEO and president Renato Curto and his friends.

Background player

Bolton is a giant background player. It owned 40 % of the Tri Marine stock. It is the biggest brand-owner in Europe with shares in the leading Spanish Grupo Calvo and Grupo Garavilla producers, and owner of the Italian Rio Mare and Palmera and the French Saupiquet brands. As a private company, Bolton is still registered in The Netherlands, but with important working companies in Italy. It is an empire with fifty brands of household goods, twelve factories, forty-four offices and over five thousand employees. And now Bolton positioned itself even stronger in the tuna market by taking over Tri Marine’s tuna supply business, including its processing plants (like Sol Tuna) and the Solomon Island fishing company.

What does this European tuna giant mean in terms of sustainable policies? Bolton as a lead firm can matter much when it comes to sustainable tuna sourcing, producing and consuming. On first sight, the company is pretty aware of its role in the sustainability issue, with a special program called ’We Care’ that is displayed on its website. Looking more closely, the company is part of an initiative to reduce ghost gears. Last year It published a 3-page press release with an ambitious statement asserting that it will become “the most sustainable tuna company in the world”. That was based on the measures mentioned in its The Right Course Socio-Environmental Report published in 2017.

Commitments

Bolton’s core commitments to the Right Course are:

- by 2020 (next year), 50% of tuna procurements will be sourced from more selective fishing methods with a lower level of by-catch and environmental impact (pole and line, handline, artisanal small-scale sustainable vessels, and FAD-free purse seiners).

- Also, next year 50 percent of tuna procurements will be sourced from purse seiners with FAD management measures in place: those fishing only non-entangling FADs and with a maximum of 300 active drifting FAD per vessel.

- by 2024, 100 percent of its tuna will be sourced from MSC-certified fisheries or from ‘credible and “robust” fishery improvement projects (FIPs)’.

That all sounds nice.  But, as always,  the devil is in the details. Everybody with some notion about sustainability issues knows that the Spanish and Italian canned tuna brands have the worst record when it comes to offering certified sustainable products on the shelves, let alone on the information about it. So that has to be changed in 2024 (still five years to go) by sourcing sustainable from MSC or ‘robust’ FIPs.

Wait another five years?

First: why wait another five years if there is already a considerable amount of MSC certified tuna available on the market? Second: mind the ‘or’ in ‘MSC or ‘robust’ FIPs’. In 2024 most tuna fisheries of Bolton might be in FIPs, with only a few MSC-certified. That indicates a very slippery path: independent standards or supervision on the ‘robustness’ of FIPs are hardly available. FIPs are not sustainable tuna. With a little luck, a FIP is a declaration of good intentions to go for the MSC standard somewhere in the future. If you are less lucky, it works out as just a marketing tool to create a sustainable image. Like it has done many times before.

There are more worries on the issue of transparency and traceability of the tuna that will eventually be sourced in a sustainable way.  Traceability of the sustainable sourced tuna is key for the future of a sustainable product in the end market. It is actually the most heated battle-ground in tuna wars. How can I ever be sure as a consumer that the tuna on my plate is indeed that sustainable fished tuna that Bolton says it will be sourcing in 2024?

For a company that stresses the importance of sustainability in the supply chain, those guarantees are rather poor. Bolton mentions the Proactive Vessel Register (PVR) of the ISSF (where Bolton is an active member). With all due respect: this has not much to do with traceability of sustainable fished tuna in the chain. Then, there is an ISO certified traceability system in place (at Rio Mare) in one plant in Italy. Good, but not very impressive. Also, Bolton promises that there will be in some unspecified future on-pack information on the cans describing species, fishing oceans and fishing methods. It’s about time I would say. But unfortunately, this information ads more to the confusion for the poor consumer than it helps to solve it. Where is the accessible and transparent system where the consumer really can trust that the tuna in the can is a sustainable sourced product?

Resuming: Bolton’s intentions are certainly good. That is a positive starter. But as one of the most experienced, powerful and clever lead firms in tuna business they can do much better. Now keep our fingers crossed (and our eyes open) if Bolton really will find the pathway to sustainability. That would make a big leap for sustainable tuna and give Bolton’s image a real boost.

A new wave helping retailers purchasing sustainable tuna?

What will be the next step in steering the tuna fisheries towards a more sustainable course? That was the question popping up in last week’s Tuna Night at the new MSC Belgium headquarters in the center of Antwerp. A selected audience of industry, government, research and trade was invited to figure out a ‘recipe’ for a sustainable tuna industry in the future. They were in search for a new wave in quest for sustainable tuna.

Director Hans Verhoeven of the Belgium based market research iVOX presented an interesting Belgian consumer market audit. The conclusion: the consumer has some dedication to ocean sustainability issues, but this did not translated yet into his or her behavior as buyers in the seafood market. There is a certain trust in ecolabels for seafood, but many don’t know where to look for. The knowledge on tuna is rudimentary and mostly limited to the vague notion that there is some kind of problem with overfishing. Part of the consumer public even don’t buy tuna, because they think the fish is ‘on the boarder of extinction’.

The good news is, one would say, that the notion of sustainability is embedded with the Belgian consumers. In the Antwerp Tuna Night, many participants expressed the conviction that sustainability has become an issue that is there to stay. A remarkable milestone that was less than self-evident a decade ago, when a wave of worries about the collapsing stock of the Atlantic bluefin tuna pushed sustainable tuna on the agenda.

Ten years later we might conclude that the bluefin is saved thanks to many factors among which a better management of the tuna stocks. As a result, sustainable tuna fisheries are becoming less a priority in the campaigns of many NGOs. It has become more of a mainstream issue in the broader discussions around responsible food chains. Many stakeholders in tuna fisheries, and not only in Belgium, have the feeling that we need a new wave for sustainability. The challenge is to explore ways to make it happen when it comes to buying tuna.

Let’s go back to the original idea that sustainable fisheries can be driven by demand. The so-called Theory of Change is the driving principle behind market-based certification schemes like MSC. The idea is that if the market knows where to look for (the right label), demand for more sustainable tuna will grow. The chain will have to deliver according to this changing demand.

Scholars (1) have already concluded that the original Theory of Change (version 1.0) was succeeded by newer versions. Originally it was thought that consumer at the end of the chain would steer the sustainable demand. But NGO’s started to direct their activities towards retailers instead (version 2.0), after the strategy of influencing consumers proofed to have limited results. Then, to address the supposedly limited quantity of sustainable supply, the NGOs started their own sustainability schemes, like Fisheries Improvement Projects (FIPs). Meanwhile, suppliers and distributors came with their own commitments, like the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF), the Atún de Pesca Responsable or FAD-free labels. (version 3.0)

That is where we are now. The retailers can choose between a range of certifications and commitments on sustainability. On first sight that seems a good thing: let thousand sustainable certifications and commitments blossom and compete. But the negative effects are evident: the quality of the sustainability schemes that are offered widely varies. There is a natural tendency for a race to the bottom: all kind of semi-certifications are entering the market that are designed to give the product a sustainable image, while in reality the contribution to sustainable tuna fisheries is doubtful. That can end in an ugly way, like the recent US criminal court case for consumer fraud using the Dolphin Safe label. (see my blog).

This has to change. Of course, state intervention might end this practice of messy certifications and commitments. But it might well be that the national authorities will take their time to intervene in this complicated battlefield of Tuna Wars. The interests at stake are high. Meanwhile, the retailers carry the burden to find out what is sustainable tuna and what not. A tricky business that is not without risks.

So, it might well be that we need a Theory of Change version 4.0 in which a new actor will enter the seafood chain: an independent adviser who steers the retailers in purchasing their sustainable tuna and advises on the risks of the different schemes available. Maybe this new kid on the block is the ‘recipe’ for a new wave towards sustainable tuna fisheries.

(1)      C. A. Roheim, S. R. Bush, F. Asche, J. N. Sanchirico and H. Uchida, Evolution and future of the sustainable seafood market, Springer Nature Sustainability, Volume 1, August 2018, 392-398, https://www.nature.com/natsustain/

The end of Dolphin Safe in Tuna Wars?

It may have taken several decades, but we now might be looking at the beginning of the wreckage of the Dolphin Safe label. This week American consumers started a class-action lawsuit for fraud and racketeering against the Big Three US tuna brands, Bumble Bee, Starkist and Chicken of the Sea. (http://disq.us/t/3epuvpx) The consumers feel deceived, we read in the complaint.  ‘The “Dolphin-Safe” label signifies that no dolphins were killed or seriously injured as a result of the catching of the tuna contained in their products. But the suppliers’ tuna fishing practices “kill or harm substantial numbers of dolphins each year.”  

Many in the tuna industry and the sustainable seafood movement with some knowledge about sustainable fisheries have been waiting for this moment. The Dolphin Safe label is already for years the elephant in the room of sustainable fisheries that most people prefer to deny. From a well-respected, successful certification in the nineties, that helped to eradicate the massive Dolphin slaughter in the Yellowfin tuna fisheries in the Eastern Pacific, the Dolphin Safe label evolved into a practically useless tool in making look all tuna fisheries more sustainable. It even is far from robust enough to guarantee its own claims for a totally dolphin harmless tuna fisheries.

This is serious business. The Dolphin Safe label can be found on tuna cans all over the world. It is probably the most widespread label, used by all the big tuna industry that is united in the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF). If a court decides that Dolphin Safe proves to be a kind of compulsory greenwashing scheme, a tool mainly supporting market interests, this would have devastating effects on the credibility of sustainability certification in general. Why, the public will rightly ask, was this label allowed for such a long time on so many cans? How can we trust that other certifications are any better?

The success for using ‘Dolphin Safe’ comes to no surprise: it hardly cost any effort for the big brands, fisheries and traders in terms of measures to make their tuna business look more sustainable. The history of Dolphin Safe has its murky sides too: who did not want to ‘collaborate’ with the label and its organisation (Earth Island Institute) could face problems in the tuna business. So, it was better to let yourself squeezed into the scheme instead of making life difficult. Meanwhile the strong ‘Flipper’ related Dolphin Safe image managed to survive with fluffy journalism that supported its noble cause but was not able to unravel the powerplay behind the screens. Notable exceptions, like the 2015 K. William Watson article in Forbes (‘Dolphin Safe’ labels on Canned Tuna are a Fraud’) never got the attention they deserved.

In my book ‘Tuna Wars’, that will be published soon by Springer Nature, I write about the three ‘Flipper Wars’ that have raged in the tuna world. The Dolphin Safe label was an effective weapon for the tuna industry in these wars. The Big Three effectively used the label as a barrier for competitive Mexican imports entering their home market. Meanwhile, Dolphin Safe expanded from its origins in the Eastern Pacific to the Western and Central Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic, where the setting of nets on Dolphins never was an issue as such and the claims of the scheme (not one single dolphin killed or harmed!) where practically impossible and unmonitored. Meanwhile the big players used Dolphin Safe to hinder the entrance in the tuna fisheries of the much more robust certification of the MSC.  

Fraud and racketeering have still to be proved in court for sure. The case is messy. The consumer plaintiffs are very much underlining the objective of no harm to any dolphins whatever as the highest standard for sustainable tuna fisheries. They are right that the Big Three created a false representation of such a full proof dolphin safe fishery with the Dolphin Safe label. But they are wrong in suggesting that the MSC certification is also making a false statement when it comes to dolphins that are caught in tuna fisheries. This is missing the point: MSC is about sustainable tuna fisheries, not sustainable dolphin fisheries. It works with multiple standards that go far beyond the single issue of dolphin safety. From this point of view, also the idea that pole and line and handline are the only sustainable gears (as the plaintiffs argue) is far away from reality and practically useless.

It is now for the court to decide. Let us hope that at least its verdict facilitates a start to mop up the mess, and open ways for further development of credible sustainable tuna certification.