SEAFOODNEWS.COM — January 26, 2015 — The campaign has run into problems. Not of obstruction, because NOAA and the North Pacific Management Council were extremely active in taking on research and trying to determine whether the habitats in these canyons needed additional protection. The problem for Greenpeace was that the scientists found no unique habitats. “War is peace.” “Freedom is slavery.” “Ignorance is strength.” These are the three classic phrases that writer George Orwell used to show how the totalitarians in his novel, 1984, could use language to not just obscure the truth, but to totally eradicate it.
Greenpeace is now taking a page from that book. Last week the organization put up a few billboards around Seattle with the slogan "Bring Balance to the Bering Sea."
The ads are part of a campaign by Greenpeace to target retailers and ask them to restrict purchases of fish from the Bering Sea.
Here is their spokesperson:
"For far too long, industrial fisheries have depleted marine populations and destroyed sensitive ocean habitat, while major retailers have bought and sold that destruction without any accountability," said Greenpeace Senior Oceans Campaigner Jackie Dragon.
"The billboards and posters throughout Seattle urge the companies that sell Bering Sea seafood to share the responsibility for protecting a reasonable portion of the ocean to sustain marine life and humankind into the future. We’re calling on Costco, Target and Albertsons to step up as leaders by rejecting seafood that is harvested from the world’s largest underwater canyons in the Bering Sea."
The campaign has run into problems. Not of obstruction, because NOAA and the North Pacific Management Council were extremely active in taking on research and trying to determine whether the habitats in these canyons needed additional protection. The problem for Greenpeace was that the scientists found no unique habitats.
Further, NOAA undertook a massive underwater camera survey to document benthic sea life across the Bering Sea, and the results of this study will be presented to the council in June. But Greenpeace seems afraid to wait, instead ramping up their campaign prior to getting information they may not like.
But the thing that struck me about this campaign was how Orwellian it was. I went back and looked at Groundfish harvest data from FAO from every major ocean region since 1950. And guess what.
There is one single area in the world where groundfish harvest levels did not climb to a peak and collapse. Instead they climbed to a sustainable level and stayed there. And that is the Bering Sea.
The chart below shows that in every major fishing area except the North Pacific, dominated by Bering Sea landings, there has been a boom and bust. It happened in the Northeast Atlantic with the collapse of cod, and also in the Northwest Atlantic. It happened in the Russian zone, the Northwest Pacific with pollock. And it happened in the groundfish fisheries of the south pacific as well. The history of each can be seen in our chart.
Data from FAO on total groundfish harvest 1950 to 2012. The Bering Sea is the only area that has not had a fisheries collapse.
The Bering Sea is the most balanced large scale fishing area in the world. So when Greenpeace tries to tell retailers that there is a fisheries crisis, that industrial fisheries have depleted marine populations, the one place on the planet where that statement is demonstrably false is the Bering Sea.
The reason is that the Fisheries Management in the North Pacific, and the Bering Sea, has adopted a cap on groundfish harvests, and has consistently kept fishing pressure well below levels needed for long term sustainable yield.
The results are in the data. When there was a short term decline in total groundfish in 2008 -2010, there was a quick bounce back. This is a sign of a resilient and balanced ecosystem and is proof that the management here is the most successful in the world.
So when Greenpeace tries to call its campaign 'Bring Balance to the Bering Sea', they literally should be laughed off the stage.
Unfortunately, too many retailers, and even the Marine Stewardship Council itself, are unwilling to say the emperor has no clothes. Yet they should say this. We cannot have responsible people like seafood buyers and science based certifiers pretending that something that contradicts all facts is simply another part of the NGO spectrum of opinion.
The actual data behind sustainability, defined as preserving the opportunity for future generations to get the same benefits from an ecosystem as our generation today, is shown in spades in the Bering Sea.
No amount of 'campaigns' can reverse the facts. We expect retailers to tell this to Greenpeace.
This story originally appeared on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It has been reprinted with permission.