NMFS doesn’t have the dollars that the Monterey Bay, with its connection to Packard has. The federal agency that manages fisheries is saying go ahead and buy monkfish with a clear conscience and Monterey Bay is saying don’t you dare. Guess which message is reaching more consumers?
So we have huge foundations spending millions of dollars to convince the public that what they’ve decided is “sustainability” should be the critical criterion when buying seafood and spending other millions of dollars on supporting rating programs that grade whether seafood products should be embraced or avoided by seafood consumers, we have fishermen who are fishing well within the letter of the world’s most stringent array of fishing laws here in the U.S., and there is no connection between the two. The fish labelers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium are ready, willing and able to brand a product “avoid” simply because they don’t like how it’s caught.
Take monkfish as a case in point. The National Marine Fisheries Service monkfish page on its own seafood rating website, Fish Watch, states “monkfish are primarily caught with bottom trawls and gillnets. Dredges also account for a small percentage of landings. Monkfish habitat has been determined to be only minimally vulnerable to these fishing gears,” and continues regarding bycatch in the monkfish fishery “measures have been implemented to reduce any impact.” Yet the Monterey Bay Aquarium warns consumers against eating monkfish “due to high bycatch concerns and severe habitat impacts.”
Needless to say, the National Marine Fisheries Service doesn’t have anything approaching the dollars that the Monterey Bay Aquarium, with its connection to the Packard Foundation (in 2010 the Aquarium received $36 million from the Foundation) has. So the federal agency with the responsibility to manage our marine fisheries is saying to go ahead and buy and enjoy monkfish with a clear conscience and the Monterey Bay Aquarium is saying don’t you dare. Guess which message is reaching more consumers?
Why the discrepancy?
To collect its own data, the aquarium could have a fleet of research vessels manned by a crew of scientists that no one knows anything about, but operating in a low-profile stealth mode is uncharacteristic of the foundation funded crowd. As the Pew/Oceana folks showed us in the Gulf of Mexico during the BP disaster, when going down to the sea in ships they want their creature comforts with them and they want everyone to know. Minus collecting their own data, the Monterey Bay Aquarium fish raters must be using the same information that NMFS is using. They’re sure coming to different conclusions. So having their own, independently gathered information is probably out.
Is it because they don’t like gill nets and otter trawls? They rate black sea bass as a “good alternative,” and they’re caught with otter trawls, as are silver hake (“good”), Alaskan pollock (used in surimi and rated “good”), sand dabs (“good”) and lingcod (“good”). They rate Atlantic croaker a “best choice,” and they’re caught with gillnets, as are bluefish (“good”), Spanish mackerel (“good”) and salmon (“good” to “best”). It’s apparently not the gear being used.
Whatever their reasons for this rating, it puts a dent in the demand for monkfish. That’s why they are doing it. This dent in demand is translated into a lower price for the fish that is felt by everyone from the fishermen to the retailers.
The monkfish fishery is one of the initial candidates for Jane Lubchenco’s catch shares revolution. As I’m writing this, a series of public hearings are being held from Maine to North Carolina so that federal regulators can gauge the interest in catch shares in the fishery. If she is successful, rights to the annual monkfish harvest will be divided among some of the “historic” participants. Fitting in with the Packard Foundation’s grand plan for “saving the fisheries” while at the same time turning a profit, this could open the door for green organizations and individuals to start buying control of the fishery. The Packard Foundation has now provided them with a roadmap of how to do this and, based on past actions, might well be willing to provide them with financing as well.
The lower the consumer demand for monkfish, the lower the cost for outsiders to “buy” into the fishery.
Read the complete opinion piece.