SEAFOODNEWS.COM — September 10, 2014 — This week a curious news item came across our desk. The Maine Lobster industry was applying for Marine Stewardship council certification as a sustainable fishery.
This seemed odd, because just last year, Governor LePage made a big splash at the Boston Seafood Show announcing the Maine Lobster fishery had been recognized by the MSC.
Why the do over? The fishery has not changed. The area of certification is exactly the same. And yet, an industry group consisting of Mazzetta, Craig’s All Natural, East Coast Seafood, Garbo Seafood, Cozy Harbor Seafood, Inland Seafood and Orion – in short the great majority of the major lobster processors in Maine were willing to put up around $100,000 to cover the cost of a new assessment.
This money is an unnecessary tax. It will go to support the bureaucratic regime set up by the Marine Stewardship Council, NGO’s who advise buyers and the burgeoning certification assessment industry.
It will not result in one penny for better lobster conservation, improved science, or gear research for bycatch reduction. In fact it will hinder the science resources available to the lobster fishery as Maine scientists and others have to spend time re-answering questions they answered for the first time a few years ago.
Lets take a look at how this happened, and who benefits from this travesty.
First, the MSC, while not directly assessing client fisheries, sets the rules and policies under which the assessments take place, and although there have been significant improvements in the delivery of assessments, the fundamental purpose of the system is to provide revenue to the Marine Stewardship Council so it can perpetuate its mission. That mission is building a global brand for the blue MSC Eco-label, it is not marine conservation and enhancing sustainability.
Because the system is driven by the need for ongoing revenue, all assessments are sponsored by ‘clients’ who have to pay fees to the certifiers and to the Marine Stewardship Council for things like chain of custody certification and logo fees if they are used. Such fees can be as high as 0.5% of gross sales.
This means that the MSC depends on private clients in the fishery who will become the sponsor of the assessment.
In Maine, the initial push for certification was led by Linda Bean, of Linda Bean’s Perfect Maine, Shuck’s Maine Lobster, and Goat Island Lobster, later joined by the marketing company Cape Seafood LLC. This group has financial and business ties to each other, and pushed hard for the initial certification.
John Hathaway, of Shucks Maine Lobster in Richmond, Maine, said that getting Maine lobster certified is not a guarantee for getting the per-pound price that fishermen earn to go back up but it could help the Maine lobster fishery boost its market share in an increasingly competitive global marketplace.
“[MSC certification] is just another arrow in your quiver,” Hathaway said. “The world’s going to know that your product is sustainable.”
Fishermen were not asked to pay for the first certification, and Hathaway also said they would not be asked to pay for ongoing costs. Instead, the cost of the first certification, which Hathaway estimated to be around $300,000 was paid from “donations,” he told the Bangor Daily News.
What do these companies get for their $300,000? They get a competitive marketing tool, and naturally, they take steps to keep other companies in the same fishery, buying from the same harvesters, and with exactly the same commitment to sustainability, from sharing the certificate.
Although MSC has improved its rules for certificate sharing, it still cannot escape the problem that so long as it needs revenue streams from fishery clients, it has to give them something in return. So each client group has the right to determine how other members can join.
In numerous fisheries around the world, including the Coldwater Shrimp Fishery in Newfoundland, the Cod fishery in Alaska, as well as others, this has resulted in the strange situation of the MSC certifying an entire area, gear type, or fishery as fully sustainable, but then preventing sellers of the product from advertising that fact without being part of the ‘client group’. This has led to multiple certifications of the same fishery.
In the case of the Maine Lobster fishery, it proved impossible for new companies to join the original client group.
In the letter on file with the MSC from Linda Bean and Shuck’s client group, called ‘The Fund for the Advancement of Sustainable Maine Lobster’, John Hathaway wrote “The Fund will share the certificate on a fair and equitable basis. Such terms and conditions may however, be different than those abided to by the current group members.”
The prospective new members asked for an accounting of the actual costs of the certification, and what spending went into the reported $300,000 cost. When the original members refused to provide this transparency – which was needed to determine a ‘fair and equitable share’, the other processors decided to form their own client group.
The MSC allows the original members of a client group a 20% ‘risk sharing’ premium. This means that they can charge later members 20% more then they spent based on their being the first companies to put up funds.
One of the biggest failures of the MSC is a lack of transparency on costs and budgets for certifications. Each certification is a private contract between the certifying body and the client group. So unlike spending for fisheries management and research, the actual costs of certifications are mostly closely guarded secrets.
In the beginning certifying bodies had virtually no financial oversight, and under a monopoly situation costs for certification could balloon to unbelievable numbers.
For example, there were unsubstantiated reports that the first Alaska Pollock certification cost well of $500,000, and that the more than 7 year effort to certify BC salmon cost between $500,000 and $1,000,000.
With more fisheries using certifying bodies, and more certifiers, competition has improved the situation.
The original Lobster assessment by Linda Bean’s group was done by Intertek Moody Marine.
The new assessment will be done by SAI Global, who has submitted a much lower cost estimate. Outside observers estimate the cost would likely fall between $75,000 and $100,000.
But the fact remains that these cost are completely unnecessary, and represent a tax on the industry that does nothing to advance science, or fisheries management, or preserve sustainability.
When companies want to use other certifications – whether it be The FAO based RFM certification, USDC Grade A, the USDA Organic label, or a European certification like Naturland, they have to pay certain costs: inspection, chain of custody, and ongoing surveillance.
But they don’t have to pay to recreate the entire framework under which their industry meets the standard. But the new client group, called the Maine Certified Sustainable Lobster Association, has to pay SAI Global to re-examine the entire lobster fishery against the MSC standard when this had already been done by Moody Intertek Marine.
Every report, every interview, and every meeting with scientists, reviewers, peer reviewers, will be duplicative of work already done.
The new client group says “The Maine Certified Lobster Association Inc. welcomes new members and does not intend to unfairly penalize prospective new members who wish access to the certificate.”
This is a welcome statement, but the fact that it is necessary at all shows the costs of an MSC certification process designed to serve two masters: a revenue stream for the Marine Stewardship council and its commercial allies, including the NGO advisors and certifiers, and the broader public interest in ensuring sustainable fisheries.
This is why it is imperative that over time, the sustainable fisheries movement outgrow the MSC and enter into the true public realm where it belongs; along with public and industry funded fisheries management, science, and research.
When an industry group like the Bering Sea research Foundation spends $100,000 to study golden king crab, or the scallop industry puts up millions of dollars to fund new revolutionary scallop survey methods , the benefits of this work are available to all. The results are improved understanding of the fishery that make for a better management system, more responsive management, better understanding of gear and habitat impacts and ultimately a huge return to the public in terms of long term sustainable seafood.
If sustainability review is to be a permanent component of fisheries management, and there are many reasons it should be, then just like other research and management decisions, the results have to be open, transparent, shared, and available to all.
It is the MSC’s need to build its own global brand that is standing in the way of this. That is why they have seen the growth of competition and the development of open seafood sustainability standards, such as the benchmarking being developed by GSSI, as a mortal threat to their brand.
This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.