News Summary January 14, 2021
The Winding Glass: Seafood, Consumers, Climate Change, the MSC and the Government in 2021
Last month CFOOD, the website established by University of Washington scientists to explain the science of sustainable seafood, published an excellent summary of the problems facing the Maine lobster fishery due to right whale interactions. There are six lobster fisheries interacting with right whales certified by the MSC in the U.S. and Canada but only the Maine fishery was suspended by the MSC. The Maine fishery lost its MSC certification due to a lawsuit against NMFS charging failure to implement stronger measures to reduce right whale mortality. As Jack Cheney wrote the Maine fishery has the longest track record of sustainability of any of the North Atlantic Lobster Fisheries and is also one of the most decentralized, with the largest number of small license holders and a ban on selling licenses. Yet Maine frozen lobster will now be at a disadvantage at retail compared to Canadian lobster due to the suspension by MSC. This illustrates a bigger problem...
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