The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) issued a five-page statement today, lashing out at its critics, including the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI) and some of the seafood industry media, for what it called “negative and inaccurate statements.”
The MSC has been at odds with ASMI for years, but the statement comes on the heels of a 24 September hearing by the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard that examined the need for third-party certification programs like the MSC’s.
In the statement, described as an “open letter and fact sheet,” Kerry Coughlin, regional director for the Americas for the MSC, described the hearing as a “particularly egregious example of biased and inaccurate discussion,” and blasted the committee’s chair, Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, for keeping the MSC out of the hearing.
“With due respect to Chairman Begich, exclusion from the hearing of the MSC, the world’s leading seafood sustainability certification program and a main subject of the hearing, suggests the purpose of the hearing was not to gather informative testimony on the subject but to posit a particular position based on misinformation,” Coughlin wrote.
Coughlin also challenged Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who also made headlines this week in her criticism of the involvement of third-party certification programs in government activities. On 24 September, Murkowski praised a decision by the U.S. General Services Administration to confirm it will not let third-party groups such as NGOs influence its definition of sustainable seafood. The senator has also proposed legislation that would further prohibit federal agencies from using third-party certification programs.
Coughlin blasted Murkowski’s assertions that the MSC is “meddling” in fisheries management or is too expensive for fisheries to afford applying for certification, and noted that “the Governor and U.S. Senators from Alaska have never contacted the MSC to obtain information from us on our program.”
Coughlin also responded to Murkowski’s assertion that the MSC is a foreign entity forcing its will upon a domestic industry, saying, “MSC isn’t ‘foreign,’ Senator Murkowski; it’s global. And Alaska and its thriving fishing economy and jobs are fully part of and dependent on that global industry.”
Coughlin also criticized the Responsible Fisheries Management (RFM) program. Based on U.N. FAO standards, the program has been touted by ASMI as a viable alternative to MSC certification, but Coughlin accused ASMI of spending more than USD 7 million “of industry and taxpayer money” on developing and promoting the program. She also cited a report by the Environmental Law Institute that described the RFM program as “industry developed and controlled.”
Coughlin insisted the MSC wants to work with Alaska to showcase its sustainability.
“This isn’t about Alaska feeling it doesn’t need to prove its sustainability to anyone as Senator Murkowski has suggested,” she wrote. “Instead Alaska and the U. S. have an opportunity to continue to be leaders among world fisheries by demonstrating we as a nation meet the world’s leading standard for sustainability and would expect other fisheries worldwide to do the same.”
