After scampi recently became the subject of an attack campaign launched by Scottish charity Open Seas, U.K. public body Seafish has backed the seafood industry in declaring that the product should stay on restaurant menus and retailers’ shelves.
Open Seas launched its “Say No to Scampi” campaign in October, urging supermarkets to discontinue stocking the product and encouraging customers to avoid purchasing scampi until the fishery comes under sustainable management.
Open Seas claims the fishery improvement project (FIP) currently active within the fishery that is the source of the breaded or battered langoustine tails that is more commonly known as scampi, which the country’s retailers often cite to justify their continued sourcing of scampi, is “badly failing and will not meet its targets when the project ends in April 2024.”
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) oversees the FIP and has approved plans regarding management of the stock; bycatch; negative effects on endangered, threatened, and protected (ETP) species; and impacts on the ocean seabed. But Open Seas warned the fishery, regardless of the FIP, still poses a threat to ETP species. It claimed unmonitored scampi fishing boats continuously fish in areas where there are sensitive and protected seabed habitats, and the fishery continues to generate large volumes of bycatch.
“U.K. supermarkets are facing a dilemma, as scampi fails to meet their sustainability procurement policies: Either abandon their green principles and continue buying, or stop selling scampi,” Nick Underdown, the head of campaigns for Open Seas, said. “This is a major test of corporate environmental responsibility.”
Seafish, however, called Open Seas’ campaign is misleading, saying the fishery is being monitored by the government, scientists, NGOs, and the seafood industry in a collaborative way and is collectively committed to implementing sustainable management practices.
“Everyone involved in getting scampi to our plates is committed to a positive, long-term future for the [langoustine] fishery,” Seafish Seafood Operations Director Aoife Martin said. “It sustains businesses and livelihoods, supports coastal communities, and nourishes people with healthy protein.”
Within the fishery, some vessels catch the species using creels, but the majority use trawl nets, which catch large volumes of marine species and can lead to increased levels of bycatch.
“It’s the trawl fishery that is currently attracting some negative media coverage,” Martin said. “It would be wrong to say everything in the fishery is perfect, but it is also wrong to say that U.K.-caught nephrops [langoustine] are unsustainable.”
In late November, Seafish issued a response to Open Seas’ criticism detailing the complexity of ensuring a sustainably managed nephrops fishery.
“The task requires scientists, fisheries managers, and the seafood industry to understand the impact that fishing can have on nephrops stock, and also the impact that factors such as climate change, environmental conditions, other marine users, and predators such as cod, dogfish, skates, and rays, can have,” the report said.
Seafish noted the largely positive reviews the fishery has received from third-party scientific guidance, pointing to 2023 ICES scientific advice showing that nine of the 12 U.K. nephrops sub-fisheries are at healthy levels and are being fished sustainably, while acknowledging further work is needed to improve the status of the remaining three.
Seafish said langoustine fishing occurs within a mixed fishery, and although the FIP aims to alleviate the issue of bycatch, it can be hard to avoid. It said fishers are doing what they can to ensure they do not simply discard bycatch species.
“Suggesting that all bycatch is discarded is wrong,” Martin said. “Managing mixed fisheries can be difficult, and sometimes, you need to take more restrictive management actions to ensure all species in the mixed fishery are fished at sustainable levels.”
To that end, the seafood industry is trialing innovative gear designs that allow non-target species to avoid capture or to escape nets easily, Seafish said. This will allow fishers to avoid capturing juvenile species and reduce the level of bycatch. Work is also underway as part of the FIP to gather information on the frequency of ETP captures in trawl fisheries and to produce identification guides and reporting mechanisms to enable fishers to properly monitor levels of bycatch.
In its own response, Open Seas said regardless of the initiatives in the works, progress under the FIP is occurring too slowly and that the most effective way to bring about change is to reduce demand for scampi.
That is unlikely to reduce overall fishing pressure, but it could stop valuable monitoring and research on other species, Seafish rebutted.
“It is much better to engage and work together to make the positive changes we all want to see,” Martin said.
Photo courtesy of Open Seas
