Experts are questioning whether the seafood with the "sustainable" labels from the Marine Stewardship Council is really environmentally responsible.
A blue check mark from the Marine Stewardship Council is meant to signify to consumers that seafood has been sustainably harvested. The organization works with hundreds of scientists throughout the world and uses United Nations guidelines on certification. Kerry Coughlin, MSC's regional director for the Americas, told PRI's Living on Earth, "it's a very rigorous process."
A chorus of experts, however, disagrees. A recent opinion piece in the journal Nature says the MSC is "failing to protect the environment and needs radical reform." The article's author, Jennifer Jacquet, told Living on Earth, "the rules of the MSC for certification are too loosely worded, and can be loosely interpreted by third-party certifiers, the ones who actually come in and do the certifying."
The MSC relies on for-profit, third-party certifiers to inspect fisheries. These certifiers have a financial interest in certifying fisheries. They make money by giving the green light. "It's a very hard problem to get around," Jacquet says, "but that is currently the way the market is structured."
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