Greenpeace is calling on retailers to face up to their responsibilities, as overfishing, contamination and climate change threaten the world’s oceans.
The organisation says that over 75% of the world’s fish stocks have been totally exploited, overexploited or depleted and Overfishing, in particular, has driven the depletion of almost 90% of big predator fish, such as cod, tuna and swordfish.
In Spain, around 70% of fresh, frozen and canned fish is sold by large retailers. Greenpeace is publishing a second retailers’ ranking in Spain to show consumers which groups have improved their policies of buying and selling fish and which groups are still performing poorly. The criteria used in this evaluation include acquisition and labelling policies of fish products and the presence of endangered species on the supermarket shelves.
Carrefour is the only food chain scoring less than in the previous study, published last year. Although Carrefour was the first to stop selling threatened red tuna in 2007, it continues to sell other endangered species.
Lidl has removed several species listed in the Greenpeace red list of threatened or unsustainably caught fish from its shelves and retains its first place in the ranking.
“Greenpeace congratulates Alcampo (Auchan) for the improvements made to its fish purchasing policy and for committing to gradually removing threatened species and fish species caught through unsustainable methods from its shelves. Although it’s still in red, the measures it has taken have started to move it up in the ranking,” said Paloma Colmenarejo, Greenpeace Spain oceans campaigner.
According to Greenpeace, the six retailers who took part in the study are still in the red, meaning they are still selling species included in Greenpeace’s red list for Spain. Greenpeace is demanding that all retailers take immediate action to improve their policy of buying fish products.
