The National Fisheries Institute (NFI) has come up with a set of 10 questions which it believes reporters should ask Greenpeace before publishing its impending press release about American retailers'' seafood sustainability practices.
The NFI is urging reporters to ask questions relating to a range of issues including Greenpeace's US$700,000 a day budget, its refusal to collaborate with the WWF or the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation, its methodology used in its grocer’s survey and its lack of credit for seafood certification programmes.
Some of the questions the NFI feels need answering are does Greenpeace know that it’s jeopardising the health of Americans and does it care? This comes after one of Greenpeace's reports which urged Americans to eat less fish to reduce the pressure on our oceans. This is depite reseachers' findings that low seafood consumption is the second biggest dietary contributor to preventable deaths in the US.
After having asked retailers to stock only pole-and-line caught canned tuna, despite only 2% of canned tuna currently sold being harvested this way, the NFI also asks how would Greenpeace ensure there is enough affordable tuna to meet consumer demand?
The largest US canned tuna brands are working with the WWF and marine scientists through the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation to ensure the continued health of tuna. But why has Greenpeace repeatedly declined an open invitation to participate in collaborative efforts?
This is the latest spat between the two organisations over Greenpeace's assessment of major supermarket chains in terms of the sustainability of their seafood, which in the past has been dubbed by NFI spokesperson, Gavin Gibbons, as having "nothing to do with sustaining the world’s oceans; it’s all about sustaining Greenpeace".
