Seafood certification organisation, Friend of the Sea, is asking people to vote on whether sustainable seafood can come from overexploited or depleted stocks.
The FAO 'Guidelines for the Ecolabelling of fish and fishery products from marine capture fisheries' indicate among the minimum substantive requirements and criteria for ecolabels that the stock under consideration is not overfished.
Friend of the Sea criteria require categorically that in order for a product to be ecolabelled as sustainable it must originate from a stock which is NOT overexploited according to the updated information from FAO, Regional Fishery Bodies or National Marine Research Institutes. For this reason Friend of the Sea has not certified products from overexploited fisheries.
According to the organisation, other schemes have certified fisheries which insist on overexploited or even depleted stocks. In certain cases these fisheries have been recertified after some years even though the stocks were still depleted and their status was worse than at time of certification.
Several seafood guides suggest consumers worldwide should not purchase those products which originate from overexploited and depleted stocks.
Friend of the Sea is asking, is it correct for consumers and helpful for ocean conservation to label seafood products as ‘sustainable’, even though they originate from stocks which are overexploited or depleted?
The organisation would like to know whether you believe that products from fisheries targeting overexploited stocks should or should not be certified as sustainable. It says that your opinion is very important as it can send a message to certification schemes on what standard to use.
You can vote, only once, by going to http://www.friendofthesea.org/mod/poll/index.php
