The New York Times published an interesting article Wednesday by reporter David Jolly about controversy over the Marine Stewardship Council's decision to certify Norwegian firm Aker BioMarine's antarctic krill fishery as environmentally sustainable.
Apparently, some in the environmental science community are criticizing the certification, saying that MSC really doesn't have enough data to make that call. Questions about antarctic krill stocks, which are a major food source for many larger marine species, have led Whole Foods to drop krill oil supplements, regardless of whether they are certified as sustainably harvested by MSC, according to the article.
So what might this mean for Maine's lobster fishery, which is considering the same certification? Some industry officials have said that getting the fishery MSC certified should be a cinch, seeing as how Maine fishermen have long embraced practices such as throwing large lobsters and egg-bearing females back into the water. Moreover, such certification is crucial if the industry wants to expand its market to large national and international retailers such as Wal-Mart, which has said that by next year it plans to sell only MSC certified seafood, supporters say.
Opponents to the idea have said that Maine lobstermen shouldn't rely on a third party that later could decide to revoke such certification over issues such as whether fishing gear is seen as a threat to endangered whales. But whether the lobster industry should certify itself, or pay someone else to say it is sustainable, is part of the controversy over MSC certification that Jolly writes about.
Expanding the market for Maine lobster, to Wal-Mart or China (the possibility of which both the BDN and Associated Press recently reported on) certainly may help the industry, which has been suffering from a decline in demand since the economy tanked in 2008. And getting more people to recognize that Maine lobstermen have been good stewards of their fishery can't hurt. But shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars to acquire and then maintain the certification - a cost that has been borne so far by private supporters of the idea - arguably may not be seen as the best investment if MSC certification is going to get a mixed reaction in a fickle and currently frugal marketplace.
