A New York Times story from this morning takes a look at the hoki fishery in New Zealand, and finds that its current certification as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council may not quite be deserved -
The world's insatiable appetite for fish, with its disastrous effects on populations of favorites like red snapper, monkfish and tuna, has driven commercial fleets to deeper waters in search of creatures unlikely to star on the Food Network.
One of the most popular is the hoki, or whiptail, a bug-eyed specimen found far down in the waters around New Zealand and transformed into a major export. McDonald's alone at one time used roughly 15 million pounds of it each year.
[...]
The problems, [Peter Trott, the fisheries program manager in Australia for the World Wildlife Fund] said, include population declines, ecosystem damage and the accidental killing of skates and sharks. He added that New Zealand hoki managers let industry "get as much as it can from the resource without alarm bells ringing."
The hoki is used to make the Filet-o-Fish sandwich at McDonald's (there is actually some fish in there, I guess!), as well as being a regular 'guest' on menus at Long John Silver's, Denny's restaurants in New Zealand (Denny's is in New Zealand? Sorry, mates...), amongst others.
Another part of the story here is the recertification of the fishery as sustainable in 2007 by the MSC, over the objections of the World Wildlife Fund, one of the council's initial founders -
Without formally acknowledging that hoki are being overfished, New Zealand has slashed the allowable catch in steps, from about 275,000 tons in 2000 and 2001 to about 100,000 tons in 2007 and 2008 - a decline of nearly two-thirds.
Wouldn't such drastic cuts seem to indicate that the fishery was never managed as responsibly as thought in the first place? It's all about the McMoney, isn't it? You'd have thought they would have learned their lesson from orange roughy, but I guess not. Another interesting fact: Yum Brands, the parent corporation of Long John Silver's, included purchase of New Zealand hoki on its corporate responsibility report as an example of their 'sustainability' just last year. This year, according to the article, the fish is no longer "on the menu". What a difference a year makes when it comes to industry-defined "sustainability", eh? |
