18/07/2014: AMCS ignores sound science

The Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) has just been taken to task by Seafood New Zealand’s Chairman George Clement for its list of imported fish that the Society said consumers should avoid for not being sustainable. 

 
‘The AMCS appears to have just gone through a list of imported seafood to arbitrarily warn people against most of it.  He said the list lacks transparency and is void of any real fact checking or scientific assessment,” said Clement.

 

Seafood New Zealand’s Chairman George Clement

“Species by species, as we go through them, we can see how misinformed the AMCS report is. They’ve provided no transparent criteria nor openness in their assessments. There’s no indication that they have actually challenged themselves to examine the facts when they’ve drawn up their list.”

 
“First up, there’s our Hoki exports to Australia. New Zealand’s Hoki fisheries have been certified since 2001 as sustainable under the international ‘gold standard’ of the international Marine Stewardship Council. It’s an incredibly hard standard to achieve and our Hoki fishery is one of the very few in the world certified without conditions, which is even harder a certification to get. Maybe the AMCS hasn’t heard of the MSC?”

 
“They certainly haven’t taken into account the technology that’s gone into reducing seabird captures throughout the Hoki fleet. AMCS has singled out Salvin’s albatross as being identified by risk assessments the AMSC associates with Hoki fishing. That is not the case in any risk assessments made by New Zealand government scientists.”

 
“Nor does AMSC acknowledge that the seabed of a third of our Exclusive Economic Zone is absolutely protected with marine protected areas inside which bottom trawling is excluded by law. The Hoki fishery contacts less than 1.5 per cent each year of the area the Hoki inhabit.”
 
Read more HERE.

The Aquaculturists
This blog is maintained by The Aquaculturists staff and is supported by the magazine International Aquafeed which is published by Perendale Publishers Ltd.