The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) is comprises of scientists, environmental organizations, and the tuna industry. It is said that ISSF will focus on ensuring that tuna populations are preserved from overfishing. Greenpeace, an environmental organization not involved with ISSF, has welcomed its creation.
Sari Tolvanen, Greenpeace International oceans campaigner, informed that those organizations mandated to manage tuna stocks have failed to do much more than push the species to the brink of extinction. Tolvanen opined that with the fishing industry clearly willing to fish itself to death, it’s great to see processors finally taking a stand. Now we need the fine words of the ISSF to be translated into real action.
It is fact that tuna are in crisis and the large-scale failure of tuna fisheries to manage the populations has created a situation where every species and nearly all populations are in decline. Greenpeace, the organization urges ISSF to put forward the highest possible standards on the industry, including only fishing tuna from well-managed, non-threatened populations; using fishing methods that do not result in high by-catch; banning Fish Aggregation Devices (FADs) which have been shown to increase the catch of juvenile fish too young to have bred; foregoing transshipping at sea; and ensuring all tuna sold was legally caught.
In addition Greenpeace says that ISSF must address issue of equity to make sure that all fishing nations receive a fair price for their tuna. Nina Thuellen, Greenpeace International oceans consumer markets coordinator, said that they expect ISSF member companies to ‘walk the talk’ they will deliver to tuna management bodies.
