Blue ticked off: the controversy over the MSC fish ‘ecolabel’

The MSC’s coveted blue tick is the world’s biggest, and some say best, fishery ecolabel. So why is it in the headlines – and does it really do what it says on the tin?

This month, two right whales in the Gulf of St Lawrence were found entangled in fishing gear. One, a female, was first spotted entangled off Cape Cod last year, but rescuers were not able to fully free her; the other, a male, is believed to have become entangled in the Gulf.

Hunted to near extinction before a partial whaling ban in 1935, North Atlantic right whales are once more critically endangered, with only 356 left. The main threat remains human contact: entanglement in fishing gear, and ship strikes. Fatal encounters, caused in part by the whales’ migratory shift into Canada’s snow crab grounds, have soared: more than a tenth of the population died or were seriously injured between 2017 and 2021, mostly in Canada and New England.

Continue reading...

source https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/26/blue-ticked-off-the-controversy-over-the-msc-fish-ecolabel

No comments:

Post a Comment

Featured post

Ethiopia’s controversial quest for the sea

https://ift.tt/4t29xJd Ethiopia is famously landlocked. That’s why the ambitious Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed has long harbored visi...