How Sustainable Is Your Seafood: Dr Chris Wilcox from Fair Catch Alliance
Tell most Australians that nearly two-thirds of our seafood is imported, and they’ll be flabbergasted. After all, the Nation’s fisheries are purported to be well managed and held to high sustainability standards. But a recent study by Minderoo Foundation proves that we don’t really know what’s on our plate.
We invited Dr Chris Wilcox onto the Ocean Impact Podcast to chat about Minderoo’s seafood mislabelling study (which he co-authored), as well as the Fair Catch Alliance, Global Fishing Index, and how consumers can help change seafood labelling in Australia. Chris is Head of Minderoo Foundation’s Sustainable Fisheries Program and Co-convener of Fair Catch Alliance.
Australia has one of the largest Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) in the world - the third-largest in fact - covering a whopping 8.2 million square kilometres, but its fisheries don't produce all that much. Chris says this is for a range of reasons, one being those higher standards. But Australians eat a lot of seafood, and that has to come from somewhere…
…so, like much of the world, it comes from imports.
”So you get down To the fishmonger near you or go to the fish and chip shop or the grocery store. It's about a two-thirds chance that you're actually eating something that's not Australian”
The problem? Imported seafood isn’t held to the same standards around sustainability, safety, and ethical practices as Australian seafood. It can come from fisheries that might involve illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) fishing practices.
A FISHY SUPPLY CHAIN
The seafood supply chain is convoluted, with significant traceability issues. To start with, sourcing information on many of the fisheries that our imported produce comes from can be a challenge.
There are startups working on innovative solutions to improve this, something we shine a light on with The Ocean Impact Pitchfest (most specifically through the Monitoring Spotlight Award and Harvesting Spotlight Award) but as Chris mentions in the episode, it’s an uphill battle when more than half the world’s fisheries lack the data to determine stock status.
“We don’t actually understand what the status of about of more than half of the world’s stocks is. They’re just unmonitored...and those fish stocks actually deliver a lot of benefits to humans. They support economies in many countries, they contribute food to people, they provide jobs, they get people through periods of disruption.”
Minderoo Foundation’s Global Fishing Index, which aims to assess the sustainability of the world’s marine fisheries, found that 52% of the global catch is from stocks that lack the data to determine if they’re sustainable or not.
One article actually reviewed information around those that are not assessed or intensively managed and suggested that stock status is worse than that of fisheries that are intensively managed, often with higher harvest rates and lower abundance.
And when it comes to the seafood sold in Australia, it seems that mislabelling, species substitution, and vague labelling are serious issues.
Mislabelling study
Minderoo Foundation conducted a landmark national study to determine the scale of seafood mislabelling in Australia, which Chris co-authored with Emily Harrison, and found that more than one in ten seafood products didn’t match the label.
They uncovered this by DNA testing 672 seafood products sold at Australian fish markets, restaurants, and supermarkets, including domestically caught and imported products and both packaged and fresh products. The study assessed six seafood groups, including hoki, prawns, sharks and rays, snapper, squid and cuttlefish, and tuna.
Here are some key findings from the study:
Imported seafood was mislabelled at around a whopping 15%, compared to 9% for domestic products.
DNA testing revealed 11.8% of seafood sampled did not match the label, with sharks and snappers having the highest mislabelling rate.
And labels provided little information:
Only one in four products were labelled at a species level.
Most labels used vague common names or umbrella terms such as ‘flake’ and ‘snapper’.
“Flake, for instance, officially refers to gummy shark, but is often misused to describe any type of shark meat. Fifteen of the mislabelled flake products were actually elephant fish, which are only distantly related to sharks.”
They also found that:
One in three of the shark products were not the correct species, and
One in four of the snappers was not what it said on the package.
Poor labelling is more likely to conceal the sale of threatened or overfished stocks, as well as products with lower nutritional quality, reduced economic value, or even potential health risks. For example, the study found flake served as battered fish and chips was actually school shark, which is classified as Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
It’s baffling, in fact, as our own Tim Silverwood said at the top of the episode, it would be like going to a restaurant and ordering something as vague as “meat and chips,” without realising the meat is panda. It sounds shocking because this could never happen in Australia where red meat is concerned. It would be unacceptable. But that is precisely what can happen with seafood.
The Fair Catch Alliance
But there’s good news amongst all of these shocking statistics! The Fair Catch Alliance is committed to ensuring we have the same rules for all seafood, and Ocean Impact Organisation is a proud member of the Alliance along with Minderoo Foundation, Australian Marine Conservation Society, Austral Fisheries, and more.
If government policy addressed this issue by enforcing better standards for seafood imports, it would:
Protect consumers
Support better fishing practices, including Australian fisheries
Value global ocean ecosystems and threatened species
Influence other nations to adopt similar policy
And improve the future of seafood consumption by ensuring sustainable fisheries
Right now, this issue is ‘on the table’ with the Federal Government, meaning there’s never been more important to add your support. The more organisations and people who raise awareness and join our calls for change, the more powerful the alliance will be.
So what can consumers do?
Send a QUICK email to your MP
By simply asking your Federal MP how they are they are addressing this issue you will force them to engage on the matter and increase its prominence in the halls of Parliament.
Here are the easy steps to email your local MP - it only takes a few minutes! (For Australian readers only)
Go to the “Contact a Senator or Member electronically” section at the bottom of this page to search for your local MP
In the MP’s profile - next to ‘Connect’ - click on the email symbol or ‘contact form’ which will automatically open.
Use your own words or simply copy and paste the below message into the email/form! That’s it!
COPY THE BELOW MESSAGE (OR WRITE YOUR OWN)
Subject: Improving sustainable and ethical standards of Australian seafood imports
Body: Dear [MP’s name]
I am writing to you today to ask what is being done to improve the sustainable and ethical standards of Australian seafood imports.
I understand that an estimated 65% of the seafood consumed in Australia each year is imported and, as such, isn’t subject to a policy framework that ensures it is ethically and sustainably sourced. As a result, Australian consumers can unknowingly purchase seafood from illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) sources and contribute to:
the death of threatened species such as certain turtles, sharks, seabirds and dolphins as bycatch;
global decline of fish populations and putting the future of eating wild-caught seafood and the health of oceans at risk;
poor worker conditions and modern slavery in overseas fishing industries, and;
putting local jobs and industry at risk by being undercut with cheap imported substitutes that aren’t required to meet the same standards as local products
I’m sure that you agree that Australians must be able to choose seafood that is sustainably and ethically produced, even if it is imported.
Australia should establish seafood import controls to ensure we have confidence that we know what products are and where they come from. Other major seafood importers like the USA, the European Union and Japan have strengthened their import controls. Australia can too.
Thank you for looking into this issue and taking steps to strengthen Australia’s seafood import controls.
With regards, [your name]
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