Did I miss it? Has hell frozen over?
In an LA Times article today about the decline of ocean fisheries, I was amazed to read that Wal-Mart, of all corporations, was planning to take some positive action:
Only about 6% of the global fish catch is certified as “sustainable,” meaning that fish are not pulled from the ocean faster than they can reproduce and are not caught in ways that destroy other sea life or undersea habitat. Much of it comes from Alaska.
Though other U.S. regions and nations have been reluctant to rein in their fishing fleets, help has emerged from an unexpected quarter.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has pledged within three to five years to sell nothing but wild-caught seafood that meets standards for sustainability set out by the nonprofit Marine Stewardship Council. Founded in 1997, the council grants a blue and white label to fish that stand up to independent certification.
Wal-Mart’s shift in policy has rippled through the global seafood trade. The National Fisheries Institute, the seafood industry’s principal lobby, has become a booster of the sustainable seafood movement after years of resistance.
Now, three to five years is a long way out, and we should make sure to hold them to this promise. But this is the way it should be done. Businesses should take responsibility on their own without waiting for government regulations when fisherman worldwide are sounding the alarm, as they have been for years now.
And Wal-Mart is not the only big corporation doing this. Look who else is making a step in the right direction:
McDonald’s is now nudging its suppliers to come up with sustainably caught fish for its Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, which consume 110 million pounds of Alaskan pollack, New Zealand hoki and other whitefish from around the globe.
Meanwhile, Darden Restaurants, the parent of Red Lobster, is taking similar steps, as is the Compass Group, America’s largest food-service provider to corporate and university cafeterias.
Hey, I’m no fan of Wal-Mart, and they’ve got a looooong way to go in terms of paying their employees a living wage with healthcare and other reasonable benefits before I’ll step foot into their stores. But if this is any kind of a sign of an awakening to less selfish interests, hear hear.
Enough pressure from consumers will make every business comply.
Along those lines, I suggest we all carry the Audubon Seafood Wallet Card, and use it whenever dining out or purchasing seafood for home cooking. If you want to take it one step further, rather than just selectively purchasing, make sure the vendor or restaurant owner knows that you are using that card and share an extra copy with them and ask them to use it when making their own selections.
The card was made in 2004, but it is still current as far as I can tell. There have been some efforts that may have moved one or two of the red-coded species up into yellow, I think, but overall, the status of most seafood species remains the same as in 2004. If anyone knows different, please share!
Thanks for the link blueneck. I just printed it up and will put it right to use.
I’m glad to see someone picking up on this. It really is important for as many of us as possible to refrain from eating certain species. The more of us join the effort, the better it will be for our ocean eco-systems. I gave up Red Snapper several years ago, though I really love it. It’s a Gulf of Mexico fish that is often caught as a side-catch to some of the shrimp fishing methods and it became very popular in the 80’s and early 90’s in the restaurants down here near the Gulf. There have been some efforts to improve the shrimp-fishing methods to lower the side catch and new restrictions are being studied. The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council is a good site to keep up with what’s going on in the Gulf. A new paper [pdf warning] just came out after a lengthy study and there will be new lowered limits for all fishing of Red Snapper soon, I think.
Every species rated yellow or red on that card has its own story, Red Snapper is just one of them that I’ve been watching closely. Hopefully, I can eat some ten years from now, or maybe sooner….
Thanks for this – I had not heard of this card. I knew I wasn’t supposed to eat Swordfish because it was overfished, and shouldn’t eat farm raised salmon, or albacore tuna because of the mercury – I’ve been looking for advice on what fish I CAN eat and feel OK about. I’m glad my two favorites – dungeness crab and wild Alaskan salmon, are on the OK list!
Hell does freeze over. I think that the corporate republican mindset believes that it is appearances that count. If they say it then we’ll believe (when it’s convenient) – until their dishonesty is exposed.
I suppose they are bragging about how their stores are now unionized as well.
I share your skepticism. This would be a first if Wal-Mart is doing this simply for the sake of being a good corporate citizen. THere’s gotta be a catch.
Wal-Mart has been spending millions trying to combat the bad press and image it has created for itself. I think this is another media ploy to make itself look better than it really is. I will believe it when I see it, at any rate.
Wal-Mart and McDonalds are two mega-corporations that have the power to single-handedly change the way that all business is done around the world. If Wal-Mart required all of it’s suppliers to follow a particular rule, they could have changes made almost instantly. Sadly, it’s probably easier to lobby a corporation to make changes than to hope that government will be able to regulate industry.
itself, its suppliers, and its market, it can never ever be a good citizen. It would first have to redesign its entire existence.
An example from Mother Jones: Walmart planning to stock organic food. Good news right? Not if you care about organics: If people start buying their organic food from Wmart, the entire organic community will be destroyed, to be replaced by large, captive suppliers.
It is not just the plastic crap of American life which is the evil–that is just on the surface, a mere consequence. The real evil is the inherent structure.
What Alice said: Hell freezes over.
happy for the surviving fish.