The multi-billion dollar seafood industry is launching a "greenwashing" strategy as consumers are becoming aware of the problems of mass production, overfishing and bycatch. Consumers are not just demanding free-range chicken and hormone-free beef, more shoppers are asking for environmentally sound seafood.
Under the direction of the National Fisheries Institute (NFI) - a trade organization of large seafood packers and aquaculture producers - the seafood industry is funding a campaign to make aquaculture shrimp and imported wild-caught shrimp seem environmentally friendly. Like big oil, tobacco and other industries, processors are hiring public relations agencies and founding pro-industry groups with green-sounding names.
Because the National Fisheries Institute's name is so conveniently similar to the US government's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), seafood buyers have been confused. NFI also has reaped good publicity by donating money and equipment to sea turtle conservation efforts in Mexico.
NFI also founded Ocean Trust, a faux-green group run by Thor Lassen, a former NFI lobbyist. The group's stated mission is to "enhance the productivity of the marine environment as a source of food." Its biggest donor is the Long John Silver's seafood chain.
Most frontline environmental workers have never worked with Ocean Trust, yet the group representing itself as having expertise in sea turtle conservation. Ocean Trust distributes expensive educational materials and videos that shift blame for sea turtle deaths away from the shrimp industry (although the US National Academy of Sciences identifies the industry is the primary human-related cause of these deaths). Ocean Trust's website links directly to NFI's web page and many NFI press releases quote Lassen.
Ocean Trust is focusing on US/Mexican efforts to save the critically endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle in the Gulf of Mexico near Rancho Nuevo. Based on a very recent infusion of aid - a minute fraction of industry profits - the seafood industry is taking credit for more than 30 years of conservation work.
Kemp's ridley females once numbered at least 40,000: Today there are about 1,500. There must be at least 10,000 before the species is even considered for downlisting from endangered to threatened. Despite these figures, Ocean Trust claims that the Kemp's ridley populations are exploding. Ocean Trust cites total nesting and hatchling numbers - though it's common knowledge that very few hatchlings (maybe one in 6,000) survive to maturity.
Whole Foods, the US's largest natural-foods chain, does not offer certified turtle-safe shrimp. Whole Foods supports Ocean Trust and bases its public statements on Ocean Trust information.
In an April 1998 Forbes magazine article, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey said that Earth Island charges for certification of turtle-safe shrimp. This is false. Earth Island does not certify any pond-raised shrimp. Shrimp farms destroy coastal habitat where sea turtles live, devastate mangrove forests, pollute waterways and spread disease.
Seafood packers like Contessa are now putting a "turtle-safe" logo on their frozen shrimp that closely resembles Earth Island Institute's Certified Turtle-Safe Shrimp™ logo. The GlobalAquaculture Alliance is also working on creating an industry-sponsored ecolabel for shrimp.
Farm-raised shrimp is the biggest threat to independent shrimpers. The NFI and its lobbyists are working to make it easier for overseas shrimp to enter the US. Globalization of the economy is helping this effort, while hurting small-scale fishers.
Shrimp Industry Greenwashing