Lobstermen: Loss of sustainability label will impact sales

File photo / Laurie Schreiber The impending suspension of the Gulf of Maine lobster fishery as sustainable will affect lobstermen’s ability to sell their catch, said industry representatives.

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By Laurie Schreiber

Maine’s lobster industry said suspending the Gulf of Maine lobster fishery's sustainability certification is unwarranted and would impact sales.

On Wednesday, the London-based Marine Stewardship Council — an internationally-recognized certifying body for sustainable fisheries — said it plans to drop the sustainability certification for Gulf of Maine lobster, effective Dec. 15. It cited concerns about the fishery's impact on the right whales. The Gulf of Maine lobster fishery was first certified in December 2016.

“Not all sustainable fisheries are MSC certified; certification requires resources many fisheries lack, but certification is required by some large seafood buyers, so it affects lobstermen’s ability to sell their catch,” Luke Holden and Ben Conniff, of Luke's Lobster in Portland, said in a joint statement.

Maine Lobstermen’s Association Executive Director Patrice McCarron said the decertification “is the direct result of the federal government’s overreach and its misuse of science in overestimating risk from the Maine lobster fishery.

“The Maine lobster industry is proud of its stellar track record of right whale protections and, as MSC even indicates, science consistently shows right whales are moving further and further from our fishing grounds and into Canada and areas where numerous deaths are known to have occurred.

“This is why the MLA is working to hold the federal government accountable through our lawsuit and force them to revise their plan so that it actually protects whales without leaving Maine’s historic lobster fishery in ruins and inflicting unnecessary economic harm on our state and thousands of working families.”

The Maine Delegation and Gov. Janet Mills expressed outrage.

The decision by the Marine Stewardship Council to temporarily suspend certification of Maine’s lobster fishery “is the result of a years-long campaign from misguided environmentalist groups who seem to be hellbent on putting a proud, sustainable industry out of business without regard to the consequences of their actions,” Mills said in a joint statement also signed by U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King and U.S. Reps. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden.

The suspension was issued by MRAG Americas, an Essex, Mass., third-party assessor responsible for monitoring fisheries’ conformance with the MSC Fishery Standard.

The action means that, after Dec. 15, Gulf of Maine lobster will not be eligible to be sold as MSC certified sustainable or carry the MSC blue fish ecolabel on products.

Right whale concerns

According to MSC, the suspension came in response to concern over interactions between the fishery and the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

“Over the last decade, climate-driven shifts in habitats and food sources have impacted right whale migration patterns, contributing to more interactions between right whales, fishing gear, and shipping vessels,” MSC said in a news release.

Federal law, in the form of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act, provide for the conservation of marine mammals, including right whales.

Implementation falls under the jurisdiction of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

In 2022, a federal court ruling in the lawsuit "Center for Biological Diversity vs. Gina Raimondo Secretary of Commerce et al," found that regulations intended to reduce the risk of the Maine lobster fishery to right whales do not meet legal requirements of federal laws.

To meet the requirements of the MSC Fisheries Standard, fisheries must comply with all relevant laws.

Audit initiated

As a result, in September 2022, MRAG Americas initiated an expedited audit of the Maine lobster fishery certification to determine if the fishery still meets the requirements of the standard.

The audit concluded with the finding that as a result of the court ruling, the fishery is no longer in compliance with all relevant laws, does not meet the MSC Fisheries Standard, and therefore the certification of the Maine lobster fishery was suspended.

The Maine lobster fishery was previously suspended in August 2020 for similar reasons. The suspension was lifted in September 2021, when new rules were put in place to improve management of right whales. However, these regulatory measures were subject to legal challenge.

Contrariwise

The decision was made even though the most recent assessment by the assessor said there was no evidence that the Maine lobster fishery is responsible for entanglements or interactions with right whales.

But the fishery will remain suspended until the cause for suspension has been resolved.

“If information about NOAA Fishery’s management of right whales changes or new information becomes available, another review could occur with the potential to change the status of the certificate,” said MSC. “To prevent withdrawal from the program, and to ensure a route back to certification, the fishery must publish a corrective action plan within 90 days of the suspension demonstrating how they will address the issue.”

Zero entanglements

Holden and Conniff said the decision was due to a technicality, and called it “complex” and “conflicting.”

They pointed to an assessment completed this past spring by MRAG, which concluded that the fishery should remain certified.

“It addressed one of the biggest issues in Northeast fisheries: protecting the endangered North Atlantic right whale,” they said. “In their investigation on the Maine lobster fishery’s risk to right whales, the auditors found that Maine’s lobster fishery is highly unlikely to cause harm to right whales, mainly because of the very limited overlap between rope in the Maine fishery and right whale habitat.”

They continued, “There are no right whales in the areas where the vast majority of Maine lobstermen fish. There have been zero documented whale entanglements in Maine since 2004 and zero documented whale deaths attributed to Maine fishing gear ever.”

The pair said they would embark on a process to develop an accurate risk model to inform new rules for fisheries and areas that pose a threat to whales.

“While this process plays out, which could take two years or more, Maine lobster won’t be MSC certified, but the underlying scientific facts that show it doesn’t pose a risk have not changed, and it’s still one of the world’s most sustainable foods,” they added.

Mills and the Congressional Delegation noted that the Maine lobster fishery has always complied with National Marine Fisheries Service regulations, “and had the agency issued valid regulations, Maine’s lobster fishery would not have been in a position to lose its certification. It’s extraordinarily frustrating and incredibly unjust.”

The latest action comes just two months after Seafood Watch, which is owned and operated by the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, Calif., placed lobster caught in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank on its red list as a seafood consumers should avoid due to what it said was a risk to overfished or at-risk species, including endangered North Atlantic right whales.