Bondi Rescue Lifeguards holding tuna. Greenpeace is aiming to up the pressure on major retailers. (Photo: Greenpeace/Amendolia / Michael Amendolia )

Greenpeace releases new Canned Tuna Guide

AUSTRALIA
Thursday, July 15, 2010, 02:20 (GMT + 9)

International environmental group Greenpeace has unveiled its new Canned Tuna Guide to keep fighting overfishing. It reveals which tuna brands are safe to buy and which brands still source overfished species or use destructive fishing techniques.

This is an effort to hold tuna brands accountable for selling unsustainable tuna to the public. Demand has been shifting as better educated consumers make more sustainable choices when food shopping.

Canned tuna Sustainability Score (Graph: Greenpeace)

Since the beginning of Greenpeace’s first tuna ranking four months ago, Australian tuna brands have started to make ecologically sound progress. For the first time, Australians can now purchase a sustainable canned tuna brand: Fish 4 Ever, which ranked highest on the tuna guide at 86 per cent.

Fish 4 Ever uses pole and line fishing to source its entire range of tuna. It still sells overfished yellowfin tuna for 25 per cent of its range, but has vowed to move to 100 per cent skipjack tuna, the sustainable alternative.

Aldi, with a 57 per cent ranking, is the first supermarket to tout a sustainable seafood policy available online and to show support for marine reserves by not sourcing its fish from proposed Pacific high seas marine reserves. It has also publicly committed to halting the use of destructive Fish Aggregation Devices (FADs) fishing in its tuna range, which produces the bycatch of turtles, sharks and juveline tuna.

Independent retail supermarket group IGA got a 47 per cent ranking for also having introduced a sustainable seafood policy for its suppliers, while still catching its home brand Black and Gold tuna ranges with huge nets and FADs. The tuna used, however, is sustainable skipjack.

IGA has begun labelling its tuna cans to inform consumers which tuna species it sells and where it was fished.

“Before the guide came out, most people didn’t know where their tuna came from, or that turtles, sharks and juvenile tuna get killed in tuna nets,” said Greenpeace oceans campaigner Genevieve Quirk. “Since then, thousands of people have written outraged emails demanding that the tuna companies behind these brands clean up their act, and they’ve listened.”

IGA supermarkets and independent stores have also started stocking Fish 4 Ever.

“We became aware of the issues surrounding overfishing five years ago and wanted to offer Australians a sustainable option,” said Sandy Abram, Co-Founder of First Ray and distributor of Fish 4 Ever.

Related article:

- Greenpeace exposes supermarkets selling overfished tuna

By Natalia Real
[email protected]
www.seafood.media

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