"Another black eye for the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)—which is failing its own strict standards for awarding its coveted 'sustainable' label. This according to a group of researchers, whose analysis published in Biological Conservation found that 'the MSC’s principles for sustainable fishing are too lenient and discretionary, and allow for overly generous interpretation by third-party certifiers and adjudicators, which means that the MSC label may be misleading both consumers and conservation funders.'"
"The MSC was formed in 1997 by the World Wildlife Fund, one of the world's biggest environmental groups, and Unilever, one of the world's biggest seafood processors, which together wanted to provide 'the best environmental choice in seafood.' But as I've reported here, here, here, and here—and as MoJo's Tom Philpott reported recently here—the prestige of the MSC sustainable blue label has been eroded, strenuously challenged, and at times belittled by scientific assessment of the fisheries and by genetic analysis of the fish going to market."
Julia Whitty reports for Mother Jones April 12, 2013.
