December 13, 2016
Rough water for sustainability award
A sustainability award for orange roughy has divided Maori fishing interests and environmentalists.
Moana and Sealord chair Whaimutu Dewes says the Marine Stewardship Council certification for three of New Zealand’s orange roughy fisheries is great news for Sealord.
He says it’s an endorsement of the way the company and the rest of the industry here have gone about their business.
But Forest and Bird says any certification scheme that calls the orange roughy fishery sustainable has lost all credibility.
Katrina Goddard, the lead researcher for the society’s Best Fish Guide, says orange roughy live for more than 100 years and breed late, so they are vulnerable to overfishing.
She says bottom trawling for orange roughy destroys seafloor and seamount habitats and the fishery kills seabirds.
The fish will remain on its avoid list.
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