After Oceans Week 2007 concluded, the National Fisheries Institute did what any group committed to fishing would do: ran a PR campaign. An article titled NFI Reaffirms Support for Sustainable Seafood was published that included the following:
In reality, the seafood industry is largely sustainable because of international regulatory systems for wild capture as well as aquaculture, which is part of the solution to growing global demand for healthy fish.
Huh? Sorry, how can the seafood industry be largely sustainable (recall Daniel Pauly's definitition of sustainable: things stay the same), when even FAO's less than adequate data shows that more than two-thirds of the world's fish stocks are fully or over-exploited?
Given that the NFI do not define what they mean by sustainable, the reader is left to presume the National Fisheries Institute reaffirms support for business as usual, which they are happy to label 'sustainable' or anything else that might resonate with the public (though NFI's website admits its first priority is to sustain the seafood industry).
p.s. Despite the National Fisheries Institute's misleading title, it is not a government research organization. The NFI is the nations largest lobbying firm for the seafood industry.
Reaffirming its support for sustainable seafood, the U.S. fishing industry catches 2.2 billion pounds of fisheries 'bycatch' (untargeted species that are often discarded--wasted--at sea) each year.
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