Turning the Tide Newsletter – Spring 2024
Orange Roughy Red Alert
Three years ago, we stopped the Australian Orange Roughy Fishery from getting certification to greenwash this endangered fish as a sustainable seafood choice.
Once again this fishery is trying to gain Marine Stewardship Council certification, using recently lowered standards that allow the fishing of endangered species.
The orange roughy, found on magnificent coral sea mounts in the deep ocean, can live for over 250 years. It is endangered and suffered from overfishing and subsequent collapse in the 1990s. This major Australian fishery isn’t predicted to recover to truly sustainable target levels until after 2070.
This is the second time this fishery has sought certification from the MSC. It was our objection with WWF Australia pointing to their endangered species status that stopped the first certification from going ahead.
But MSC’s rules have changed to allow official federal conservation status to be ignored, and decide for themselves whether a fishery’s target is endangered or not. This could make it harder to protect our orange roughy but we need to ensure that no one puts endangered species on our seafood shopping lists.
