Canada’s Pacific salmon industry withdraws from Marine Stewardship Council certification

There have been many headlines this year about extremely low salmon runs across B.C.

This month, Canada’s Pacific salmon industry announced that it will withdraw from Marine Stewardship Council certification rather than risk an audit with a high probability of failure.

So, what’s MSC certification? The blue checkmark of the MSC is an eco-certification awarded to seafood that can be harvested from healthy stocks, with minimal impact on marine environments. MSC is the most recognized certifier of sustainable seafood across the globe. Despite this, it is not necessarily a high bar for sustainability.

For the last decade, Raincoast has been a stakeholder in the BC salmon certification process, monitoring BC’s conditional certification.

Having an MSC certification withdrawn is an unusual event and will be widely noted internationally. It raises serious questions regarding Canada’s management of its salmon populations.

@aprilbencze