News
Improvements, but Greenpeace wants more action from Norwegian retailers
13 March 2008
Oslo, Norway—The Greenpeace league table of Norwegian retailers shows an increasing awareness of sustainability issues in the Norwegian retail sector, but there is still much work to be done in order to get the new principles put into practice.
Most Norwegian retailers have committed to phase out the selling of red-listed fish or species and to avoid seafood that has been harvested using unsustainable methods. Top ranked retailers ICA and Smartclub have already removed blue fin tuna, eel, shark, swordfish, Baltic cod and skate from sale. They have also reduced the quantity of tropical shrimps.
So far, the Norwegian fishing industry has only met sustainability requirements in the export markets, most notably to the UK and France. Greenpeace believes the new attention from the home market will bring major changes to the Norwegian fishing industry, says Frida Bengtsson of Greenpeace.
It is illustrative of the lack of Norwegian awareness of seafood sustainability issues that it was the UK industry representatives, not the Norwegian representatives, who were delivering all the speeches on sustainability at last week’s North Atlantic Seafood Forum in Oslo. It is hoped that the recent changes in the Norwegian retail market will bring significant changes to that situation.
Despite increased awareness in the Norwegian retail sector and many positive words in the new policy documents, much of it has not yet been put into practice. Greenpeace is still seeing several problematic seafood products in Norwegian supermarkets, including scampi, red fish and tuna, as well as bottom trawled plaice and Norwegian nephorps, and urges retailers to ensure rapid implementation of the new commitments.
Greenpeace requests stronger regulations in Norwegian fisheries, in particular to minimize the by-catch of threatened redfish, halibut and coastal cod in the cod fisheries.
The industry also needs to understand and to accept the need to establish large-scale marine reserves and ocean spatial planning both in coastal and high seas areas, especially to counter the negative impacts of bottom trawling.
Read the report (in Norwegian / PDF 1.6MB)
