Packard's Push Against British Columbia. SalmonSince 2002, the ex-vessel value of Alaskan salmon more than tripled from $125-million to $409-million in 2008.Vivian Krause special to the Financial P Mon, 31st Jan 2011 By Vivian Krause Vivian Krause, a Vancouver-based researcher and formerly involved in the salmon farming industry, takes on the Packard Foundation. After prices for Alaskan salmon began to improve, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations wrote, 'A lot of folks can take credit for the improved market for wild salmon, from the California Salmon Council and the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, to the chefs that revolted at serving farmed salmon, but the programs Packard [the David and Lucille Packard Foundation] helped fund played a big part in boosting our markets and no one in our industry should ever forget that.' Based in San Francisco, the Packard foundation is a charity created by a co-founder of tech giant Hewlett-Packard. With $5.6-billion in assets, it is the ninth-largest foundation in the U.S. and grants about $300-million per year. Since 1999, Packard has been implementing a Market Intervention strategy as part of its program for Marine Fisheries. This program has a focus on 'the U.S. Arctic,' which presumably is Alaska. Central to this program is a strategy called Seafood Choices. This strategy has three components: Certification by the Marine Stewardship Council, work with large U.S. retailers and what Packard calls 'Context Setting.' The Marine Stewardship Council was established in 1997 by the World Wildlife Fund and Unilever, one of the world's largest processed food companies. U.S. tax returns and online records show that between 2000 and 2010, Packard granted $68-million to support the Marine Stewardship Council and promote MSC-certified products, and $17-million to 'reform' the aquaculture industry by 'demarketing' farmed fish, especially B. C farmed salmon. Demarketing is reducing or shifting demand. This tactic has been used against Canadian forest products and more recently, Alberta oil. But the Canadian export that's been hardest hit is farmed salmon. As in the case of Alberta oil, a large number of the organizations that campaign against farmed salmon are funded by a single, American foundation: the Packard foundation. According to my analysis of U.S. tax returns, no less than 56 Packard-funded organizations are involved in various ways in swaying market share toward Alaskan salmon and away from the competition: imported, farmed salmon. Some organizations explicitly promote Alaskan salmon, others generically promote 'wild' salmon, 90% of which is Alaskan. Various organizations vehemently demarket farmed salmon while a pack of P.R. companies run the backstage and still other organizations, such as Tides Canada, simply channel money to the front line. Since 2000, these 56 organizations have been paid at least $815-million by the Packard foundation. Half of that ($407-million) was paid to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the mothership of the sustainable seafood movement. More than 46 million people have visited this world-famous aquarium near San Francisco. 'Farming seafood isn't the answer to saving ocean wildlife,' says a prominent wall display at the aquarium. In one fell swoop, this leading aquarium disparages growing both finfish and shellfish. Even if only 2% of Packard's millions were spent on demarketing farmed salmon, that would rival the combined budgets of all the Canadian aquaculture industry associations that have been on the receiving end of Packardfunded campaigns. In many instances, a single Packard grant exceeds the entire annual budget of some of the aquaculture trade associations. For example, in 2010 Packard paid the World Wildlife Fund $1.9-million, 'To promote market-based improvements of fisheries worldwide by harnessing and leveraging purchasing power at various points in the seafood value chain.' In 2000, Packard paid $50,000 to the Vancouver-based, Georgia Straight Alliance for 'support for the strategic planning process and related activities on salmon aquaculture.' In 2001, Packard granted $346,500 to Tides Canada 'for the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform (CAAR) and support for sustainable aquaculture in B.C.' The next year, Packard paid Tides Canada $640,000 toward startup costs for a re-granting fund. CAAR runs two programs: a demarketing campaign called 'Farmed and Dangerous,' and Wild Salmon Supporters, a program that promotes high-end restaurants that feature wild salmon. Since 2000, Packard has paid $26-million for MSC certification and $23-million to promote MSC-certified products through Seafood Choices and the sustainable seafood movement, which is heavily funded by Packard. A further $17-million has been granted to get Wal-Mart and other large U.S. retailers to preferentially sell MSC-certified products. In 2006, Wal-Mart announced that it would start sourcing only from MSCcertified fisheries. Of the initial MSCcertified fisheries from which Wal-Mart has been buying fish, 95% of the total volume is Alaskan. 'Wild caught, American bought,' says Wal-Mart's policy on sustainable seafood. Over roughly the same years that Packard paid $2.7-million for campaigns to get Safeway to stop selling farmed salmon, Packard also paid $3.5-million for the World Wildlife Fund to 'encourage' Wal-Mart to preferentially sell MSC-certified wild fish. WWF sways one large retailer towards Alaskan fish while the Farmed and Dangerous campaign and its U.S. equivalent, the Pure Salmon campaign, pressure retailers to drop the competing product. And who knew that it has all been heavily funded by a single, charitable foundation? Two of the largest fisheries certified by the MSC are Alaskan salmon and pollock. Even the Alaskans have expressed chagrin over some aspects of their own fisheries. After 130,000 prized, chinook salmon were squandered as by-catch from the MSC-certified Alaskan pollock fishery, Alaskan First Nations wrote, 'We recognize some by-catch is unavoidable, but the abuse at this point is blatant and unacceptable. Greed has overridden common sense.' Alaskan seafood processors grind and dump one billion pounds of offal and fish waste directly into the ocean every year. The killing of endangered whales as by-catch is hardly what one would expect in a fishery that is certified as sustainable. And yet, according to the Alaska Fisheries Office, endangered humpback, fin and sperm whales have been killed or seriously injured in MSCcertified Alaskan salmon and pollock fisheries. Packard says that it will continue to support the MSC to certify wild fish only, not farmed. The problem is, consumers have no way of knowing whether an uncertified product is unsustainable or whether it is uncertified merely because it is not covered by the certification program. In 2008, Alaska harvested 58 million hatchery-born, 'ocean-ranched' salmon. In comparison, B.C. harvests only 22 million farmed salmon annually. Ranched salmon are marketed as 'wild caught,' but these fish are not wild. They're hatched in a plastic tray, fed pellets and raised in tanks before they are put into the wild. Of the two ways to grow and harvest salmon, B.C.'s salmon farming is far more benign than Alaska's ocean-ranching. Farming avoids over-fishing, ghost-nets, by-catch, and the loss of genetic biodiversity due to interbreeding between Alaska's billions of hatchery salmon and the truly wild salmon. It makes no sense to tsk-tsk farmed salmon but not Alaskan ranched salmon. Since 2000, Packard has paid $23-million to SeaWeb, a Maryland-based non-profit that specializes in media relations. Of that, $11-million was for Seafood Choices. Alexandra Morton, a tireless farmed salmon 'demarketeer' and her colleagues at the University of Alberta, have or had a 'research partnership' with SeaWeb. SeaWeb has a long history of promoting Alaskan salmon. While paid handsomely to co-ordinate Seafood Choices, SeaWeb was also paid $560,000 by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to co-ordinate an 'anti-farming campaign' with 'science messages' and 'co-ordination of media for antifarming environmental organizations.' According to U.S. tax returns, the purpose of this campaign was to shift consumer and retailer demand away from farmed salmon. Through the David Suzuki Foundation, the sea lice research trumpeted by Alexandra Morton was partially funded by the Moore Foundation. Indeed, it wouldn't be easy to sway market share away from farmed salmon if the salmon farming industry was seen as benign. It would be much easier to scare consumers and retailers by depicting farmed salmon dyed, toxic, unsafe and unsustainable -- which is precisely what Packard-funded organizations have been doing. Since the 'anti-farming campaign' doesn't demarket Alaskan ranched salmon, this isn't an anti-aquaculture campaign. This is more like a 'buy American' campaign that is not overt. The only place where Packard funds a region-specific Seafood Choices program is British Columbia, ground zero for the fish farm fuss. SeaChoice, the sustainable seafood program run by the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, has been funded by Packard to the tune of $1.3-million since 2005. Between 2000 and 2004, Packard paid $1.5-million to the David Suzuki Foundation, including $762,600 for Pacific Salmon Forests, the project that produced the brochure, 'Why You Shouldn't Eat Farmed Salmon.' The third-party demarketing of farmed salmon has been a boon to Alaskan fisheries and the coastal communities whose livelihood and lifestyle hinges on market demand for wild fish. Protecting a traditional way of life is a noble pursuit, but in terms of public health, it is illogical for American foundations to demarket farmed salmon. Farmed salmon is higher in omega-3 fatty acids than almost any other fish, and very low in mercury. Harvard scientists estimate that eating fish weekly can reduce the risk of a fatal heart attack by a third. In the U.S., about eight million heart attacks occur every year. According to the American Heart Association, cardiovascular disease kills about 2,300 Americans every day and cost an estimated $504-billion in 2010.
This article was posted on Mon, 31st Jan 2011 More News Articles
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