SeaChoice’s watchdogging of ASC leads to global impact.
Recently, the Aquaculture Stewardship Council rejected a request from SCS Global, on behalf of their client Tassal (owned by Cooke Aquaculture), to allow them to continue using seal bombs (underwater explosives that can cause hearing damage and death to seals) on their Tasmanian certified salmon farms despite the ASC’s “zero” tolerance use of such acoustic deterrent devices.
The rejection is a result of SeaChoice’s watchdogging of the ASC – demonstrating that SeaChoice’s work has global impact.
Back in 2017, SeaChoice was the first to expose that the ASC’s variance request process was being utilized to weaken standard criteria behind closed doors. The flawed process enabled farms that would otherwise not meet ASC criteria to be certified. For example, British Columbia salmon farms were exempted from sea lice limits, while Chilean and Scottish farms were allowed to exceed chemical use limits.
Heeding SeaChoice’s calls to stop approving variances behind closed doors, in 2020 the ASC revised its process to include stakeholders and technical experts.
This meant the Tassal request was put through a technical review with a public consultation that allowed stakeholders to intervene. ASC’s rejection states Tassal did not provide “credible evidence for the risk of harm caused to seals”. Meanwhile, stakeholders provided credible evidence that seal bombs, underwater explosives, can cause injuries ranging from hearing damage to death.
While the rejection was a ‘win’, the request did also unveil the limitations of certifications by way of auditors’ overreliance on evidence provided by companies.
Case in point: for nearly ten years the auditors failed to penalize Tassal, for their use of seal bombs (government documents show nearly 60,000 bombs have been used by the company, including on ASC farms, since January 2018). Audit reports dating back to 2014 reveal that auditors relied on written company declarations that Acoustic Deterrent Devices were not used on farms. Environmental groups are now calling on the auditor to suspend Tassal’s ASC farms.
You can learn more about SeaChoice’s watchdogging of certifications achievements in our five-year impact report.
