The Coalition for Fair Fisheries Arrangement (CFFA) said it has doubts regarding the credibility of a recent report showcasing the progress made by the small pelagics fishery improvement program (FIP) in Mauritania.
The CFFA describes itself as a platform of NGOs based in Brussels, Belgium, that “documents the development and environmental impacts of European Union, African, Caribbean, and Pacific states’ fisheries relations on small-scale fishing communities.”
The CFFA’s concerns came after French multinational company Olvea Group announced it was awarded an “A grade” by the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) in recognition of its work on the FIP in Mauritania’s reduction fishery, which is dominated by foreign companies engaged in turning small-pelagic fish like sardinella caught in the West African country’s waters into fishmeal and fish oil.
The coalition raised its doubts in a blog post covering the reported improvements from the Mauritania FIP, which it claims was based on feedback and data by foreign fish oil and fishmeal companies involved in funding the FIP and in the industry. The Mauritania FIP, the CFFA said, is being financed by 11 companies – among them Olvea; Royal Canin, a global pet food company based in France; Cargill, the agribusiness giant that uses fishmeal for fertilizers and feeding intensively reared animals; and Norway’s Skretting, one of the world’s leading producers of aquafeed for salmon farms.
The companies have signed up for the Mauritania FIP in order to obtain MarinTrust eco-label certification, the CFFA said. But “none of the positive sustainability claims are true” for the Mauritania FIP, it said.