The eco-label that started it all, and why it will never go away

 But this does not mean an end for the eco-label, as consumers still want to see it on their cans of tuna, an importer told IntraFish.

“Once you’ve established it, if you then pull away from it people are going to be suspicious, so you have to be very careful,” he said.

“The Dolphin friendly thing is a bit like airbags in a car, it’s good to know it’s there but you never want to use it or hope it is going to be a problem. I think it would be a brave firm who took it off."

In order for tuna to be considered “Dolphin Safe” it must meet five particular standards.

First, there must be no intentional chasing, netting or encirclement of dolphins during an entire tuna fishing trip.

Secondly there must also be no use of drift gillnets to catch tuna or any accidental killing or serious injury to any dolphins during net sets.

And there must be no mixing of dolphin-safe and dolphin-deadly tuna in individual boat wells (for accidental kill of dolphins), or in processing or storage facilities.

Finally, each trip in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean by vessels 400 gross tons and above must have an independent observer on board attesting to the compliance with the previous points.

“At one time it was incredibly important,” Bill Fox, vice president for fisheries at the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) told IntraFish.

“In the past dolphin mortality was quite high, but it has largely had its effect. Mortality is down to about as low a level as you could minimize it now, direct mortality anyway."

Dolphins used to be a common by-catch in tuna fisheries, especially in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean, as they commonly swim with schools of yellowfin tuna.

The dolphins, which swim closer to the surface than tuna, were used as an indicator that tuna was present.

“When it first came out 20 or so years ago it was very relevant,” added the importer. “When images were coming out of dolphins being caught in drift nets...tuna sales all around the world were badly hit."

And inevitably the Earth Island Institute, which owns the label, believes the label not only continues to have a relevance today but will continue long into the future.

“We still think it’s extremely valid," said Mark Palmer, associate director of the International Marine Mammal Project at the Earth Island Institute.

"It covers more than just dolphins, it covers a variety of other bycatch issues that we’ve been involved in for a number of years, and we were the first one to bring to the attention of tuna companies so we think it is very relevant from those standpoints."

However, it is possible to argue the case to remove the label in markets such as the UK, another importer told IntraFish, as it is really only relates to yellowfin tuna stocks. Dolphins do not associate with skipjack tuna and the UK market is predominantly skipjack, he said.

However, the Earth Island Institutes's Palmer said despite this, dolphins and other species such as sea turtles and sharks -- which the dolphin safe label also covers -- are still being killed by various fishing techniques for skipjack tuna, predominantly through the use of fish aggregating devices (FADs).

"They are still killing some dolphins, not huge numbers, but there are some that are dying," Palmer said.

"There’s also the issue of bycatch of some other species through the FAD fishing that need to be addressed so we are looking at that as well."

Eastern Tropical

There has been controversy surrounding the label in the past, with the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling in May 2012 the dolphin safe label, as used in the United States, focuses too narrowly on fishing methods, and too narrowly on the Eastern Tropical Pacific, and does not address dolphin mortalities in other parts of the world.

The WTO even went as far to say that the label unnecessarily restricts trade and effectively blocks non-US suppliers from the American market.

Mexico’s tuna industry is one of the main sectors affected by the dolphin safe label and Mexican-caught fish have found it difficult to obtain the label in the past, causing US tuna brands to exclude them.

"We still have the government of Mexico fighting us tooth and nail, now with the World Trade Organization as well," said Palmer.

"They continue to kill dolphins with their fisheries as does Venezuela and Colombia, so it is still an issue in the Eastern Tropical Pacific as far as large number of dolphins being killed."

Palmer believes the number of dolphins being killed could be brought down to zero, if these fisheries "stop setting their nets on dolphins."

The controversial fisheries claim to kill about 1,000 dolphins a year, but "we think it is much higher according to National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) studies of the dolphin populations," he said.

All encompassing label

However, the only way that the dolphin safe label is likely to disappear is if some other “all embracing label” is created, an importer said.

“Why don’t they embrace with the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) for example and do something like that?” said. “Otherwise you are going to have too many eco-labels on a packet."

“If you could have one label that says 'I know it’s going to be dolphin safe, I know there is going to be no by-catch, I know it is going to be no slave labor in the factories, I know it is recyclable packages,' that is where you want to get to eventually," the importer said. "But that is a long way off, because there are too many vested interests."

According to Palmer, this is something that has already been addressed by the Earth Island Institute, and the group has already approached the MSC, looking for some sort of collaborative approach.

"We have talked with the MSC about the possibility of them adopting the Dolphin Safe standards automatically as part of their MSC standards, and they won’t do that," said Palmer.

"They have said no, they go about it in a different way. They really don’t have the kind of by-catch protections that you might think from an eco-label."

The MSC's real strength is with the issue of overfishing, said Palmer, and by-catch is very much a "secondary issue," he said.

The work surrounding the Dolphin Safe label and the Earth Island Institute is mainly funded by donations, said Palmer, with some company's contributing and some not.

However if companies want to sell tuna with the eco-label on their products they do have to pay a small fee, albeit extremely minimal.

"We get a lot [of donations] from tuna import associations and companies in the UK and Germany in particular, we also get a lot from the Thailand companies," Palmer said. "It varies considerably depending on which company and it is all on a voluntary basis, what they are willing to give us."

The company does charge for the use of their logo -- roughly one cent per case.