The Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) is Australia's only national charity dedicated exclusively to protecting ocean wildlife and their homes.
Adobe Stock
According to GoodFish's Check Your Tuna guide conducted by the Australian Marine Conservation Society, only one Australian canned tuna brand meets sustainability standards.
The classification criteria were: population health by species and location, bycatch impacts of the fishing method, and the accessibility of information, including labeling.
"The question we are asked most at GoodFish is, 'Which canned tuna should I buy?' and we wanted to make sure we could provide a solid answer to that," AMCS Sustainable Seafood Guide Manager Adrian Meder stated.
South Australian company SAFCOL's No Net Tuna is the only product to receive a green ranking, as all skipjack tuna populations are healthy and are caught using pole and line, resulting in minimal impact on surrounding ecosystems.
In most of the products that received an amber rating, the tuna is caught using purse seines, which can impact endangered marine species such as manta rays.
Finally, in other cases where the tuna came from both healthy and overfished areas, just one rating could not be assigned.
In contrast, AMCS Seafood Imports Lead Dr. Kimberly Riskas indicated: "We were pleased to see that every canned tuna product we examined stated the species in the can, something conspicuously missing from a lot of the seafood sold in Australia."
According to the Society, yellowfin tuna from the Indian Ocean is overfished. This is why Sirena and Aldi’s Ocean Rise tuna received mixed green/red.
Regarding this, Dr Riskas explained that nearly half of all tuna fishing efforts in the Indian Ocean between 2016 and 2021 were illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
During the 28th annual meeting of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) held in Bangkok, Thailand, Spain, and the European Union bet on reducing fish aggregating devices (FADs) to improve sustainability in tropical tuna fishing activities in the Indian Ocean.
"When importing seafood, we need to know what it is, where it came from, and how it was caught. Canned tuna is making a great start on this, and we look forward to seeing further improvements to this and all seafood sold in Australia," Dr Riskas confirmed.
The guide is based on the assessments from the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program and the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation and is independently funded.
Every year, the GoodFish team will update the rankings and expand the criteria. Additionally, the next update will include an assessment of the risks of IUU fishing, including labor abuses known to occur in tuna fleets.
"Consumers should know where their seafood is coming from so they can make informed choices. Labels on cans should include specific information: what species is in the can, where it is caught, and how," AMCS Seafood Imports Lead concluded.
