Will the problem be solved if we just keep eating? A critical analysis of the Marine Stewardship Council as a response to the overfishing issue

The overfishing crisis has become increasingly severe during recent decades, and there is an enormous urgency in putting an end to the depletion of fish stocks globally. With neoliberalism, market-based instruments to govern fisheries have gained importance, and the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) ecolabel has become the most influential certification system for capture fisheries. This paper attempts to analyse the effectiveness of the MSC when it comes to reducing overfishing. Based on political economy and degrowth theories I argue that to get to terms with the issue of overfishing, fish consumption needs to reduce, and seeing the uneven consumption and production patterns globally any viable solution must also work towards redistribution. I furthermore analyse to what extent the MSC addresses the need for redistribution and reduced consumption, and argue that its strategies and standards do not consider these issues sufficiently and may instead reproduce them. Based on this I argue that while the MSC may have localised effects on specific fisheries and indirect consequences in the shape of increasing awareness about the overfishing crisis, the label’s reliance on a neoliberal scope of action constrains its abilities to address some of the core issues within the overfishing problematic.