Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1511791
A few weeks ago, news outlets carried articles lauding the sea clean-up campaign conducted by Malta's tuna industry over the summer months. While these pieces enabled the sector to brag about the 500 kilograms of waste collected daily from the sea, they were nothing but a classic exam- ple of greenwashing. Greenwashing involves de- ceptive marketing tactics aimed at making people believe that an organisation is envi- ronmentally friendly and that its practices are sustainable. When we look at the 10,003 tonnes of tuna caught in the wild in 2021, one realises that sustainability is far from being the hallmark of Malta's fish farming industry. What many people fail to re- alise when they hear the term 'fish farm' is that bluefin tuna is not bred in a pen. It is first caught wild by means of purse seins somewhere in the Medi- terranean or eastern Atlantic, transported to Malta and fat- tened up in offshore farms be- fore being harvested and sold for a hefty profit. In the mean- time, though, the stock of wild tuna continues to be depleted as a result of overfishing prac- tices. The articles published by newspapers and other media organisations were a rework- ing of a press release distribut- ed by Aquaculture Resources Limited, the operating arm of the Federation of Malta Aqua- culture Producers. The press release was a thinly veiled at- tempt to divert attention away from the negative impact that the tuna industry's actions are having on the marine environ- ment. The press release sought to convince the public that the sector cares so much about the sea that it was willing to invest in a costly clean-up campaign. Just like the campaign it- self, the objective behind the press release was mainly that of influencing people to have a more positive view of the in- dustry's effects on the sea. This comes in the wake of a series of summers in which bathers were outraged at being unable to enjoy popular sites because of the disgusting sea slime gen- erated by fish farms. In publishing the tuna indus- try's press release, media hous- es largely adopted an unques- tioning stance. For example, the wholesale use of the self-congratulatory language that the sector em- ployed in its press release can be seen in the articles pro- duced by Lovin Malta and Mal- ta Daily. Both of them chose headlines claiming that the tuna indus- try "sets the standard" with its summer clean-up. Those familiar with the work of NGOs like Żibel and Coast is Clear, diving clubs like Atlam and Calypso, and activists like Raniero Borg have a different understanding of what setting the standard entails. Their re- lentless clean-up efforts are motivated by a genuine sense of care for the marine environ- ment rather than by a dubious need to persuade the public of green credentials. The tuna industry's press re- lease reported its spokesperson as saying that the clean-up "is not simply a reactive mission, but a committed belief in play- ing our part in ensuring the health and cleanliness of our waters". No one possessing a measure of logical reasoning is likely to be hoodwinked by such a claim. Despite the fact that the tu- na industry used the press re- lease to pat itself on the back and make some preposterous declarations about its "envi- ronmental stewardship", me- dia houses seemed incapable of doing anything but happily give it a platform from which to do so. While reworking a press re- lease is sometimes vital in ena- bling the public to engage with what an organisation might consider newsworthy, readers expect serious news outlets to avoid churnalism. This is especially so when a powerful lobby group uses a press release to mislead the public. Maybe instead of reproduc- ing a large part of the press re- lease's content verbatim (and in the case of Lovin Malta and Malta Daily even its Q and A format), news outlets could have tempered the conceited tone used by the tuna industry in making some of its outland- ish statements by weaving in a more critical stance. In this way, it would have been called out for its posturing on the is- sues of sustainable fishing and the safeguarding of Malta's marine environment. The tuna industry's greenwashing tactics 4 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 19 NOVEMBER 2023 OPINION OPINION Daniel Xerri is an educator Daniel Xerri When we look at the 10,003 tonnes of tuna caught in the wild in 2021, one realises that sustainability is far from being the hallmark of Malta's fish farming industry