Dear Greenpeace USA,

We are in receipt of your petition, and are responding on behalf of member companies Bumble Bee, Chicken of the Sea, and StarKist. We’ve reviewed your petition and attached letter and have found several inaccurate aspects and outright misinformation that we would appreciate you address.

While we always welcome feedback from consumers, it does concern us that some of the petition’s signatories appear to come from communities of questionable provenance like “Jerrabomberra, North Carolina”. It is our sincere hope that you have vetted and authenticated this list before delivery.

Additionally, your signatories deserve to know your claim that our member companies “refuse to source from more [sic] sustainable fishing methods” is false. We have worked for years with the scientists, ocean experts, industry leaders, and environmental champions at the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) to craft effective, enforceable, and verifiable sustainability practices. Bycatch rates are at historic lows and the majority of our fisheries are healthy, but we are constantly looking for ways to advance our efforts.

By contrast, Greenpeace USA has never conducted a single environmental impact study of its preferred catch methods, which, signatories should know, would have a carbon impact orders of magnitude larger than current practices. Nor has Greenpeace attempted to empirically study the effect on consumers of the considerable cost increases implied by its favored approach. Perhaps this lack of scientific rigor is due to the fact that your current seafood campaign lead has no expertise, scientific or otherwise, in marine fisheries, and is a political organizer by trade.

You have been invited to educate yourselves on the realities of tuna sustainability by joining the ISSF Environmental Stakeholder Committee, an invitation that you have so far refused for over 1400 days.

What’s more, your signatories should also know that the accusation that our member companies are complicit in “unsafe working conditions and other human rights concerns” is an unfortunate and unsubstantiated smear, designed to elicit a hyperbolic and visceral response as opposed to foster actual dialogue about tuna sustainability. Our companies do not tolerate labor abuses or unfair practices in their companies and or among their suppliers and partners, and have Code of Conducts in place that protect the fair treatment of their workers.

We hope that you will reach out to the petition’s actual and verified signatories—and share these facts.

Gavin Gibbons

Vice President, Communications

National Fisheries Institute