Costa Rica: Wal-Mart To Stop Selling Billfish In Central America

(The Beach Times).- Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., deemed the world’s largest public corporation by revenue by this year’s Fortune Global 500, will stop marketing billfish in its Central American stores.

Stores like Palí, Mas x Menos and Hipermás will turn more toward farmed fish, said Wal-Mart executives earlier this week, as Pacific billfish stocks like marlin and sailfish are becoming heavily depleted.

“We’re raising the theme of sustainability more and more,” the President and CEO of Wal-Mart Centroamérica, Ignacio Pérez Lizaur told media. “We’re looking at how to reduce the environmental impact that we have, for example, giving more preference to providers whose products are more environmentally-friendly.”

This, he said, will have a direct impact on other companies, creating a type of chain reaction of sustainability. With stores in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala Wal-Mart Centroamérica — which took hold of 33 per cent in the Central American Retail Holding Company (CARHCO) in 2005, and then increased its interest to 51 per cent in 2006 — is by and large Central America’s biggest retailer.

“We’re favoring aquaculture, giving preference to farm-raised fish,” continued Mr Pérez. “We have proposed to stop marketing marine species in danger of extinction such as marlin and sailfish — stopping the selling of those species of fish, in spite of the fact they were important products.”

For the sport fishing sector the decision couldn’t have come at a better time.

“I know many of the sport fishing groups are just thrilled with this,” says Todd Staley, President of the Southern Zone’s Asociación de Pesca Turistica Costarricense (APTC). “It’s the first step in an uphill climb.”

Fishing sector representatives in Costa Rica had been hounding Wal-Mart for months, explaining species of “tourist interest” are worth hundreds of times more alive than those caught and exported for food.

Yet, as of late this week, Jacó’s Mas x Menos still had sailfish and marlin stocked on ice.

“We haven’t received any notice to stop,” said the supermarket’s assistant manager, Jorge Navarro. “We’re still selling it.”

Admittedly, say fisheries experts, Costa Rica remains the biggest sailfish exporter in all of Central America.

The figures are grossly in favor of maintaining sailfish stocks, says Dr Nelson Ehrhardt, a marine biologist and fisheries professor with the University of Miami, who is spearheading billfish research with the Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR).

“The export value of one kilogram of sailfish filet is bought in the United States at $3.80 — less than $1.40 per pound,” he pointed out, adding the United States is still the world’s biggest importer of sailfish, known as pez vela in Spanish.

“I think [the Costa Rican government and sailfish exporters] would be foolish not to accept the findings and do something about it,” said Mr Staley, who added Wal-Mart’s initiative is very much a part of the corporation’s going-green campaign. “Right now we’re trying to get a meeting with [Mr Pérez], one where Dr Ehrhardt can come down and give his presentation.”

APTC representatives will also be meeting with members of the National Chamber of Tourism (CANATUR) today (Friday) to further press their case.

Source: http://thebeachtimes.com