If Sweden gets its way, Canada’s lucrative lobster industry could lose a pretty important customer -- namely, all 28 countries in the European Union.
Sweden is petitioning the EU to ban imports of live North American lobsters after 32 of the foreign crustaceans were found in Swedish waters. Swedish officials fear the larger species could breed with European lobsters, spread disease and become an invasive species.
But Canadian lobster experts -- including the Lobster Council of Canada -- have been working hard to fight those claims in hopes of protecting vital jobs for Atlantic Canada.
“It’s a very important issue that could have a dramatic impact on our lobster industry, so we’re working on it every day,” Geoff Irvine, executive director of the Lobster Council of Canada, told CTV Atlantic.
Lobstermen in the U.S. and Canada export roughly $200-million worth of lobster to European markets each year. Irvine says the Lobster Council of Canada is working closely with its American counterparts, European ambassadors and the Canadian government to keep sales open, and officials in Maine have said they plan to take the issue as far as the World Trade Organization if need be.
“We have a very aggressive advocacy strategy that we’ve been doing all summer,” Irvine said.
The proposed ban has been widely criticized by state leaders in Maine as an overreaction to less than three-dozen lobsters in Swedish waters. But Sweden's Agency for Marine and Water Management says its cautionary approach is “vital” and that the failure of North American lobsters thus far to spread throughout Europe is “no guarantee” that they won’t become invasive “in another place or time."
A University of Maine scientist cast doubt on those claims in a recent paper, arguing that North American lobsters cannot reproduce in Europe because wintertime ocean temperatures are too warm.
Fishing advocates in Nova Scotia say they’re confident that this sort of research will help bolster their case before the EU’s Scientific Forum on Invasive Alien Species.
“We feel the science is on our side, that this is not an invasive species in Europe,” said Leo Muise, executive director of the Nova Scotia Fish Packers Association.
Muise also suggested that European consumers could play a role in the debate.
“The Europeans that want to buy lobsters from Canada, they can’t be too happy that this is happening,” he said.
A spokesperson from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans told CTV Atlantic in a statement that the government stands firmly beside Canada’s lobster industry and is working to maintain and expand markets.
The EU’s Scientific Forum on Invasive Alien Species is expected to release its decision on the proposed ban on Aug. 31. If approved, a ban would later require input from the World Trade Organization.
With files from CTV Atlantic and the Associated Press
