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Vietnam should drag WWF to WTO over catfish: Academic
Vietnam could take the World Wide Fund for Nature to the WTO for putting its catfish on a red list if it refuses to cooperate and “correct its mistake” in advising European consumers to look for alternative seafood, Prof Vo Tong Xuan, former rector of An Giang University, said.
He told Tuoi Tre that the WWF’s action in moving Vietnamese tra catfish from the yellow list (Products that can be considered for use) to the red list in its 2010-2011 guidance manual for consumers in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Norway, and Demark, lacks a scientific foundation.
The WWF assessed Vietnamese tra based on an environmental report made by the Netherlands’ Wagenningen University in 2009. Since the data must have been collected a year earlier, it would have been out-of-date, he said.
This could be a ploy aimed to damage the prestige and reduce the competitiveness of tra products in Europe, and so is completely contrary to the provisions of the World Trade Organization, he said.
So Vietnam should demand that the WWF cooperates by launching a study with the participation of farmers and processors in the Mekong Delta, he added.
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