Sustainable Seafood
added 02/23/09
Healthy People, Healthy Planet
by Emily Neuman
Sustainability Coordinator
Are you finding it difficult to know which fish is “ok” to buy? This article is meant to help shoppers understand the basic issues of seafood sustainability and how to make a difference.
The issues
To put it simply, seafood sustainability depends on healthy seafood populations living within healthy ecosystems. For consumers, that means paying attention to two things at the seafood counter: source and catch method.
Source
Internationally, many fisheries have been severely depleted due increasing consumer demand for seafood worldwide. Over-fishing occurs when wild fish are harvested faster than they can reproduce. Long-lived, slow-growing fishes like Chilean seabass are particularly vulnerable to over-fishing.
Aquaculture is, in some ways, a solution to the problem of over-fishing. By providing an alternative source of seafood, aquaculture takes pressure off of wild populations. However, depending on how it is practiced, aquaculture can create its own set of environmental problems, sometimes negatively impacting the same wild populations it would otherwise protect.
Catch Method
For any given fish there could be two or three different ways that it is caught. Catch method affects two important variables: amount of by-catch and impact on habitat.
By-catch is the term used to describe animals that fishermen catch but don’t want. Although most by-catch is thrown back into the sea, the stress and physical damage to those animals is disruptive to ocean ecosystems of which they are a part and can have long-term negative effects, even when by-catch survive.
Habitat damage occurs when catch methods like trawling and dragging scrape rocks, sand, coral, and other features from the seafloor, reducing habitat for all types of sea life.
More selective fishing techniques like hook-and-line and certain types of trap fishing greatly reduce both by-catch and habitat damage.
How does a shopper choose?
With so many issues and variables to consider, few consumers can maintain anything more than a general sense of which fish are sustainable and which are not. To help all shoppers make a well-informed choice each time they purchase seafood, the Co-op uses the FishWise labeling program.
FishWise points shoppers toward sustainable choices by providing color-coded labels for the fresh seafood case: Green for Best Choice, Yellow for Good Alternative, and Red for Avoid. Each label also includes a symbol indicating catch method.
Behind the scenes, FishWise has helped the Co-op ask the right questions of its vendors so that shoppers can be assured that, when they are looking for sustainable seafood, they get what they ask for. Paul Hoffman, Assistant Merchandising Director for the Co-op, reports, “Our vendors have had to improve their diligence with their sources in order to meet our requirements for accurate sourcing and catch method information.”
The Co-op adopted the FishWise labeling system in mid-2008. Lebanon Seafood Department Manager Rob Lombardi reports that since then “customers are buying a lot smarter” when it comes to sustainability. Demand for some red-label items increased in 2008—most notably Chilean seabass and farmed salmon—but sales figures also show increasing support of green and yellow-labeled items. By switching to green and yellow-labeled seafood, Co-op shoppers reward those who fish sustainably and support the health and longevity of seafood populations worldwide.
For more information
- KidSafe Seafood —Overlaps ocean-safe with human-safe recommendations.
- Seafood Watch —Great visual and textual descriptions of catch methods, pre-eminent source for sustainable seafood information.
- FishWise —Learn about the organization that helps the Co-op label its seafood.
How Does Salmon Measure Up
Salmon is the most popular seafood item at the Co-op. How does it measure up?
- Wild-caught Alaska salmon: Best Choice (Green)
- Wild-caught Washington salmon: Good Alternative (Yellow).
- Farmed salmon: Avoid (Red)
Walking the Talk
Greenpeace recently named the Co-op a “Green Seafood Retailer.” Learn more.
What Do You Think?
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