Worldwatch Paper #172: Catch of the Day: Choosing Seafood for Healthier Oceans
November 2006
Brian Halweil
ISBN: 1-878071-80-7
75 pages
In Catch of the Day: Choosing Seafood for Healthier Oceans, senior researcher Brian Halweil explores how buyers of seafood—including individual consumers, school cafeterias, supermarket chains, and large food distributors—can reverse fishery declines and preserve the fresh catch of tomorrow.
At a time when global fishing regulations have proven ineffective in protecting fish populations, Catch of the Day is a refreshing reminder that we are not doomed to face an ocean wasteland "inhabited primarily by sea slime and jellyfish." Rather, a public that better understands the state of the world's oceans can be a driving force in helping governments pass legislation to ban destructive fishing, mandate seafood labels, decrease consumption of endangered fish, and create sustainable marine preserves.
Catch of the Day shows that being a more deliberate seafood eater doesn't mean a spartan existence; in fact, it could be the only guarantee that fresh and healthy fish continues to appear on our tables.
Click here to view the cover, summary, index, and chapter samples for Catch of the Day: Choosing Seafood for Healthier Oceans.
Summary
At a time when international treaties, restrictive quotas, and
global regulation of fleets have proven ineffective in protecting beleaguered fish populations, a surprising ally is emerging to tackle the growing fisheries crisis. Buyers of
seafood—including individual consumers, school cafeterias,
supermarket chains, and large food processors—are choosing
to avoid threatened or problematic species in favor of fish that
are caught or raised with less impact on the world’s oceans.
While some seafood lovers are concerned about guaranteeing
the future availability of popular fish, others wish to preserve
the quality of today’s seafood by knowing more about how and
where it is caught. As more of our daily food options originate
in factories, fish remains the last wild food we consume in large
quantities and one of our few remaining direct connections to
the natural world...
New Hope for Old Victims
It’s hard to think of sharks as victims. But that’s what
they’ve become. From tiny cigar sharks that fit in the palm
of your hand to massive whale sharks that are the largest fish
in the sea and can grow to 15 meters long, the more than 350
species of sharks that swim along shores, patrol reefs, and dwell
in deep ocean expanses have one thing in common: they are
all doomed...
The Shifting Baseline
In 1995, Daniel Pauly, a fisheries scientist and head of the
Sea Around Us Project at the University of British Columbia, wrote a one-page essay describing just how little we
really know about the severity of fishery depletions. He
coined the term “shifting baseline” to capture the idea that
each generation of fishers and marine scientists assumes that
the number of fish in the sea during their lifetimes is the norm,
or the baseline. This short-term thinking leads to a form of
collective delusion in which analysts tend to ignore historic
fish populations that could have been many times as great.
“What they learn is what is current in their generation,”
Pauly concludes. “They don’t learn how things compare to
the past.”...
Making Better Choices
In 1998, a newly formed group called the Blue Ocean Institute developed its landmark color-coded “Guide to Ocean
Friendly Seafood.” Using a rainbow of fish categories that
faded from bright green (farmed shellfish, Alaska salmon,
and other relatively abundant fish caught through safe methods) to red (Chilean sea bass, caviar, bottom-trawled cod,
and other products that are endangered or harvested with
destructive gear), it was the first in a series of easy-reference
seafood guides for shoppers and diners. A long, narrow strip
of paper designed to fold up and fit into a wallet, the list was
one of the earliest efforts to position commercial fish, generally seen as commodities for eating, as important forms of biodiversity that play key roles in ocean stability. “Now, there are
lots of folks doing it,” says Carl Safina, president of Blue
Ocean...
When the Fisher Is the Eater
In much of the world, the people who catch the fish are the
same ones who consume it. Roughly one billion people in
Africa and Asia depend on seafood as their main source of protein. For many of them, who are too poor to purchase fish,
the main seafood choice is not whether it’s red or green coded, but whether there’s any to catch at all. In such cases,
the collapse of a fish population eliminates both a livelihood
and a direct source of sustenance...
Beyond Fillets
In January 2006, the Seafood Choices Alliance, a global trade
association devoted to increasing the supply of “ocean
friendly” seafood, organized a seafood summit in Seattle. The
meeting brought together a diverse group of people, including
those who sell fish (fishers, food companies, restaurant chains),
and those who speak for the fish (marine conservation groups).
“Here’s the reality,” said Mike Boots, head of the Alliance, in his
welcoming speech. “Fish consumption continues to rise. And
the number of certified choices is rising rapidly.”...
Beyond Fishing
People don’t only influence the oceans when they eat
seafood. Years ago, that became clear to a Japanese oyster
farmer named Shigeatsu Hatkeyama, who lives along Kesennuma Bay on the northeastern coast of Japan’s largest island,
Honshu. He noticed that as more of the forests near his fishing ground were cut down, the shellfish beds he depended on
were beginning to suffer. When it rained, instead of the intact
forest holding down the soil and allowing the water to percolate
slowly to the sea, the water rushed towards the ocean, carrying with it a soup of agricultural chemicals and roadway
runoff. To tackle the problem, Hatkeyama organized a group
called “Friends of the Oyster-Nurturing Forest” and initiated
tree-planting activity...
