Preserving Our Oceans: Here’s How You Can Help!

Sockeye Salmon

Orange Roughy Catch

What can I do to help preserve our oceans?

This is a question we at Ocean Power Magazine are asked a lot. It is a great question, after all you may not live anywhere near an ocean, you have a day job and little spare time to spend with your family as it is. The answer may be simpler than you think. We can all help preserve the ocean by making wise choices (from sustainable fisheries) in the fish and seafood we buy and eat.

This is not as easy as it may sound due to the poor labelling of products and a lack of transparency on fish and seafood sourcing policies, but we are going to help you find the information you need to do what you can to help.

In order to help, we must first understand the problem. According to Greenpeace, between 1950 and 2005 the amount of fish harvested worldwide increased sevenfold. Today at least 75 percent of the world’s fish stocks are considered as fully exploited, overexploited or depleted. The catch method used in a fishery is one of the most important factors in determining its sustainability. For example, the practice of bottom trawling has been likened to the clear cutting of forests. Seabed ecosystems are ploughed up and a wide range of organisms are crushed in the path of the trawl or scooped up in the nets. More selective techniques, like hook-and-line, offer more sustainable methods of fishing.

Not a problem, you may say, I will only buy fish that have been produced by fish farms. Not so fast, aquaculture is not necessarily sustainable and is not the answer to over-fishing. Some of the problems associated with aquaculture which can make it sustainable are: the release of organic waste and toxic effluent into the oceans; the extraction of marine species from oceans, including vital for future stock growth, increasing the burden on wild fish stocks and having major food security implications; fishmeal and so-called ‘trash fish’ used for feed production – often the main food for local people – taken for use in aquaculture ponds; the destruction of coastal ecosystems, displacement of coastal communities and depletion of fresh water sources to build aquaculture ponds.

Is this beginning to look like an unsurmountable task that will make grocery shopping a full-time job? Don’t despair there are two excellent resources out there that will make your buying decisions considerably easier. They are the Blue Ocean Intsitute and Greenpeace. Both organizations have conducted considerable research into the sustainability of the world’s fish and seafood and have produced guides for consumers to help them choose what the Blue Ocean Institute calls “Ocean Friendly Seafood”.

The Blue Ocean Institute’s guide can be printed to fit in your wallet as an easy reference when shopping. Or you can also use their FishPhone by texting “FISH” and the species name to 30644 - you will have instant sustainability information when you need it. Ocean Power Magazine will also be adding the Blue Ocean Institute’s guide and FishPhone to our site so you can query the sustainability and health information of your favorite seafood when visiting our website.

Greepeace produces what it calls its RED LIST of seafood. This is a list of fish that are commonly sold in supermarkets around the world, which according to Greenpeace, have a very high risk of being sourced from unsustainable fisheries. Their list includes: Anglerfish, Tuna, Atlantic Cod, Sharks, Eel, Haddock, Hake, Atlantic Halibut, Greenland Halibut, Hoki, Marlin, European Plaice, Red Fish, Orange Roughy, Atlantic Salmon, Tropical Shrimp, Skates and Rays, Sole, Swordfish and Patogonian Toothfish more commnonly known as Sea Bass.

I encourage you to visit the websites of both of these organizations to further educate yourself on sustainable seafood. Consumers can make a difference. You have only to look at what happened to the Tuna Industry when the “Save the Dolphins” campaign was launched in response to the slaughter of dolphins caught in tuna nets to see the potential impact that an informed public can have. So get out there and shop responsibly and you will be helping to preserve the oceans!

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Posted by Tracey Smith on Aug 5 2009. Filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry