At a time when organic food and sustainable farming have become the latest buzz words and people are starting to care whether the chickens they’re buying are free range and beef cuts are from grass-fed cows, the idea of patronizing ocean-friendly seafood is also starting to gain popularity. Contrary to common knowledge, caring for the ocean is more than just about saving whales and dolphins. There are in fact a number of fish species commonly available in your neighborhood grocery stores and seafood restaurants which suffer from overfishing, pollution, and other ecological concerns. The United Nations says that 75 percent of the world’s wild fish stocks are already depleted or are recovering from depletion.

Seafood generally has two sources: open water and fish farms. To say that one is better than the other would be oversimplifying the issue. A more accurate measure of eco-friendliness is to assess the methods of how a species is caught or raised. Using trawl nets, for instance, in open water fishing is criticized for its lack of selectivity and for causing damage to the seafloor. Trawl nets produce a lot of by-catch or species which are not meant to be caught. One estimate states that four to ten pounds of by-catch are swept up for every pound of shrimp caught in the trawling method.

Farmed salmon is also rated low on the eco-friendly scale. This species is raised in heavily populated large netted pens which leak wastes and chemicals to the ocean. Salmon could also escape from the pens and pose a threat to wild fish species since it is carnivorous. In this case, conservationists say it is much better to consume wild-caught salmon.

To make sure that you’re consuming eco-friendly seafood, it is best to keep yourself informed on how your favorite fish are caught or bred. There are a lot of environmental organizations that provide summarized facts and easily digestible information on this. Some provide convenient cheat sheets and cards while others feature downloadable data that can be stored on your PDAs and mobile phones. To make it easier for consumers, species of seafood are grouped into eco-good and eco-bad or rated on a scale of eco-friendliness.

It is also important for consumers to ask the right questions when buying seafood at the fishmonger or ordering at a seafood restaurant. You should ask if the fish were wild-caught or farm-raised, what region they came from, and what methods were used in catching or raising them. You can also specifically request for seafood which were produced in eco-friendly conditions. These actions will send a message to your seafood provider that you, and hopefully other consumers as well, care about the ecological aspect of the products you’re buying and it would at least get them to think about providing more eco-friendly choices.

Some seafood products already have eco-labels such as the dolphin-safe tuna which means that the fish were caught without harming dolphins in the process. Eco-labeling is still not universal though and with a loose standards on defining what is organic, an “organic” seal on your shrimp doesn’t automatically mean that they were caught through eco-friendly and sustainable means. As of now, the eco-label of the Marine Stewardship Council for wild-caught species has the largest reach and meets the UN standards for eco-labeling. There are various certifications for farm-raised fish but you still have to probe beyond the labels to find out if these supposedly organic seafood are indeed eco-friendly.

Admittedly, making a choice to consume eco-friendly seafood requires a lot of effort. But as people become more aware of such concepts as sustainability and ecological balance, we could hopefully muster the political will to introduce reforms in the seafood production industry.

By: Kristien Wilkinson

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