Choose sustainable seafood

- Have you ever wondered how the fish on your plate got there? Was it farmed or wild caught? Did any gear accidentally catch animals other than the target species? Is the fish population considered stable or is it overfished? There are a lot of questions that could paralyze us when we choose the type of seafood we want to put on our plates. But thankfully, we have tools that help us know which seafood are harvested or farmed in ways that help keep the ocean healthy and abundant for everyone. The ocean supplies us with food. It helps regulate our climate and provides livelihoods for millions of people. We depend on it for recreation and renewal, but the bounty of our ocean is not endless. From above, it may seem that there are plenty of fish in the ocean, but diving beneath the surface tells a very different story. Today, human activities impact even the most remote parts of the ocean, overfishing, which is catching fish faster than they can reproduce, lack of effective management, and our own consumption habits are just a few factors contributing to the decline of wildfish populations. The good news is that there is much we can do. The easiest and most important thing you can do is ask this question. Do you serve sustainable seafood? Bringing up this simple, yet important question at your grocery store, restaurant, or workplace, can help shape the demand for, and ultimately, the supply of the fish that has been caught or farmed in environmentally sustainable ways. By asking this single question, you are letting that business know what you want, what's important to you, and what's your willing to pay good money for. Remember, that a business will not survive and thrive unless it's meeting and exceeding customer demand. Companies in your community play a crucial role in the conservation of ocean resources, and they listen to their customers, but how will you know if seafood is sustainable and what part can you play? You can use a seafood watch guide or free app from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The guides are updated every six months, and the app and website are updated every month. Using a stoplight approach, Seafood Watch recommendations show you which seafood items are best choices, good alternatives, and which ones you should avoid. The next time you order seafood for a company event or a lunch with colleagues, use a Seafood Watch guide, the app or seafoodwatch.org. You can also look for the Marine Stewardship Council blue ecolabel in stores and restaurants. These products are certified sustainable to the standards of the Marine Stewardship Council and they can be traced back to the certified fishery. We rely on resources from the land and ocean to provide us with food for survival. Let's make sure that our choices are helping the ecosystems we depend upon thrive. Our first step is taking the time to learn about where our food, including our seafood, comes from.