Sustainable seafood

 “Sustainable seafood options do exist. And it’s up to all of us to ensure our fisheries are managed in a sustainable fashion so we can maintain the bounty of British Columbia's seafood industry.”

Canada’s fish and ocean ecosystems face many threats. Habitat destruction, pollution, warming waters, invasive species and industrial-scale overfishing can all put the precious resources we get from the sea in danger. But whether you’re holding a restaurant menu or wheeling your shopping cart through the supermarket, some of the simplest solutions to keeping our oceans healthy are at your fingertips. You can support sustainable fisheries by making informed purchases when buying seafood.

Here are four simple things you can you do to make a difference

1. Check out one of the online guides to sustainable seafood, like SeaChoice, State of the Catch, Ocean Wise  or Seafood Watch to help inform your choices.

2. Eat locally caught, fresh seafood that shows up on the green list on the seafood guides.

3. Avoid red-listed species such as farmed salmon.

4. Ask your fish store or server about the seafood they sell.

This video will help explain how to make a difference as a consumer, and how the decisions you make can mean positive change for the seafood industry as a whole right through the supply chain, from your plate to the ocean.

Why it’s important for you to use your power as a consumer and citizen

The seafood industry is a vital part of Canada's economy and forms the basis of the social fabric of many coastal communities. In British Columbia, the commercial-fishery harvest is made up of over 80 different species of finfish, shellfish and plants from freshwater and marine environments. It's worth about $1 billion annually through fisheries, tourism, sport fishing and all the related support and supply businesses. Nationally, Canada's commercial-fishing industry is worth more than $5 billion a year and employs over 130,000 people across Atlantic, Pacific and freshwater regions. But, whether national or international, the industry faces serious threats like:

Too Few Fish

For decades, much of our favourite B.C. seafood has been harvested under the management of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) as if there were a limitless supply. Some species are gradually being fished to such low levels they are no longer viable as a commercial harvest. Others, like wild salmon, have different sized populations for each stream and so can become locally extinct in one river while still seeming to be plentiful in the ocean.

Still other species are caught inadvertently by fishing methods like bottom trawling that scoop them up with the commercially targeted species. In some fisheries, this “by-catch” accounts for over 90 per cent of the fish caught. This can have a very negative effect on the health and integrity of our marine ecosystems.

Habitat Loss

Some other fish are in trouble because they have fewer places to live and reproduce. Pollution is causing crucial ocean habitats like corals reefs to die. Toxic chemicals are killing many plants fish rely on. Human activities like the trawl fishery -- which drags heavy gear over the ocean floor -- is destroying the home of many marine species. Urban development, logging and other industrial practices are damaging or destroying wild salmon habitat.

Foreign Species

Dozens of foreign species have been introduced to Canada’s marine environment either intentionally or accidentally. Some arrived as hitchhikers, carried to Canada by foreign vessels that dump their ballast water along our coastlines. Other foreign species are introduced through the practice of aquaculture, including Pacific oysters on the Atlantic coast, Atlantic salmon on the Pacific coast and Mediterranean blue mussels and Japanese scallops. Some of these intentionally introduced species have escaped into the wild. By whatever means they were introduced, many of these new arrivals, like invasive eelgrasses and the green crab, threaten local species. They may out-compete them for food and habitat or they may carry diseases that our local species can’t fight.

Contaminated Fish

The consistent dumping of polluted wastewater into our oceans is resulting in very negative and increasingly serious consequences. Tuna, farmed salmon, swordfish, marlin and oysters are among several seafood species more likely than others to contain dangerous amounts of contaminants (like mercury, cadmium and PCBs). Check with Health Canada for the latest maximum recommended servings of these seafood choices.

Other ways you can help

You can help to ensure our marine environments and the seafood they produce are treated in a sustainable manner. Your actions will also support long-term prosperity for coastal communities and the seafood industry and provide incentives for industry and political leaders to protect marine resources.

Learn more about the seafood you like to eat. Know the threats and support steps to reverse the damage being done to species and habitat by specific fisheries and aquaculture operations. Your decisions and actions in the marketplace will help to get urgently needed fisheries-policy reforms to end overfishing and habitat-damaging practices.

Specifically, you can:

Conserve while you consume

Every food purchase you make can change seafood-consumption patterns. Raising the consumer demand for sustainable species and lowering it for those at risk is one of the easiest ways you can help protect the oceans.

Go to the source

Knowing where and when your seafood was caught and how it was processed helps you make sustainable choices. Consumers are demanding increased labelling and traceability from retailers and processors. A Seafood Market study prepared for the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries in 2004 identifies this as one of the most important trends affecting seafood markets. Learn more about them.

Find out more

Making sense of the array of seafood available in the marketplace can be a daunting task. To help you be a wiser seafood consumer the David Suzuki Foundation has teamed up with other environmental organizations to form a group called Sustainable Seafood Canada, a collective of Canadian conservation groups that includes the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, the Living Oceans Society, the Sierra Club of Canada (B.C. Chapter) and the David Suzuki Foundation.

This group has developed a new national seafood-awareness program called SeaChoice, which empowers seafood consumers and business stakeholders and users to make choices that best support sustainable fisheries. The program is based on extensive research. You can access the wealth of information provided by this program at www.seachoice.org. One of its key features is a wallet card ranking seafood by green, red or yellow choices.

Other useful sustainable seafood guides include State of the Catch , a David Suzuki Foundation document, and Seafood Watch , compiled by the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Check out these clips of Dr. David Suzuki, renowned marine scientist and University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre director Dr. Daniel Pauly, and C Restaurant chef Robert Clark as they share their views on restoring the health of Canada’s oceans and ensuring the future sustainability of our seafood industries.