Seafood,
in my opinion, is the best food ever. It’s healthy, it's fresh, it's delicious... Until I saw these pictures: Maybe you’ve also seen some recent documentaries on the fishing industry. If you didn’t, this is the gist: “We are at war with the oceans and if we win this war we’re going to lose it all because mankind is not able
to live on this planet with a dead sea.” Well, I got terrified. What have I done with all of the fish and chips and sushi and shrimps and oysters that I’ve eaten all along?! Is there still any
kind of seafood that I can eat without feeling like I'm responsible
for destroying entire ecosystems? And which type
should I just avoid in general? Well, it got so much
messier than I thought it would. "Do you know
where this [salmon] is from?" Let me break it down for you. After the whole debate about meat
and dairy farming and its consequences, seafood has come under greater scrutiny. Global prodution of seafood has quadrupled over the past 50 years. While artisinal and subsistance fishing used to be the norm, industrial grade wild capture has dominated over the past decades. The UN estimates a third
of all seafood might be overfished. We’re emptying the oceans
at an alarming rate, and not only that – the way we fish endangers other
marine animals and entire ecosystems. Seafood sustainability
is a very touchy subject. Everybody I spoke to said:
“You know how complicated seafood is.” But I found out there is some seafood you can eat with
a relatively good conscience if you follow some rules of thumb. The first question you need to ask
yourself sort if you're buying seafood is: Is this species endangered or not? For some it’s super clear-cut. "So if you can avoid bluefin tuna in
sushi restaurants and other places, please do. And the second is another species
most commonly eaten in sushi, which is unagi. There are many different species within that category, many different types of eel. But for them, for the vast
majority of them, they are in bad straits. And I recommend you do not eat them." That’s Ryan Bigelow, who has been working for the database Seafood Watch for over 10 years. Greenpeace has a red list of fish
– fish in the wild that are endangered – all the resources I mention
you can find in the description box below. This is a quite a blanket list. If you want to dig into exactly
which fish stock is endangered where, you can turn to data
bases for more precise information. One of the best known
is the Seafood Watch program. It scientifically assesses
and lists thousands of species and their sustainability status. "Our recommendations are
very, very specific to types of fisheries. How healthy is this population of this fish if you're trying to catch a tuna, how many of those tuna are left? Are you catching sharks
or catching things you don't want? Are you impacting
that natural environment? Are there rules in
place to protect those species? There is quite a bit of difference
depending on how and where it's caught." So let’s talk about
how these fish are caught. Fishing methods using large, industrial grade
gear in marine environments often cause the most damage. Number one is bottom trawling, where huge nets the height of buildings and the length of football fields scour the ocean floor,
causing vast amounts of bycatch – catching and killing other,
non-target fish and endangered animals. This often happens when fishing
for bottom-dwelling fish like hake or flounder. It also harms sea beds. This is what the seabed looked
like before – and after bottom trawling. Number two is longline fishing, which targets
big species like tuna or swordfish. These lines can be miles long
and have thousands of hooks, causing – again – bycatch. Depending on where you live,
you can get information on fishing methods on the packaging. "So of course from
a fishery sustainability point of view, we would absolutely benefit
from having more selective gear." This is Minna Epps, who is responsible for the protection of marine and polar environments at the IUCN and has previously worked for the Marine Stewardship Council. More selective means targeting
the species you want more accurately – like rod and reel fishing,
or harpooning, or cast nets. You can also use special hooks
in longlining called circle hooks - that don’t immediately kill
non-targeted fish or other marine animals. This doesn’t mean you never can
eat fish that’s caught with a long line – that’s what the
detailed seafood guides are for – it’s just information
that you can take into account when you want
to eat big, wild-caught fish. So what about
farmed fish – like this salmon? Catching wild fish used to be the dominant way to get to fish. But Aquaculture seafood production has recently overtaken wild catch, its growth accelerated mostly by farms in China, India and Indonesia. But farming big fish
in open pens in marine environments has its own host of problems. Many farmed fish
like salmon are mostly carnivores – meaning they need to be fed fish. Estimates vary, but around
ten to twenty percent of all wild-caught fish may have been
used to feed farmed seafood. On top of that,
if the fish farms are not managed well, pesticides, antibiotics,
food waste as well as fish excrement can poison the environment. The spread of diseases to and
from wild populations, as well as parasites are also major problems. But omnivorous fish –
like tilapia, carp, catfish or pangasius can, if managed well –
be farmed more sustainably. They can eat plant-based feed and
can be farmed in bigger ponds or lakes in a more natural environment. But sustainable
management is still the exception in emerging and developing countries
where aquaculture is concentrated. The most sustainable form
of aquaculture is shellfish farming – like mussels, oysters or clams. They require little feed, filter
the water and are very fast-growing. So if you want to be on the safe
side, that’s the farmed seafood to go for. With one exception: Farmed shrimp and prawn – a lot of which contributes
massively to environmental degradation, not to mention social injustice. "I know that a large percentage,
if not most shrimp is red rated and the industry
has some serious problems." One way, we are told,
that we can make sure that the food we eat is not
responsible for all of these problems – is to look out for certifications. There is the Marine
Stewardship Council label – MSC – long seen as the gold standard
of sustainable wild-caught seafood. Then there’s the aquaculture
Stewardship Council label – ASC. Or the dolphin safe tuna label. Let’s have a look at the MSC. It is the most widely
accepted certification, covering about 15 percent of the market. This one's particular
interesting, so it has a MSC label and it even says it's a 100% sustainable. But it's caught with bottom-trawling. How does that go together? Basically. "We don't consider only the gear type to determine whether or not sustainability is possible, any fishery
will have some level of impact." This is Michael Mariott, MSC program manager
for Africa, Middle East and South Asia. "The question is whether
or not that impact can be managed within tolerable limits." The MSC looks at three principles: Whether the targeted stock is overfished, what impact the fishing has on the wider ecosystem, and the strength of the fisheries management. But the MSC has seen criticism – for example for certifying fisheries
with a high percentage of bycatch. "When these fisheries have bycatch, maybe they may need to report it, but they can just throw it
overboard without anyone noticing it." This is Frank Wijen, who co-authored a study
on the controversy surrounding the Marine Stewardship Council. "There have been
observations that several adopters did not scrupulously
comply with MSC arrangements." "We don't expect
fisheries to have zero bycatch. I think that would be unrealistic
for most, if not all, commercial fishing. But MSC certified fisheries are
expected to provide evidence that they're reducing, that they are
mitigating their bycatch impacts." So that means –
if you have the MSC label, you can’t always
be sure it’s really sustainable. But in more cases than not,
it is better than a non-certified seafood. At least if you are in the
North American or European region. There are many regional labels
that have good standards – but also labels that are given by the industry,
without any independent certification. So read up if you
want to make sure they mean anything. Ok I know this a hell of a lot to process. Labels can be good, but they are not always. Food produced in aquaculture
can be good but not always. And to be honest, a lot of this
information is quite hard to come by if you're an average consumer. Especially if you’re
not cooking from scratch. So here are some rules
of thumb that the experts gave me. "If you want to minimize the impact
or the pressure on the ocean it's also to diversify, it's to eat from a broader palette." "If you can be more adventurous in
your seafood consumption, that's a good thing. Work some shellfish in your diet, try a sustainable
source of tilapia or another farmed fish. There's a lot of
other good seafood out there. We just have to expand our horizons." Eating smaller fish
that repopulate faster like anchovies, sardines or small
mackerels that are fished sustainably rather than only eating the bigger fish is a way to take some pressure
off the bigger, popular species. "Just asking where your fish comes from. It actually shows that you care
whether you're in a restaurant or in a shop." "When I go to
a restaurant and they don't know, that's a red flag. They should
know a little bit of information. If there is a good vegetarian option, go for that, if not, get the fish and do a
little more research before you go out next time." "Do you know where [the salmon] is from?
Is it raised in aquaculture?" So they didn’t
know where the fish was from. They said the tuna may be bluefin
tuna, so I stayed far away from that. I got something vegetarian. Very good! "Sometimes the unintended effect of using
standards could be that we think that, oh, sustainability has been
covered so I can eat as much as I like. But it surely should not be a sort of a
free ticket towards consuming as much as you would like to consume." Some suggest that the only
way to go is to eat no seafood at all. And that's a powerful option. But it's not viable for vast
parts of the world’s population who rely on it for
food security or for their income. The much bigger
problem is the overconsumption of seafood in the global north. For those of us who are
lucky enough to pick and choose – eating less seafood and caring
more about where it comes from is a step in the right direction. So this whole story
got so much more complicated than I thought it would. Did this help you decide what to eat? What else would you like
to know about eating sustainably? Pleas let us know in the comments.
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