Our oceans’ inhabitants are in trouble. 75 percent of the world’s fisheries are either fully exploited, over-exploited or have collapsed. Worldwide fishing capacity is 2.5 times larger than what the oceans are able to sustainably produce. It’s time for humans to change the way we use the ocean’s once bountiful resources, because there are no longer plenty of fish in the sea.
Fishing Gear
At least half of our seafood comes from fish farming or ‘aquaculture.’ Fish farming is an incredibly diverse industry. It can occur in open water, semi-contained or contained systems, and involve countless different species and rearing methods. Different types of fish farming also cause a wide range and intensity of environmental impacts.
SeaChoice retail partner, the Overwaitea Food Group, became the first Canadian retailer to offer a sustainable source of farmed salmon. Building on their commitment to seafood sustainability, Overwaitea positioned themselves as the exclusive North American retailer for sustainably farmed coho salmon sold under the brand SweetSpring.
The coho comes from a land-based closed containment salmon farm in Washington State that made news when it received a “Best Choice” sustainability ranking from the Monterey Bay Aquarium and SeaChoice.
Living Oceans Society is proud to help Canada’s largest sushi provider, Bento Nouveau provide ocean-friendly sushi options to Canadians from coast to coast.
Across Canada, you can find SeaChoice stickers on Bento products that identify Green and Yellow items from the SeaChoice sushi guide. Bento sells sushi in over 1,000 locations, including Canadian grocery stores, cafeterias, malls and food courts.
Closed containment aquaculture offers a viable, sustainable alternative to the environmental impacts of net pen salmon farming. The top Canadian food retailers have joined with SeaChoice to embrace this new technology by asking the government to financially support closed containment innovations.
Retail industry giants, including Overwaitea Food Group, Safeway and Loblaws have written to to Canadian government officials expressing their support for closed containment and the need for federal support of this opportunity for sustainable aquaculture development.
Living Oceans Society works to protect the ocean by improving fisheries policy and management. Sometimes, we do this by writing scientific reports: Our campaigners have co-authored How We Fish Matters, a report on the ecological impacts of Canadian fishing gears, and another on bycatch in the British Columbia trawl fishery.
One of the fastest growing sectors of the seafood market is sushi. Ranging from high end sushi bars serving up endangered bluefin to little mom and pop operations where you may not always be sure what’s in the California roll, the sushi world has some major sustainability challenges. We are seeing a shift in sushi sustainability in Canada too. Companies like Bento, Tomiyama and Tokyo Express are getting on board with SeaChoice to provide sustainable options to their customers.
Through the SeaChoice program we are working with businesses along the seafood supply chain to shift the industry towards sustainability.
Our oceans are in trouble and the seafood we eat is a major culprit. Unsustainable fishing and aquaculture threatens not only the fish and seafood we eat, but also habitat, biodiversity and food webs – the building blocks of healthy ocean ecosystems.
But our seafood choices can help rather than harm the ocean. These tools make it easy.
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