How to find sustainable seafood while traveling
What would you spend $1.8 million on? Certainly not a tuna – but that’s what one restaurant owner from Japan has recently done, according to this National Geographic article.
Why?
Because fish are in danger. Bluefin tuna won’t be around for much longer, so people will pay big bucks for these fish. Let’s not even start on the rumours of Mitsubishi stockpiling bluefin tuna in giant freezers waiting for extinction so that they can generate huge profits in sales.
Ok, this isn’t a new announcement. Many people are aware that fish stocks are being depleted from the oceans at an alarming rate. Here are a few facts about what this means for as divers and residents of this planet:
– Fisheries targeting previously unwanted stocks – E.g. manta rays
– Local, coastal communities struggling to feed their families
– Loss of apex and keystone species which are integral to the health of the marine ecosystem e.g. sharks, tunas and other large pelagics
– Jobs lost throughout the globe as the fishing industry collapses
On a global scale, it’s hard to pinpoint who are the main offenders for overfishing, as it depends on the stocks, but here are a few facts you might find surprising:
• In 2007 France, Italy, Spain, Malta, Portugal, Cyprus and Greece were threatened with legal action for overfishing of tuna
• Spain make the top 3 of the list of nations who catch the most sharks globally, along with India and Indonesia
• The UK, The United States and New Zealand also make the top 20
On a more local scale, particularly within SE Asia, the techniques used by local fishermen may not take dramatic sized catches, but are almost certainly more devastating to not only the fish populations, but the reefs themselves:
• Dynamite fishing
• Cyanide Fishing
• Long Line Fishing
• Drop Line Fishing
• Low Level Trawling
Things could change and we don’t have to face the future of the seas becoming a primordial soup of single cell organisms and jellyfish as stated in The End of the Line . However, this means small changes at the street level and big changes at a governmental level.
So – when you have read this visit the WWF website and download the Good Fish Guide for your country – hopefully there is one.
Next – go to the supermarket or your local fishmonger, take it with you and buy what is on the sustainable list. Also, next time you visit a restaurant that serves fish which is on the red list, why not tell them why you’re not ordering this, and say it in a loud voice as well.
Yes, you might need to get creative with some recipes and you might try some new things that you’ve never tasted before, but it’s important to let your money speak for what you believe in.
We’re lucky enough that they have created one in Bahasa Indonesian, so this makes it so much easier to discuss with our crew and to take to local merchants and suppliers. Due to the irregular availability of good, alternative protein, we aren’t able to take fish completely off the menu in Indonesia, as we have in Thailand, however, we’re going to make a concerted effort to stick within these guidelines as much as possible.
For anyone joining on our liveaboard trips in 2013, we will send you a link to this too, prior to your departure. Then wherever you visit in Indonesia you can be fully armed with information to make smart choices regarding fish and seafood.
One man can’t change the world, it’s true, but add together all these small changes and big change can come.
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