Go Greener, Australia

Recently I bought a copy of Australia’s Sustainable Seafood Guide from the Australian Marine Conservation Society. Julian Lee mentioned it in his book How Good Are You (reviewed by me in March), going into details about the problems with fisheries in Australia and around the world.

Over 75% of the world’s fisheries are overfished - that is, when there aren’t enough fish left to support a viable population, or when it becomes unprofitable. I can’t say that I care much about the profits of companies who are too greedy to maintain a source of income, but I do worry about the loss to biodiversity, and overfishing can lead to collapses of ocean food chains. 90% of the big predatory fish - like bluefin tuna, swordfish and sharks - are gone already. I don’t want to let this go on the way it has been.

Realistic restrictions on how much fishing can be done on a species or area would be helpful, and so would marine parks (networked so fish could migrate between them). The AMCS works towards these goals, among other things. You can help by donating to them, and also by buying one of their seafood guides and using it to help you choose which types of fish are ok to buy.

I got the small guide pack, which includes two pocket guides to what sort of fish are sustainably managed, and one larger guide with more detail. There are other packs available, with more of the smaller guides so you can give them to friends.

The small wallet-sized guides are a simple listing of common fish found in supermarkets and fishmongers around Australia, coded red, orange or green depending on how overfished they are. The red stands for “Say No”, the orange for “Think Twice”, and the green for “Better Choice”.

The larger guide has the same information, only with more detail and habitat maps. It then goes on to explain the different methods of fishing and their environmental impact, and tells you how you can ask your shop about where they got their fish from.

It also explains the need for better fish labelling: at the moment, you’ve got no guarantee that the fish you buy is what it says on the sign or packet, no idea how it was fished, and no idea which company did the fishing. If consumers had this information, we could use our purchasing power to avoid overfished species, and reward the businesses which are doing the right thing.

Before I got this guide, I was almost ready to give up eating fish altogether. As it is, I think I’ll be seriously cutting back: I’m not going to buy any fish, either from a shop or a restaurant, unless I know that it was sustainably fished. This is a bit sad for me, because I do love to eat fish, and some of my favourites are on the “Say No” list, but I think it’s too important an issue to let my tastebuds decide. I’m going to try to find the “Better Choice” species and give them a try instead - hopefully I will find some new favourites! If this sounds like something you could do, check out the Australian Marine Conservation Society website and pick up a copy of the guide.