SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD MOVEMENT
Seafood accounts for about 16 per cent of all animal protein consumed worldwide. In the quest to meet growing global demand, production of seafood has grown dramatically in the last five decades, largely as a result of rapid growth in aquaculture. But how sustainable is this boom?
Marine environments are under immense pressure from climate change, pollution and overexploitation. Fishing fleets have grown bigger, and advances in technology and equipment enable the modern industry to fish harder and further afield, threatening the viability of fish populations in the world’s oceans. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, more than 33 per cent of global fish stocks are overfished, meaning they are harvested faster than they can reproduce, and twice that number are fished to their biological limits.
Amid growing concerns about the health of our oceans and the viability of fish stocks as an enduring food source, the Sustainable Seafood Movement seeks to warn of the potential crisis looming for seafood consumers, and to improve industry practices for the long-term benefit of the environment.
SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD
In general terms, ‘seafood’ is any fish or shellfish from the sea used for food. In the present context, the word embraces edible species — finfish (especially tuna, salmon, trout, swordfish), sharks and rays, crustaceans (crabs, rock lobsters, prawns) and molluscs (abalone, mussels, oysters, scallops) — and non-edible products such as marine fats and oils, fish meal, pearl oysters and ornamental species. To be ‘sustainable’, stocks must be capable of being maintained at a steady level without exhausting natural resources
