Your Seafood Guide, Please Keep It Safe: A Must-Read for Those Who Love the Ocean and Seafood

This article is the "Seafood Guide" written by Shao Guangzhao, Chief Executive Officer of the Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica (original text compiled on 2010/12/19, revised by Liao Yunzhi on 2011/12/15). In order to save the increasingly depleted fishery resources, before enjoying seafood delicacies, please first refer to the purchasing principles in this guide and work together to protect the ocean. Key excerpts are published below; please click here to read the full text.

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Text/Shao Guangzhao

Seafood Guides Around the World http://www.seafoodguide.mobi

To save increasingly depleted fishery resources, the main methods are fishing restrictions and restoration. Fishing restrictions include: (1) input management (restrictions on time, place, fishing method, and vessels); (2) output management (quantity, size, efficiency, catch); (3) integrated management (quotas, such as responsible fisheries). Designating marine protected areas or reserves (no-fishing zones) is in fact the simplest, most economical, and most effective method of restricting fishing and restoring resources, better than the still-controversial deployment of artificial fish reefs and the release of fry, whose effectiveness is difficult to evaluate.

However, because "fishing restrictions" or "slow fishing" are often thought to affect many people's livelihoods, they are not easy to promote, and the designation and effective management of MPAs has not met expectations. Therefore, in recent years conservation groups have begun actively promoting "eco-labeling" systems, hoping to start with consumers themselves, buying the right fish and eating the right fish according to "seafood guides," encouraging people to eat only sustainable "green seafood," including movements such as "bottom-feeding" and "vegetarianism," strengthening education and outreach on marine conservation, and hoping that everyone can help marine conservation in daily life.

In fact, the decisions consumers make when shopping in supermarkets and dining in restaurants have a direct impact on marine biodiversity. This is because only a small portion of the aquatic products we currently buy conform to sustainable principles. But as public pressure emerges, the situation should gradually improve. Therefore, consumers should also become aware, because after all, "no buying, no killing."

The world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart, has planned starting in 2011 to sell only fish certified as conservation-compliant by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). The leading brand of fish fillets, "Birds Eye," currently also sources two-thirds of its fish products in line with sustainable standards. Fast-food leader McDonald's uses only sustainably sourced and sustainably fished Alaska pollock, among others, in its Filet-O-Fish (pollock burger).

Nineteen countries around the world have already produced seafood guides for their own countries and placed them on the global seafood guide website for reference. The website is http://www.seafoodguide.mobi. This website is specially designed for mobile internet access and divides seafood products into three major categories: recommended not to eat, think carefully before eating, and recommended to eat. Diners can use their mobile phones to check suitable seafood in the country or region they are in when ordering in a restaurant.
On the right is the global seafood guide website. Readers can directly click on the flag icon of the country they are in, then click on the fish name, and next there will be three icons respectively indicating:

Further Reading

Sylvia A. Earle (2004), translated by Wang Weifen (2008), "The World Is Blue: How Our Fate and the Ocean's Are One" (Action Agenda), Wunan Publishing House
Taras Grescoe (2008), translated by Chen Xinhong (2009), "Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood" (The Delicious Elegy of Seafood: A Gourmand's Global Action), China Times Publishing
Shao Guangzhao (2000), "Blue Movement: Reclaiming Taiwan's Marine Life," Linking Publishing