Switch to Sustainable Seafood!
Think Sustainable Seafood
Hi, my name is Tara McCracken. I am a college student at Eckerd College, majoring in Environmental Studies. After spending my summer/pandemic lockdown watching and herding cows back into the paddocks they just broke out from, I kept hearing the term “grass-fed beef” and wondered: Are there grass-fed fish? Of course, fish can’t graze on grass as cows can, but that’s how I found out about Sustainable Seafood.
Right now, we have an issue, since “Ninety percent of fish populations are currently fished at, or beyond, their sustainable limits” (Monterey Bay Aquarium, 1999). Sustainable seafood balances the consumption of seafood by people and the production of seafood by fisheries/farms sustainably.
When I analyzed the media on sustainable seafood, this is what I found. First, it focuses on what's good for the ocean and secondly, on what’s good for people, BUT barely mentions the fisheries! Articles discuss how other marine animals and habitats could be damaged from unsustainable fishing and how to save it, making it newsworthy due to its emotional appeal (Cox & Pezzulo, 2016). Second, I discovered that if a person wants to choose a sustainable fish (to either save the ocean or health reasons), the decision is pretty complicated. There are apps available to consumers (I recommend the Seafood Watch created by The Monterey Bay Aquarium), but there is so much information that even these are not that simple to use. Finally, when the media ignores fisheries, it's excluding a key stakeholder since they “have a real or discernible interest in the outcome” (Cox & Pezzullo, 2016) because they care about their fishing communities. By ignoring fisheries and farms, the media coverage lacks balance and objectivity since all sides of the story are not being reported.
(For a better resolution of this Educational Advocacy Campaign, click here)
ALERT
To alert my target audience, which is “this simple act of naming, alerting or notifying people of an environmental concern or problem” (Cox & Pezzullo, 2016), I created the first infographic as an overview. It explains the importance of seafood as a food source and why we should go sustainable, current problems facing the seafood industry, and the three “stakeholder” perspectives when buying sustainable seafood: ocean (or fish!), people, and fisheries. As mentioned earlier, the Seafood Watch is very helpful when buying groceries or ordering food in a restaurant since you can download it right to your phone! But also check out this Seafood Selector guide from the EDF. Last, pay attention to the specific labels found on seafood options! The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) label is for sustainably caught wild fish, and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) label is for sustainably farmed fish. To learn more about these labels, check out The MSC Fisheries Standard.
(For a better resolution of this infographic, click here)
AMPLIFY
To amplify the message, or to “increase the number of people who come into contact with your message” (Cox & Pezzullo, 2016), I create two infographics.
First, I ask “What Can I Do?” Most importantly, everyone should ask stores and restaurants: “is this fish sustainable?” I give some tips on how to choose a sustainable fish, list details about the top 5 consumed fish in the U.S while highlighting the BEST and WORST choices based on whether they are low in mercury and high in Omega 3 for consumers to eat. I also checked if the fish was environmentally sustainable and good for marine life based on their eco-rating, finding that the lower the environmental impact is for the fish, the higher the rating. I show a few popular grocery stores that ONLY stock their fish from sustainable fisheries. Read this to find out why Whole Foods Market is currently ranked first for seafood sustainability! If more people request sustainable seafood, this forces fisheries/farms to meet standards and get certified. Click this if you would like to see The Smart Seafood Buying Guide from the National Resources Defense Council.
(For a better resolution of this infographic, click here)
Second, I ask “What Can Fisheries, Farms & Governments Do?” Fisheries, government agencies, and NGOs can work together to make the management of fisheries and farms better which can help address the challenges facing the seafood industry like overfishing, habitat damage, and bycatch. Governments may help fisheries to buy “SMART BOATS” that equip boats with sensor technology to help fishermen work more efficiently and reduce habitat impact and use artificial intelligence to monitor fishing vessels. Another solution is to set science-based catch shares to determine how to balance fish population growth and allow fishermen to still make money which is good for both marine life and fishing communities.
(For a better resolution of this infographic, click here)
ENGAGE
To engage my audience, I created a Facebook Page called Seafood For ALL about sustainable seafood to get them to “take individual and collective actions that address public life” (Cox & Pezzullo, 2016). The Deficit Model explains that just sharing information with people isn’t enough to get them to take action, you need to engage them (Cox & Pezzullo, 2016). So on my Facebook page, I posted each of my three infographics about a day and a half apart from one another, and also posted additional videos, links, and pictures to get the audience interested. I recommended the best apps for my followers to use when going to the store, and told them ways they could ask restaurants and stores if they sell sustainable seafood. To join Seafood for ALL on Facebook, click here.
I found it to be very challenging to make sustainable seafood choice rules simple when trying to create a guide for consumers. There are many kinds of fish, and with that, there are many kinds of species that can all be fished or farmed differently. So that’s why for the guide I made in the infographic "What Can I Do?" I narrowed the five fish to specific species. It can also be more challenging when trying to buy sustainable seafood at grocery stores when the employee doesn’t know if the seafood was caught sustainably or where it might have come from. There’s also conflicting information from the websites I found. One fish on the Seafood Watch App from Monterey Bay Aquarium might say that it’s sustainable and good to eat, but on the Seafood Selector from the EDF might say that the same fish isn’t sustainable.
With all this being said, are you going to start thinking sustainable seafood?
References:
Cox, J. R., & Pezzullo, P. C. (2016). Chapter 5: Environmental Journalism. In
Environmental communication and the public sphere (pp. 91-117). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.
Cox, J. R., & Pezzullo, P. C. (2016). Chapter 9: Advocacy Campaigns and Message Construction. In Environmental communication and the public (pp. 311-335). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.
Cox, J. R., & Pezzullo, P. C. (2016). Chapter 13: Environmental Conflict Management
and collaboration. In Environmental communication and the public (pp. 311-335). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.
Huxster, J. (2020, September 4). Environment in Visual and Popular Culture. Lecture presented at ES375 – Lecture Notes Week 4.
Eco-Rating Guide. (n.d.). Retrieved September 07, 2020, from
http://thisfish.info/ecorating/
Greenfield, N. (2015, August 26). The Smart Seafood Buying Guide. Retrieved
September 06, 2020, from https://www.nrdc.org/stories/smart-seafood-buying-guide
Monterey Bay Aquarium (n.d.). (1999) The Challenge. Retrieved September 06, 2020, from https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/act-for-the-ocean/sustainable-seafood/the-challenge
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