The fish on my plate probably didn鈥檛 come from Chile, and it definitely wasn鈥檛 bass. But the marketing moniker 鈥淐hilean seabass鈥 sounds more appetizing than 鈥渢oothfish,鈥 and it fools at least some consumers who have learned what toothfish are and that few if any of the world鈥檚 fish species are more grievously mismanaged than this slow-growing denizen of deep south-polar waters. Environmental 鈥渃hampions鈥 of the 20th century were being honored, and I was seated next to one鈥擠ave Foreman, cofounder of the radical Earth First!, now magically transformed to a soft-spoken, elegantly dressed, almost painfully law-abiding conservator of wildland. I steered the conversation away from the entree, a difficult task because it was so delicious. But to my relief, I soon discovered that Foreman was not nearly as much into fish and fishing as I was. The year was 1998, and in those days, for almost everyone, fish was fish. If it was placed in front of you, you didn鈥檛 ask questions. You ate it. Hosting the evening was the 探花精选.
My friend and colleague Carl Safina, then director of 探花精选鈥檚 Living Oceans program, had recently partaken of toothfish, too鈥攁t a dinner for no less an assemblage than the board of the Society for Conservation Biology. Being more outspoken than I am (at least at social gatherings), he vented his spleen on the spot. Then, almost simultaneously with 探花精选鈥檚 toothsome toothfish dinner, he launched The 探花精选 (magazine) Guide to Seafood, the world鈥檚 first independent and comprehensive set of directions for sustainable seafood purchasing, thereby setting a standard and trend that would save all manner of marine life around the globe and change how people perceive fish.
Thirty percent of all assessed marine fish populations are being killed faster than they reproduce. And while aquaculture, i.e., fish farming, was at first seen as a partial solution, that rapidly expanding industry has compounded more than relieved pressure on wild stocks because it pollutes the sea with pathogens, parasites, and warped genes, and because it requires the netting of enormous quantities of small fish to serve as feed. So seafood guides are now more important than ever.
But today there are so many guides that fish eaters don鈥檛 know which ones to consult. Some guides are confusing, some accidentally or purposefully misleading, some brazen greenwashing. No one is fully equipped to objectively rank the guides, but the University of Rhode Island鈥檚 Sustainable Seafood Initiative and a group called Incofish have put together the most complete lists available. (Go to or .)
The five guides you should probably pay most attention to are those provided by the Blue Ocean Institute (the outfit run by Safina, which he started when he left 探花精选), the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the Environmental Defense Fund, Greenpeace, and the Natural Resources Defense Council. (The Marine Stewardship Council also certifies sustainability by issuing labels to retailers.) Most guides list species consumers can buy without pumping dangerous amounts of mercury and PCBs into themselves or their guests and without patronizing fishing operations that deplete stocks faster than they reproduce or that damage marine ecosystems by killing non-target species (鈥渂ycatch鈥).
All guides are weakened by the name games played by the seafood industry as well as the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), which, as a tentacle of the Department of Commerce, has the dual and often conflicting missions of regulating and promoting fisheries. 鈥淯nderutilized鈥 fish are constantly being renamed in an effort to make them sound more palatable.
Even fish-savvy salts like Ted Forsgren, director of the Coastal Conservation Association Florida, get confused. 鈥淲hat the hell is that?鈥 he asked when he saw 鈥渞ock salmon鈥 in the stores. It turned out to be amberjack, traditionally shunned because larger specimens tend to be wormy and can contain natural poisons capable of sickening or killing humans. 鈥淩edfish鈥 is a now-prolific species of drum that was knocked way down in the 1980s by the 鈥渂lackened redfish鈥 craze started by Louisiana chef Paul Prudhomme. But 鈥渞edfish鈥 is also an unrelated, slow-growing fish inhabiting deep water off New England and maritime Canada. If that鈥檚 not confusing enough, the latter species is being marketed as 鈥渙cean perch,鈥 despite the fact that it鈥檚 unrelated to perch, a delicious freshwater fish sold in the Midwest. When commercial fishermen depleted New England and mid-Atlantic groundfish, spiny dogfish surged into the vacated niche. Americans don鈥檛 like dogfish (doubtless because they taste like foam rubber, as I can attest). So the response of governmental and non-governmental seafood promoters was to change the name of dogfish to 鈥渃ape shark.鈥
Then there鈥檚 confusion about ranges and taxonomy. In its seafood guide, Greenpeace has placed pollock on its avoid list because the stock has been overfished, provides important forage for Steller sea lions and northern fur seals, and the fishery kills lots of bycatch. That鈥檚 probably true. 鈥淧ollock,鈥 explains the guide, 鈥渓ive throughout the Northern Pacific.鈥 That鈥檚 definitely true. But Greenpeace doesn鈥檛 mention that pollock (relatives of the fish it refers to) also live throughout the North Atlantic, where the fishery is sustainable and the population is 115 percent above target level.
I鈥檒l confess that I was lukewarm on general seafood guides before I started researching this article. If most people followed the good ones, they鈥檇 force sustainable management and reduce bycatch. But the point is that most people don鈥檛 and won鈥檛. This from John McMurray, New York State鈥檚 representative on the Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Council, a regional body that writes regulations for commercial and recreational fisheries in federal waters under NMFS oversight: 鈥淪eafood guides educate people, but a minority. Personal conservation choices don鈥檛 mean much if public policy isn鈥檛 changed. I don鈥檛 think there鈥檚 a direct impact. If it鈥檚 on the menu, the general public is going to think it鈥檚 okay to eat.鈥
Lee Crockett, director of federal fisheries policy for the Pew Environment Group, agrees. 鈥淚f you define effectiveness as raising public awareness and getting people to think about how fish are caught and what fish you should eat, I think guides have done a good job,鈥 he says. 鈥淏ut I question the notion that the way people buy seafood is going to reduce demand for fish that are not caught sustainably.鈥
What I had not realized, however, is that seafood guides work in more subtle and indirect ways than simply influencing consumer demand. Here鈥檚 how: Safina gets an irate letter from the halibut fishermen鈥檚 association in British Columbia. How dare he endorse the halibut fishery in Alaska as sustainable and ecologically relatively benign and simultaneously reject B.C.鈥檚 when B.C. halibut are part of the same international stock, when they鈥檙e managed under the same plan, and when the B.C. halibut fleet uses the same fishing gear? Safina explains that Alaska halibut fishermen employ 鈥渁lbatross avoidance lines鈥濃攔opes festooned with brightly colored streamers. They鈥檙e towed from each side of the boat and scare away albatrosses and other seabirds so that, as the 鈥渓ongline鈥 (from which dangle thousands of baited hooks) is paid out, it has time to sink out of the birds鈥 reach. Albatross avoidance lines are simple and cheap, and reduce avian mortality by about 97 percent. Safina gets this response: 鈥淥h, is that all? Okay, we鈥檒l start using them, too.鈥 They did, and now the B.C. halibut fishery is endorsed.
So huge, influential, and controversial is the MSC that it merits special attention. MSC offices in London, Seattle, Tokyo, Sydney, The Hague, Edinburgh, Berlin, Cape Town, Stockholm, and Paris have labeled 103 fisheries and have 134 under 鈥渇ull assessment鈥 and about 50 under 鈥渃onfidential pre-assessment鈥 by third-party certifiers. Big grocery chains like Wal-Mart, Whole Foods, and Europe鈥檚 Waitrose carry fish packaged with MSC鈥檚 blue check-mark label.
But lately the MSC has come under intense fire from ocean advocates. 鈥淚t often certifies part of a fishery,鈥 remarks Crockett. 鈥淗ow does the consumer know that the fish is from the part of the fishery that鈥檚 certified? There鈥檚 no good tracking.鈥 Other critics cite the MSC鈥檚 certification of the South Georgia Island toothfish fishery. 鈥淲elcome Back Chilean Seabass!鈥 whooped Whole Foods in an ad that gave the impression that everything everywhere was fine and dandy. Largely lost on the public is the fact that the certification represents only about 10 percent of the fishery and that most of it is illegal, unreported, and dominated by pirate vessels that unload their catches in such countries as Namibia and Mauritius, getting as much as $1,000 per fish.
Those critics have a point, but here鈥檚 a side of the story that hasn鈥檛 been reported: The South Georgia fleet wanted to improve the black image of toothfish, so it started bootstrapping itself. It solved its seabird bycatch problem with the same kind of avoidance lines that won the B.C. halibut fishery endorsement by the Blue Ocean Institute, reducing mortality from tens of thousands of albatrosses and petrels a year to almost zero. It placed observers on all its vessels to ensure that these devices were deployed and that toothfish landings were legal and accurately reported. When the MSC finally certified the South Georgia fleet, the Ross Sea toothfish fleet became envious and implemented reforms that won it certification also.
鈥淭he fishing industry pays for MSC certification,鈥 says Crockett. 鈥淭he applicant hires a third-party certifier. That鈥檚 not independence. Then MSC gets a percentage [0.5 percent of the wholesale value] of the sale of the product from labeled companies.鈥
Kerry Coughlin, the MSC鈥檚 regional director for the Americas, counters with this: 鈥淭he system can鈥檛 create a bias because certification is completely isolated from the MSC. It鈥檚 done by independent contracted auditors鈥攁 team of scientific experts. The process is open and transparent. Of course they get paid, just like auditors who audit businesses.鈥 Still, the incentive is clearly there for the MSC to make its process more welcoming to marginal operations.
It鈥檚 hard to tell how much of the criticism is justified and how much is inevitable simply because the MSC is so huge. Last September, in a blistering op-ed in the journal Nature, six scientists, including marine ecologists from the University of California鈥檚 Scripps Institution of Oceanography and researchers from the University of British Columbia鈥檚 Fisheries Centre, dressed down the MSC for what they consider unjustifiable certifications. Lead author, the Centre鈥檚 Jennifer Jacquet, has also issued the following complaint in the online publication TheTyee.ca: 鈥淲e were dismayed when we heard that the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) announced recently that the process has begun which could lead to the certification of Peruvian anchovies鈥攁 fish which contributes to about a third of the world鈥檚 fishmeal production [largely for animal feed]. The MSC is making a mistake. This issue is not whether the fishery is 鈥榳ell-managed鈥 but what we do with the fish.鈥
The point Jacquet and others miss is that if there鈥檚 a mistake, it hasn鈥檛 happened yet. The Peruvian anchovy fishery came to the MSC seeking certification, but first it will have to complete third-party pre-assessment. It may well be that the independent auditor will agree with Jacquet and deny certification. Something like a third of all applicants never make it past pre-assessment on their first try. But when they flunk they don鈥檛 just give up and go away; they study the reasons they flunked, make improvements, then reapply. As Coughlin correctly observes, 鈥淢SC acts as a change agent.鈥
Maybe the most justifiable criticism of the MSC comes from Pam Lyons Gromen, fisheries project director of the National Coalition for Marine Conservation. 鈥淢SC has three principles they score fisheries by, the second of which deals with ecosystem-based management. It鈥檚 very soft and has no concrete standards. We鈥檝e been trying to work with MSC on safeguarding forage fish [that sustain larger fish, birds, and mammals], but they haven鈥檛 remedied the problem.鈥 On the other hand, it鈥檚 asking an awful lot of any private organization to figure out ecosystem management, a science so new and so complicated that even fisheries managers have yet to implement it. The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Council鈥檚 McMurray told me this: 鈥淚鈥檓 on the ecosystems ocean planning committee, and every meeting I go to we get a presentation about how to do ecosystem management. We all nod and say, 鈥楪reat presentation.鈥 And the council usually doesn鈥檛 lift a finger to move in that direction. The staff doesn鈥檛 have the resources or the science. It鈥檚 just an incredibly complex and difficult thing to do.鈥
McMurray stresses that good fisheries management does not happen without public involvement and that that can鈥檛 happen unless people understand management issues. Council members don鈥檛 get more atypical than McMurray. He鈥檚 an environmental activist, an accomplished outdoor writer specializing in marine conservation, an avid angler, a saltwater fishing guide, and director of grant making for the Norcross Wildlife Foundation.
McMurray is also one of the few anglers who understands that badly regulated sport fishing can be just as devastating as badly regulated commercial fishing. For example, an NMFS-sanctioned angler free-for-all in the South Atlantic has played a major role in nearly wiping out red snapper, and something like 80 percent of all Atlantic striped bass mortality is caused by sport fishing. Because Atlantic striped bass are mostly found within three miles of shore, they鈥檙e managed by a multi-state commission. But for offshore species, commercial and recreational overkill is the result of a federal law predicated on the mistaken belief that 鈥渟takeholders鈥 will do what鈥檚 best for the resource and the public good even when it means resisting their immediate appetites.
In 1976 Congress tried to end two centuries of unsustainable fishing by passing the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which set up eight regional management councils comprised of 鈥渦ser groups鈥濃攎ostly commercial fishing interests. Giving an industry a 鈥渟take in its own future鈥 sounded very progressive (except to anyone who understood human nature). On all three coasts the scheme worked about as well as telling children to make their Halloween candy last all year.
Magnuson allowed fishery plans to be modified by short-term, shortsighted 鈥渆conomic considerations,鈥 and such considerations almost always 鈥渏ustified鈥 overfishing. So for three decades commercial fishermen, assisted by the recreational party-boat fleet and individual anglers, continued to strip-mine federal waters.
Finally, in 2006, Congress amended Magnuson so that, for the first time ever, the councils could not set catch limits that killed fish faster than they could reproduce. For overfished stocks it required that those limits be in place by 2010. The deadline for other stocks was 2011.
One might suppose that stakeholders would embrace the simple and ancient wisdom of maintaining golden-egg production by sparing the magic goose. But no. Major elements of the commercial and recreational fishing industries are railing against the Magnuson amendments, depicting them as a plot by fish huggers to put them out of business. Accordingly, they have prevailed on Representative Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ) and Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) to introduce the Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act鈥斺渇lexibility鈥 being a euphemism for delay. When the legislation was first introduced in 2007 it appeared DOA, but outrage over fisheries closures, particularly in the South Atlantic, has given it new life.
No group has been louder in pushing emasculation of Magnuson than the Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA). Director James Donofrio proclaims that the amendments resulted from the public swilling the 鈥淜ool-Aid of the anti-fishing environmental groups.鈥 On February 24, 2010, fishing organizations, whipped to a froth of paranoia by the RFA and several of its allies, protested the amended Magnuson Act on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, shrieking and waving placards adorned with swastikas and such messages as 鈥淣uke NMFS鈥 and 鈥淔ix Magnuson Now.鈥
Few plans mandated by the strengthened Magnuson Act have elicited more outrage from the sport and commercial fishing industries than the sharp decrease in catch limits for summer flounder. And none has been more successful. Twenty years ago the population had been fished down to 15 percent of sustainable levels. Strict catch limits imposed under Magnuson have created such a population explosion that the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council has made the justifiable decision to increase the 2011 limit from 22.13 million to 29.48 million pounds. Now that anglers and commercial fishermen can kill lots more summer flounder, the RFA bleats about not being able to legally plunder other depleted stocks. Dozens of species are recovering because of Magnuson, a desperately needed law that may be gutted by Congress just as it is starting to work. The NMFS estimates that the economic value of rebuilding depleted fish populations is a $31 billion increase in annual sales and support for 500,000 new U.S. jobs.
In 1883 British biologist Thomas Huxley made this declaration: 鈥淚 still believe that the cod fishery . . . and probably all the great sea-fisheries are inexhaustible; that is to say that nothing we can do seriously affects the number of fish.鈥
Huxley lacked evidence to the contrary, but the RFA and its allies have no such excuse. Basically their argument comes down to this: 鈥淥ur current economic ill-health requires us to keep destroying the resources on which our economic health depends.鈥
Application of Huxley鈥檚 approach by the NMFS and councils has led to public boycotts of specific species or genera鈥攈ardly the proper way to manage fish but sometimes the only remaining alternative. The most successful boycott (no longer in effect) was Give Swordfish a Break, a response to the hideously mismanaged North Atlantic longline fishery that had knocked down the stock nearly to commercial extinction. Launched in 1998 by Seaweb and the Natural Resources Defense Council, Give Swordfish a Break mobilized thousands of chefs up and down the East Coast. Eventually it also caught the attention of the NMFS and even the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT)鈥攖he body that supposedly manages highly migratory species (including swordfish) by setting quotas for member nations but which has been so derelict that it鈥檚 often referred to as the 鈥淚nternational Commission to Catch All the Tunas.鈥 With swordfish demand way down, nursery areas off the Carolinas closed by the NMFS, and better ICCAT quotas, swordfish are close to recovery. Largely because of Give Swordfish a Break, that species is the only big marine fish on the planet doing better than it was a decade ago.
A newer boycott that promises great success is Take Marlin Off the Menu, a project hatched in 2008 by the International Game Fish Association, the National Coalition for Marine Conservation, and The Billfish Foundation. Marlin and their close cousins spearfish and sailfish, collectively known as 鈥渂illfish,鈥 are critically depressed worldwide. (Swordfish are technically billfish, too, but they鈥檙e usually considered separately.) So valuable are billfish to the economy as quarry for anglers that using them for food is economically insane, and anglers almost always release the fish they catch. Marlin are frequently laced with dangerous levels of mercury, and most of the ones offered for sale are bycatch that has soaked dead for days on tuna longlines.
Selling Atlantic billfish is against the law. But legal traffic in Pacific billfish continues. This facilitates a huge black market because there鈥檚 no good way to tell what ocean the meat comes from. Hence the United States is the world鈥檚 leading billfish importer. Taking marlin off the menu isn鈥檛 much of a sacrifice for restaurants or stores, and more and more are profiting from the green image of being billfish free. In 2010 the campaign succeeded in getting The Billfish Conservation Act introduced in both the House and Senate. If enacted, it will ban sale of all Pacific marlin, spearfish, and sailfish.
Meanwhile, general seafood guides provide the opportunity for immediate action on your part. But they won鈥檛 work if you just shop and shut up. A guide can even be counterproductive if it gives people the notion that they鈥檝e accomplished something by simply not buying an overfished species when what they really need to do is become political activists. You need to wave seafood guides in the faces of store managers and restaurant personnel, urging them to boycott mismanaged species. Green fish buying is like green investing. If you do it silently, you鈥檝e merely left a commodity to be purchased by someone who doesn鈥檛 worry about the planet. And those types are, alas, in the vast majority.