#seafood guide

A few weeks ago, I was introducing you to the problem of ocean acidification. To fight it, all of our hopes don't rest solely between the hands of politicians. Even if you live far from the sea, each one of your actions is connected to the oceans. Through simple and daily gestures, it is possible to decrease one's carbon footprint, and thus help slow down the impacts of acidification.

1 – Reduce CO2  emissions

(editor's note: this article was originally published in a French newspaper; consequently many of the statistics and research presented in this section apply specifically to France.)

In 2012, carbon emissions were around 10.1 tons CO2 per person on average, according to the organization Carbone 4. The vast majority of carbon dioxide emissions generated by private individuals in France come from transportation and heating (or cooling) of homes. According to the Ministère de l’Ecologie, du Développement Durable et de l’Energie, the transportation sector is in France the first sector responsible for greenhouse gases emissions, accounting for 28% of national emissions, followed by the residential and tertiary sector with 23.5% of emissions.

Consequently, it is recommended to start choosing more sustainable solutions, such as carpooling, using hybrid or electric cars, or biking or walking to work. The Agence de l’Environnement et de la Maitrise de l’Energie also recommends to decrease the energy consumption in private homes. The website EcoCitoyen [FR] presents multiple tips to save energy in your house. If they are available to you, choose renewable energies, like solar, wind or hydropower energy.

2 – Use ecological products in your backyard

Runoffs coming from agricultural farms or your own backyard have elevated levels of carbon and nitrogen that contribute to ocean acidification (Mathis et al. 2011), particularly if you live near the sea.

These excess nutrients change the chemical composition of our oceans, and create dead zones (hypoxic zones where no organism can survive), and also contribute to the weakening of corals and marine animals living near the coasts. Moreover, a research team from NOAA showed in 2012 that ocean acidification is happening quicker in zones with higher levels of nutrients (Sunda et Cai 2012).

The United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) advises to use pesticides and fertilizers only if absolutely necessary, to grow indigenous plants that can adapt and grow more easily, and to use water and energy in a sustainable way. Reducing our use of pesticides and fertilizers could offer a short-term solution to slow down ocean acidification.

3 – Eat less meat

A 2006 report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) already showed that animal farming worldwide were emitting more greenhouse gases than all forms of transportation combined. In 2015, animal farming was responsible for 21% of greenhouse gases emissions. Furthermore, the production of grains to feed the animals requires huge quantities of fertilizers, fuel, pesticides and antibiotics, and most of these excess will inevitably end in the oceans.

No worries for those of you who love meat; we are not asking you to become vegetarian overnight. According to the research team of the movie Racing Extinction and their "Start with 1 thing" campaign, simply cutting down on meat one day a week will save over 7,000 L of water, and will avoid emissions equal to a car ride of over 500kms. It is also advised to support local farmers, as well as those using sustainable methods. The farther your meat comes from, the more energy will be required to bring it to your plate.

4 – Support sustainable fisheries

Healthy and resilient marine ecosystems will be able to combat ocean acidification more efficiently. In order to do that, it is necessary to maintain abundant fish stocks with a great genetic diversity that will also adapt faster to the world's evolution.

Multiple sustainable seafood guides are available online or on your cellphone. The best one for US fisheries is the Seafood Guide from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and it also available as an app. This guide sorts seafood in three categories: best choices (buy first, they’re well managed and caught or farmed in ways that cause little harm to habitats or other wildlife), good alternatives, and to avoid.

5 - Spread the word!

One of the most important thing you can do to fight ocean acidification is to spread the word, and talk about it with your family and friends. Since it is a fairly recent issue, very few people actually know about it. Educating your friends and colleagues, using social media, or writing to the local newspapers or your political representatives in your region to express your concerns can really make a difference.

This is what 14-year-old Isabella O'Brien, finalist of the 2015 Google Science Fair is doing. As she explains in an interview with Lemonsea, Isabella discovered the problem of ocean acidification during a trip to Mexico. After a few scientific experiments, she argued that it could be possible to slow down acidification in small areas by using the calcium carbonate from leftover oyster and mussel shells coming from restaurants. Even though she did not win the Google contest, Isabella continues to use social media to educate her generation on the many problems our oceans face nowadays.

We love fish.

The boy loves to eat fish and I love to swim/dive with them. Divergent as our love for fish may be, we are united in our desire to conserve them. (Albeit for very very different reasons!)

Global fisheries have been declining. As global population rises, and with it, the demand for protein. The ocean, vast as it may seem, is not inexhaustible. Coupled with the "tragedy of the commons", global fish stocks are headed for collapse. 

So what can the regular man on the street do to help? Enter the Sustainable Seafood Guide! WWF made this nifty pocket-sized guide with its interactive counterpart to help consumers to make more sustainable choices.

So I went shopping, seafood guide in hand, at a local wet market in my neighbourhood. Look at all this fish on sale!!

"Woohoo!! So many fishes!! This is great!" I thought.

Let's look it up in the guide and see which types of fish are "recommended" (green), "think twice" (orange), and "avoid" (red). Awesomely intuitive traffic light system. I know my fish, I can do this!

Yeah right... Here's what I found.

Identifying the fish to the best of my knowledge and then looking it up in the guide. I realised that I don't know much about these fish on sale at all! I do not have information on most of these fish (grey boxes) and can't identify two of them.

Of these, the mackerel is the only one which MAY be sustainable, but ONLY if it is caught with a gillnet in Malaysia and not by trolling in Indonesia (which will make fall under the orange "think twice" category).

"Say what?!" The fish monger could not me tell where the fish is from. The barramundi or seabass as it is commonly known, if cultured in Singapore, would fall in the orange category but once again I can't be completely sure.

The red snappers are such a tease just by themselves. There are about five species of snappers available in the region but even I can't tell all of them apart. My best guesses for the day's catch - red emperor snapper (Lutjanus sebae) and the mangrove snapper (L. argentimaculatus). Both of which are not in the seafood guide. The two listed snappers, crimson snapper (L. erythropterus) and Malabar snapper (L. malabaricus), are both on the red "avoid" list.

So much for calling myself a fish biologist. There goes my reputation.

Nevertheless, this little exercise just goes to show how hard it is for a consumer to make sustainable seafood choices. Even with the seafood guide in hand!

Here's why.

1) Identification headaches

Apart from the usual seabass, pomfret and grouper, it is tough for one to know exactly what type of fish one is looking at, much less look it up in a guide.

What about sliced up and descaled fish? I don't even dare venture there.

So proper labelling is essential to help consumers make a choice.

In a supermarket, things get a little easier since fish are labelled. But this also highlights the next issue.

2)  Lack of sustainable choices

A look at the supermarket selection reveals that most of the seafood available are not listed or they belong in the orange list.  Tiger prawns are labelled a funky colour cos they are green if from an Australia fishery, but red if from Indonesia  or Thailand. Again, I can't be sure.

Have you caught all these deep sea creatures yet?

How, right?

With the new year comes the new Seafood WATCH® sustainable seafood guide. If you're a seafood eater and consider yourself even the mildest shade of "green", the guide is an absolute must-have.

Easy to download and keep in your wallet or purse, the pocket-sized guides, which are also electronically available for your mobile device, act as an aid while dining out, offering ocean-friendly alternatives to threatened species.

Though they don't have a Central America-specific guide per se, the Hawaiin guide or general Sushi guide are good proxies.