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Sustainable Seafood - Blue Ocean Institute

Blue Ocean Institute studies and articulates how the ocean is changing and how everything humans do—both on land and at sea—affects the waters, wildlife, and people of our world. But gloomy environmental warnings and predictions don’t move people to make

changes that can help our shared ocean. MacArthur Prize-winning scientist/author Dr. Carl Safina and Mercédès Lee created Blue Ocean Institute in 2003 as a unique voice of hope, guidance, and encouragement. Blue Ocean Institute is the only conservation organization that uses science, art, and literature to inspire a closer bond with nature, especially the sea.

Blue Ocean Institute developed a comprehensive seafood analysis and methodology referred to as the Guide to Ocean Friendly Seafood. This methodology addresses both wild and farmed seafood with five criteria. These are the criteria for wild seafood:

• Life history- including how fast the fish grows and how quickly the reproduce
• Abundance- compare to natural or un-fished levels
• Habitat quality & gear impacts- does the catch method damage the habitat for the fist that are left behind?
• Management- are there regulations in place that effectively protect the fish and their ecosystem?
• Bycatch- are other fish or wildlife accientally caught when fishing for the target species?

For farmed seafood, the five criteria are:

• Inherent operational risks- this section looks at the layout of the farming system - can waste and fish freely move from the farm to the surrounding environment?
• Feed- examines the diet of the farmed fish, with a particular focus on the reliance of wild-caught seafoods to supply fishmeal and oil
• Pollution- is the water being discharged from the farm enclosure treated to minimize impact to the surrounding habitat?
• Risk- to other species considers whether the farmed species is able to escape and have a negative impact on the local environment (e.g. competing for food)
• Ecological effects- considers the ecological sensitivity of the area surrounding the fish farm.

 

Each criteria has 8 additional questions, or “points of adjustment,” that help refine the rating and generate a report.All reports are peer-reviewed for scientific accuracy and then displayed online for public viewing. These critiera are scored on a scale of 0-4 using scientific and governmental publications and then averaged overall and input into a quantitative five color-coded rating system to generate a 'fish color,' illustrated below:

Follow the link for more information about the Blue Ocean Institute sustainable seafood program.

Green Chefs, Blue Ocean

Chefs are the gatekeepers of the seafood industry. They command a unique influence over the purchase, trade and consumption of seafood. The flow of seafood sustainability information to chefs, while on the rise, isn’t powerful enough. 

Green Chefs, Blue Ocean provides a missing link in current sustainable seafood education efforts. In partnership with Chefs Collaborative and our 15-member Advisory Board, Blue Ocean designed an interactive online curriculum about seafood sustainability for chefs and culinary students. The curriculum and other resources can be found on our Green Chefs, Blue Ocean website.