Page - June 27, 2008
Shellfish at a local Montreal speciality store.
Seafood consumption by Canadian consumers has remained
relatively stable in recent years, but as the fourth largest
seafood exporter in the world, we have one of the most active
fishing and aquaculture industries on the planet. While about
85 per cent of our seafood (by value) leaves the Canadian market,
our restaurants and supermarkets offer quite a seafood spread, with
all types of species from local, national and distant waters.
But the selection of species found in our retail market comes
with a high environmental cost. In addition to over-fished stocks,
much of the fishing gear used to catch our delicacies is destroying
critical ocean ecosystems and catches non-target - and often
endangered - species such as sea turtles, seabirds and marine
mammals. Distant water fleets and pirate vessels fishing unfairly
and illegally put further pressure on stocks and the food security
of coastal communities. These impacts (compounded by wider
environmental impacts, particularly with regard to climate change)
are weighing hard on ecosystems and people around the globe.
The lack of proper labelling on seafood products in the Canadian
market makes the consumer's search for sustainable seafood a
difficult one. As key players in the seafood supply chain,
retailers have an important role to play in ensuring their
customers only have one seafood choice: fair and sustainable
products.
Sourcing seafood sustainably can be a complicated process
requiring careful attention to all of the potential negative
impacts. For this reason, Greenpeace has developed a Redlist of
seafood from fisheries or farming practices which are the most
damaging and in need of immediate attention. The Redlist consists
of "what not to eat" and "what not to sell" and focuses on species
that we're asking consumers to avoid and ones we're urging
supermarkets to remove from their shelves.
View the redlist
Dowload the report "Out of Stock: Supermarkets and the
Future of Seafood"