Sustainable Seafood Pocket Guide Online

You can now down load a copy of the Australian Marine Conservation Society's Sustainable Seafood Pocket Guide from their website.

I'd still encourage you to buy a copy of the full guide - it contains a lot more information and funds raised from its sale support the work of the Society.

Time to start worrying about fish

From Australian Policy Online:

The global fishing industry is unsustainable, writes Sarah Burnside in Eureka Street

AS PETER SINGER and Jim Mason noted in their 2006 book The Ethics of What We Eat, even conscientious omnivores can find it difficult to concern themselves with animals who occupy remote underwater places and are, on the whole, decidedly not cute.

In the Australian context, fishing and aquaculture are the nation's fifth most valuable rural industry. The website for the Department for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry notes cautiously: 'The challenge is to develop the industry while ensuring the sustainability of Australia's marine ecosystem.'

There is a growing awareness that the scale of the global fishing industry is unsustainable. Fishing is second only to climate change as the greatest environmental threat to marine ecosystems...

Read the full article:

Aussie Fish - Part III. What you CAN eat!

Sorry for the delay in posting the final part of Aussie Fish - my excuse is that I've been inconsolable with grief since I've discovered that Tuna is not on the Green for Go Ahead and Gobble It Up list.....

As you may remember, my source of information is Australia's Sustainable Seafood Guide from the Australian Marine Conservation Society. There's no doubt that this is a confusing issue and the guide is really helpful, but as Blogger Karen pointed out to me in an email last week:

"it seems it would have been easier to write a short list of what we can eat. I think the lack of standardised nomenclature for fish species adds to the confusion. I heard that it is usual for fish at Sydney Markets to be sold and have not yet been classified/ named, that shows how much we do not know about sea creatures and that we could be unwittingly eat rare species."

Here is the 'what we can eat' list - or as it is termed in the Guide - the 'Better Choice'.

Australian Salmon 2 species considered: Eastern Australian slamon, WA Salmon

Blue Swimmer Crab Also called: Crab, sand crab, bluey, blue manta crab.

Bream (pictured) 5 Species considered: Black, Yellow-fin, pikey, fry-pan, tarwhine.

Calamari, Cuttlefish, Octopus, Squid Species include: northern, southern, pharaoh's, maori, pale, arrow (gould's), pencil, red ocean.

Flathead

King George Whiting Also called: black whiting, south australian whiting, spotted whiting

Leatherjacket Also called: ocean jacket, seine boat jacket, silver flounder, chinaman (ooh - is that sexist or racist or both?), yellow jacket, triggerfish, butterfish

Mullet As in Cut. Seriously though -it's also called blue-tail, fan-tail, flicker, umping, nana, sand and yellow-eye.

Mulloway Also called: Butterfish, jewfish, king jewfish, kingfish, river kingfish.

Trevally

Western Rock Lobster Also called Western Austrlaian crayfish, Western Cray

Whiting 7 species considered: sand, eastern school, western school, stout (winter), trumpeter, western trumpeter, yellowfin.

Yellow Tail Kingfish Also called: kingfish, tasmanian yellowtail, kingie, yellowtail

Abalone 2 species considered: greenlip - main species, blacklip

Blue Mussel Also called: mussel

Crayfish (marron, redclaw, yabby) 3 species considered: Marron, redclaw, yabby

Oysters Species include: sydney rock, flat, milky, blacklip

Aussie Fish - Part II

More from Australia's Sustainable Seafood Guide: A guide to choosing your seafood wisely.

The seafood species in the "Think Twice" section are regionally overfished or prone to overfishing and may also be caught using fishing gear which can damage the seafloor or ocean wildlife.

This category also includes aquaculture prawns and barramundi - apparently the farming practices are a bit dodgy (obviously I'm paraphrasing...) but the guide says that with a few management improvements they would move up the ranks into the 'better choice' section (next post). Let's hope they pull their fingers out so we can buy their products!

Anyway - here's the "Think Twice Before You Buy" list:

Abalone: Species included are Greenlip, Blacklip, Brownlip and Roe's.

Barramundi: Also called barra, giant perch, silver barramundi.

Big-eye Tuna

Blue-eye Trevalia: Also called blue-eye cod, big eye, deep sea trevalia.

Blue Grenadier: Also called Hoki

Bugs: Species include moreton bay bugs, balmain bugs.

Cod and Groper: Species include coral cod, barramunki cod, rankin's cod, rock cod, black tip cod, estuary rock cod.

Coral Trout: Species include common, bar-cheek, blue-spot, coronation.

Dory: Species considered are John, king, mirror, silver, deep sea dory, and pacific dory.

Emporers (True emporers): Species include red throat, grass, long-nose, spangled, red spot - also called 'nor-west snappers in WA'.

Giant (King) Crab: Also called king crab.

Gold-band snapper: Also called gold-band jobfish (!!!), sharp-tooth jobfish/snapper.

Lobster: 3 species considred - Southern rock, eastern rock tropical rock (including ornate rock)

Mackeral: Species considered - Spanish (snook), spotted, school, grey

Mud Crab: also called black, brown, green, orange, mangrove.

2 species considered - giant mud, orange mud

Pink Ling: Also called kingclicp, ling, rock ling

Prawn (!!!!): Main species - King, Tiger, Banana, red spot, royal re, school, endeavor, black tiger, bay.

Red Emperor: (NOT red-throat emperor)

Scallop: Species considered, northern saucer, ballot's saucer, fan, doughboy, queen.

Snapper (Pink): Also called pink snapper, cockney, red bream, squire.

Snappers - tropical (including sea perch): Species considered - saddle back snapper -also called red bass, ruby emporer, red jew, crimson snapper - also called scarlett snapper, red sea perch.

Taylor: Also called - blue fish, skipjack.

Western Austraian Dhufish: Also called WA pearl perch, jewfish. Not to be confused with the northern, thread fin, or common pearl perches from Northern Australia.

Yellow-Fin Tuna: Also called tuna.

Prawn: Marine Aquaculture species - banana, black tiger, kuruma.

Barramundi: Also called barra, giant perch, silver barramundi.

Aussie Fish - What Not To Eat

Well - I have my copy of Australia's Sustainable Seafood Guide from the Austrlian Marine Conservation Society. I recommend you get a copy yourself - they're just 10 bucks and they come with a little pocket sized guide to take with you shopping or when you get that fish 'n chips craving.

They've divided the fishies into 3 categories. Say No, Think Twice, and Better Choice.

The bad news is that there's an awful lot we shouldn't be eating and include both wild fish that are overfished or are of significant conservation concern, and also aquaculture species that are grown in sea cage aquaculture which they say adds additional stress to our coasts and oceans.

Here's the list of what they say NOT to buy. I'll put the 'Think Twice' and 'Better Choice' species on separate posts.

Blue Warhou - also called black trevally, sea bream, snotty trevalia (why'd you want to eat a snotty fish anyway?), and Tasmanian trevally.

Broadbill Swordfish - also called Swordfish.

Commercial Scallop - also called king scallop, southern scallop, Tasmanian Scallop.

Eastern Gemfish (Hake) - also called hake, king couta, kingfish.

Orange Roughy - Also called deep sea perch, sea perch.

Oreo - Deep sea dory, spotted dory, dory

Redfish - also called nannygai, red snapper.

Shark (Flake) - species include school, whalers, dogfish, tiger hammerheads, wobbegongs, skates, stingrays and chimeras.

Silver Trevally - also called sand trevally, silver bream, white trevally.

Southern Blue-fin Tuna - also called tuna.

Atlantic Salmon - also called salmon, smoked salmon.

Barramundi - also called barra, giant perch, silver barramundi.

Mulloway - also called butterfish, jewfish, king jewfish, kingfish, river kingfish.

Ocean Trout - also called brown trout, rainbow trout, sea trout.

Snapper (Pink) - also called pink snapper, cocknet, red bream, squire.

Yellow-tail Kingfish - also called kingfish, tasmanian yellow tail, kingie, yellow-tail.

End of the Line - A film about a world with no fish

This doco was premiered at the Sundance Film Festival - it's about to be screened in the US
and in UK.

"It examines the imminent extinction of bluefin tuna, brought on by increasing western demand for sushi;

the impact on marine life resulting in huge overpopulation of jellyfish; and the profound implications of a future world with no fish that would bring certain mass starvation."

Filmed over two years, The End of the Line follows the investigative reporter Charles Clover as he confr nts politicians and celebrity restaurateurs, who exhibit little regard for the damage they
are doing to the oceans."

http://endoftheline.com/film/

I hope it comes to Australia! I think we need to see it.

Seafood and Sustainability

I've just read Loving Fish, This Time With the Fish in Mind
by food guru and New York Times columnist Mark Bittman. The article is about the world's depleting fishstocks and the difficulties involved in knowing how to purchase fish so that you're not contributing to the problem. It's actually quite alarming - I suspect we live in a bit of a la la land here in Sydney as far as how sustainable our seafood supply is.

The Australian Marine Conservation Society have published Australia's Sustainable Seafood Guide to help consumers navigate through the murky depths of ethical fish consumption. I'm going to purchase a copy (they're about 10 bucks) and will let you know what it says in a future post. It's a shame that you have to buy it and can't access the guide online. If anyone knows of another source of information for what seafood to avoid and what to buy in Australia then please post or comment below and let us all know!