Sustainable seafood program launched

Chilled oyster veloute with Sterling Classic caviar. Thai marinated calamari with spicy avocado. Cioppino of Delta crayfish, Dungeness crab, mussels, clams and Monterey Bay spot prawns.

Hungry yet? Good. These mouthwatering gifts of the ocean are not only good for you, but easy on the ocean. All of these selections either come from populations that haven't been overfished, were caught with methods that don't harm marine ecosystems, or were farmed by fish ranchers using environmentally friendly techniques.

Putting together this kind of eco-friendly seafood menu has gotten a lot tougher these days. Our historic view of the ocean's limitless bounty has changed radically as the number of depleted fish stocks piles up. At the same time, consumers are consuming fish in record numbers as a healthy alternative to beef and pork, encouraging seafood retailers, and chefs to offer ever more of it to the public.

But without a central source of reliable and easy-to-understand information about fisheries, it's difficult for seafood purveyors concerned about the health of fish populations and the environment to know what they should and shouldn't buy. Running a restaurant can be hectic enough without having to spend time tracking down obscure government fishery reports or clipping newspaper articles on this year's salmon harvest.

Now a group of organizations concerned about the health of the ocean is banding together to change all that. The Seafood Choices Alliance, which includes the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations as well as the National Audobon Society, the Natural Resources Defense Council and other seafood stakeholders, aims to offer professional restauranteurs, chefs, fishermen, grocers and others in the business of selling fish an easy way to check up on sustainability of what they sell. The Alliance introduced its program to a number of upscale West Coast seafood professionals yesterday in San Francisco.

All busy seafood professionals need to do is sign up on the Alliance's Web site to receive quarterly news updates in the quaintly titled Afishionado Newsletter. The newsletter will discuss trends such as the status of different fish stocks, inform readers of marketing trends such as new names for the same old fish, and highlight new information available on the centerpiece of the Alliance's campaign, its Web site.

"It's an educational approach. It's up to them to decide whether or not to change their menus," said Mercedes Lee of the National Audobon Society's Living Oceans Program.

The site provides "background information in plain English for the average person to understand why various species are ending up on the list the way they are. It'll show why we came to those conclusions," said Jennifer Dianto, program manager of the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch Program.

The easy-to-navigate site contains a wealth of background information on fishery awareness programs as well as a section where users can inquire about particular species of fish. Those pages contain a picture of the seafood, its common and commercial names, and summaries of its life cycle and how its raised or harvested. Each page will also show how different organizations rate the fishery's sustainability. For example, Audobon, the NRDC, Environmental Defense and the Monterey Bay Aquarium list Alaskan salmon as a recommended choice, but advise consumers to think twice about the environmental toll involved in eating Atlantic salmon. Links to ranking more consumer information about fisheries are sprinkled throughout.

"Let's say their buyer comes up with a new species, but they don't know much about it. Instead of just going out and buying it, a chef can learn where it's coming from, if it's sustainably harvested. The site will be their library," Dianto said.

And for those whose hunger for fishy knowledge surpasses even these ample resources, there is the Sea Sense Database. There, users will be able to examine studies, harvest reports, and other raw data about seafood harvests without running into Alliance members' opinions about whether or not a fishery is healthy. The hope, Dianto says, is for groups such as local fishermens' organizations or regional conservation groups to use the database to come up with their own seafood lists.

The Alliance has already signed on a number of the restaurants and organizations who pledged not to serve swordfish in the popular 1998 Give Swordfish a Break program. Subscribers already include San Francisco restaurants such as Farallon and Jardiniere, and seafood retailers such as the Monterey Fish Market of Berkeley and San Francisco. The Alliance is publicizing the site to small, upscale restaurants interested in the fresh, organic food movement first, as well as specialty grocers, and will expand its audience to larger restaurants and supermarket chains as it grows.

"We chefs are fairly conservation-minded," says Traci Des Jardins, chef/owner of Jardiniere restaurant in San Francisco. "And the Alliance offers a good way for us to stay informed about the sustainability of what we're buying at the exact time we're buying it."

At the same time, the Monterey Bay Aquarium is expanding the sweep of its respected Seafood Watch program with the help of a $2.2 million grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

Since 1999, the aquarium has offered pocket-sized cards to visitors listing the best seafood choices, species that consumers should avoid, or may have problems associated with the way they are raised or caught.

The aquarium's card now covers only species commonly eaten in California. With the help of other marine organizations and fishermen's groups, the Seafood Watch program plans to find out what kinds of seafood people eat in other areas of the country, investigate how sustainably those are harvested, and publish regional editions of the cards. "For example, in Florida, people eat grouper, but there's no grouper on our card. If we can go out and create regional cards, that would make more sense for consumers," Dianto said.

--Kathleen M. Wong