World Fisheries Day is celebrated every year on 21 November, and aims to highlight the importance of fishing as an ancient human practice, and of maintaining the world’s fisheries for the future.

Fish forms an important part of the diets of people around the world, particularly those who live near rivers and coasts. A number of traditional societies and communities are built around fishing for their livelihood.

Overfishing and habitat destruction affect both small-scale fishing communities dotted around coastlines, and large-scale fishing companies. To date, more than two-thirds of the world’s fisheries have been overfished or are fully harvested and more than one-third are in a state of decline.

This is not surprising when you realise the human population consumes over 100-million metric tons of fish annually. However, maintaining such levels of harvest without doing undue damage to fish stocks is simply unsustainable. And with pollution affecting matters further, it is vital that we pay attention to fisheries and start planning for the future.

Doing the right thing can be as simple as making an informed choice about the seafood you consume. The World Wide Fund for Nature’s Southern African Sustainable Seafood Initiative (WWF-SASSI) has created a “traffic light” system of categorising fish – those on the green list are fine to eat, having been harvested sustainably; those on the orange list are worth thinking twice about due to a potential risk of overfishing; and anything on the red list should not be eaten at all because of unsustainable fishing practices.

Remember, you can always use the SASSI SMS service if you are out at a restaurant or shop and are unsure about the status of a fish being sold there – send the name of the fish as a text message to 079 499 8795 and you will receive a prompt response telling you where the species is on the list, as well as some additional information such as minimum size and bag limit in the case of linefish. The SMS is charged at standard cellular rates. The Aquarium’s on-site restaurant, Shoreline Cafe, is the first on the continent to obtain Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification, meaning every fish served is traceable back through the seafood supply chain to the sustainable fishery that caught it.

Don’t forget to tune into Expresso on SABC3 every Thursday in November, for top tips from local celebrity chefs on how to prepare your favourite seafood dishes using green-listed sustainable species.

As a commitment to encouraging sustainable fishing practices, Two Oceans Aquarium partner I&J signed a participation agreement with WWF-SASSI earlier this year, formally agreeing to ensure that by December 2015, it sells only seafood products that are:

• certified by the Marine Stewardship Council, or
• certified by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council, or
• Green-listed by WWF-SASSI, or
• The subject of a time-bound fishery improvement project

This is the strongest commitment yet made to sustainable seafood by a South African fishing company. Let’s hope that others follow suit and that we are still able to celebrate World Fisheries Day for many years to come.

Find out more about WWF-SASSI here, read I&J’s sustainability policy here, and see what research is being done on fisheries around the world here.

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