Rating Our Seafood

Message sent by Leigh - East Coast Challenger

Leigh is a Greenpeace volunteer and this is the newsletter they sent her.

"We need your help with our upcoming campaign to rid supermarkets of endangered and destructively fished seafood. Our first step is to find out just how 'bad' the seafood on sale in Canada's supermarkets is, and which stores are the worst offenders. So we're asking environmentally conscious consumers like you to investigate the seafood in your local supermarket and report back to us.

Our oceans are in a critical state. Over 75% of commercial fish stocks are either fully exploited or overexploited. Up to 90% of stocks of large predatory fish have been lost, including tuna, swordfish, cod and halibut. Recent scientific debate has even indicated that the world might 'run out of seafood' by 2048.

These drastic numbers show that governments and scientists have failed when it comes to the sustainable management of the world's fish stocks. This is why Greenpeace has decided to call on the next player in the product chain - supermarkets - to take responsibility and introduce sustainable seafood purchasing policies.

Taking part in the survey is simple! Just download our Supermarket Seafood Survey form [find the form attached under the heading Use Your Voice]... and take it with you the next time you visit a supermarket. Spend a few minutes looking at the fresh, frozen and canned seafood for sale and place a tick beside all of the species you find in the store. Please include branded products (eg Highliner, Bluewater etc) in your survey.

The form lists the 'worst' seafood species consumed in North America. It is an exhaustive list containing some species we'd be surprised to see in your local store - but we really don't know exactly what horrors are lurking out there. You will also find, because of Canada's weak food labelling laws, that the exact species of fish is often not listed on the package. To compensate for these labelling shortfalls we have included some 'generic' species listings, such as tuna (unspecified).

Feel free to visit as many supermarkets in your area as you like, the more data we receive the better! Simply email or post your results to toni.vernelli@yto.greenpeace.org by March 30th."