'Sustainable' Is Seafood Buzzword

Fishing For The Catch Of The Day, Without Ruining The Catch Of Tomorrow As countless vacationers can attest, the oceans seem boundless. Yet the limits of the oceans are becoming more and more clear, as the rate of fishing outpaces the rate at which ocean life can regenerate. In a word, it is unsustainable -- which is why a legion of chefs, seafood distributors, consumers, and even fishermen themselves are urging a wholesale re-ordering of the seafood market. The goal is to make the industry, in a word, sustainable. The past several years have seen landmark studies of the ocean all pointing to serious declines in some of our most favorite food fish, and projections for continued -- even catastrophic -- declines in the future if nothing is done. High-end chefs, famously, led a revolt against Chilean seabass -- aka Patagonian toothfish -- when it became clear that it was being fished toward extinction. The movement to ensure the future productivity of the oceans means enforcing quotas that limit the catch of many species, it means setting aside reserves where fishing is not permitted, and it means carefully choosing the fish we we eat.