Ocean Champions is the only political voice for ocean health. We take a non-partisan approach in working with
the U.S. Congress to ensure ocean health through electoral and legislative action.

Overfishing

Charles Clover, the force behind the movie and book, End of the Line, has created Fish2Fork - a helpful tool toward ending overfishing...

By rating restaurants based on their sustainable practices, Charles wants to help channel customers (and thus $$) to the good establishments and away from the bad ones.  If the concept gets big enough, it could temper demand for overfished species and thus provide some relief.  It could also create a driver for better management of all fisheries.  Of note, Fish2Fork employs a Wiki-type approach where consumers are invited to fill out online questionnaires about the restaurants they attend.  Hopefully, this will bring broad coverage of many areas and restaurants.

These things don’t happen overnight, and they don’t happen without grassroots support.  So please check out the Fish2Fork website and provide your input on good and bad restaurants in your area.  Tell your friends to do the same, and begin the habit of checking Fish2Fork before planning a dinner out.  Vote with your wallet by patronizing the restaurants with the best sustainable practices.

Overfishing has catastrophic impacts on the health of our oceans.  In addition to threatening individual species, it fractures the food web and upsets the natural balance between species, causing further harm (see: Toxic Algal Blooms).  To solve the problem, it’ll be important to enforce U.S. fisheries law (Magnuson-Stevens), and to apply innovative fisheries management techniques like catch shares.  Real change starts with all of us though, and Fish2Fork offers a way to support these programs with appropriately directed consumer demand.

21 January 2010, 8:00 pm