Three restaurants on Sydney’s Northern Beaches will take part in a pilot project aiming to protect threatened seafood species, marine ecosystems and the fishing industry.
Manly restaurants Ruby Lane, 4 Pines and Manly Ocean Foods have teamed up with Northern Beaches Council and the world-wide Marine Stewardship Council for the Australia-first project which will focus on the certification and labelling of the seafood.
The restaurants have committed to choosing only sustainable fisheries, wholesale suppliers and fish species for their kitchens; and will encourage customers to make the same choices.
Northern Beaches Council general manager Mark Ferguson said the council supports the program because it is committed to helping residents and local businesses live and operate sustainably.
“The ‘Sustainable Seafoods’ pilot program is a great opportunity to help locals make informed, sustainable seafood purchases. It also demonstrates the value and demand for sustainable fishing practices,” he said.
The global Marine Stewardship Council will publicly acknowledge the participating restaurants’ ‘Sustainable Seafoods’ commitment through its independently audited labelling standard and certification process. This process focuses not simply on fish species that are under threat, but takes a whole ‘Chain of Custody’ approach, using an array of auditing techniques that monitor the sustainability of industry processes—from the fishing grounds to the consumer’s plate.
A community engagement component of the program will provide restaurant customers and seafood consumers with authoritative information, helping them make choices about the sustainability of their seafood purchases.
“We hope to eventually roll out the program to as many local seafood restaurants and retailers as possible,” said Ferguson.
While Australian fisheries are generally considered well-managed by international standards, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics many of our fisheries are still considered ‘overfished’ or ‘subject to overfishing’.
World-wide, the situation for fish species is much more dire. According to a 2015 study conducted by the World Wildlife Fund and Zoological Society of London, global stocks of fish such as mackerel and tuna declined by around 74 percent between 1970 and 2010.