Fish traders, processors, retailers, and consumers can stimulate better fisheries practice through their purchasing decisions – by selectively buying seafood products coming from fisheries with low or no bycatch.
Creating market-based incentives to eliminate bycatch
Such market-based incentives require a system for recognizing sustainably caught seafood products.
This is provided by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) – an independent organization that certifies well-managed and sustainable fisheries and their products.
One of the certification criteria concerns minimizing bycatch and ecosystem damage.
WWF is working with the MSC to raise the profile of certified sustainable seafood products along the entire 'chain of custody' – from the ocean all the way to the consumers' plate.
Get to know your seafood
While MSC seafood is the best environmental choice, WWF provides a range of seafood guides to help consumers go for responsibly caught, sustainable seafood, and avoid seafood that comes from overfished, poorly managed fisheries.