A new labeling program created by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and a California seafood company aims to further sweeten the case for catch share fishery management.
The EDF, together with Central Coast Seafood, has created a new seafood label reading “100 percent federal at-sea monitoring: no overfishing — guaranteed.”
In a statement announcing the new label, the EDF acknowledged that catch share fishery management, which requires 100 percent monitoring of the fishery by an impartial federal observer, can run a fishery hundreds of dollars a day.
Among other benefits, the EDF noted the new labels allow fisheries complying with catch share regulations can mark their products as being monitored, which helps make their product more marketable.
“Now there is a way for fishermen and seafood processors to leverage that investment and, hopefully, increase the market value of their fish,” the EDF wrote. “Currently, a grocery store can’t distinguish catch share-caught sole, cod, sablefish, or other groundfish from fish from less well regulated fisheries. The new label gives vendors, restaurants, and individuals the power to vote for catch shares and accountability, by purchasing 100 percent monitored products."
