The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Program: A Revised Criteria for Fishery Assessments

Since our inception in 1999, Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program continues to research and evaluate the sustainability of fisheries and aquaculture operations worldwide. Our body of work has grown to include over 120 seafood reports, which convey more than 2,000 unique seafood recommendations.  We share these recommendations with the public, businesses and other interested parties in several forms, including pocket guides, smartphone apps and online at www.seafoodwatch.org.  We believe that leveraging market forces is a powerful and effective strategy in driving ocean conservation, ultimately helping to sustain wild, diverse and healthy ocean ecosystems that can exist long into the future. In order to meet the rising demand for sustainable seafood products, Seafood Watch carried out an 18-month evaluation process involving key partners and more than 60 international experts to revise our sustainability assessment criteria and methodology. The revised process of creating reports and recommendations will allow assessment of more species of interest, and a new numerical scoring system allows for finer-scale recommendations for seafood buyers, while maintaining the straightforward green-yellow-red “traffic light” rating approach for consumers.  Our new assessment criteria and methodology are presented.