Trawling, line-catching, netting, trapping, farming – with thousands of species of seafood sold in Australia at Easter and many ways they can be caught, it can be difficult to feel confident that what ends up on your plate has been sustainably produced.
But sustainable seafood exists, and is sold in supermarket freezers and counters as well as specialist fishmongers across the country. Making sure that what you are eating hasn’t come at great cost to the environment involves asking questions, learning to love specific species of seafood and checking what you know against guides and systems set up by organisations that have done the research.
Four seafood aficionados share their tips on how to ensure that what’s good to eat right now is good for the environment too.
Alex Stollznow, Sydney Fish Market tour guide
The recent floods on the east coast have affected supply at Sydney Fish Market and other markets and fish counters across the country, says resident tour guide Alex Stollznow. Sydney rock oysters and other highly sustainable local “filter feeders” are likely off the menu, given the poor water quality resulting from the rains, he says. But there are other options.
“We’ve got thousands of commercial species in Australia, and maybe a dozen are famous,” Stollznow says. Choosing seafood that is less popular is not only often cheaper, he suggests, but can also be more sustainable by creating a market for by-catch that might otherwise be too under-valued for operators to sell.
Buy as local as you can, Stollznow says. He has faith in the Australian regulatory system, which is among the most stringent in the world. “If you’re in NSW, try to buy NSW [seafood], it’s lower food miles. As long as it’s Australian seafood, you can rest assured it’s been protected by Australian fishery scientists and strict and thorough management policies that change all the time.”
Sea urchin, highly-prized and expensive abroad, is considered a pest species in Australia and – if you can find it – is cheap, sustainable and best eaten ever-so-lightly pickled.
Top tips: Sea urchin (or sea urchin roe if you can’t get it), mussels, Pacific oysters, southern calamari or, for a cheaper option, Gould’s squid
Duncan Leadbitter, Aquaculture Stewardship Council
Specialist fishmongers will tend to know a lot about what they’re selling, but Duncan Leadbitter says consumers can ask the same sorts of questions about provenance and sustainability at their supermarket fish counters.
“Traceability is really important,” says Leadbitter, of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). “You’d want to make sure they’re keeping an eye on their supply chains,” as well as ensuring that, at minimum, the fish being sold has been legally caught.
The ASC and the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) accredit different seafood operators with sustainability ticks, which are displayed as a logo when sold. Leadbitter says Australian standards are generally high but some operators that import into Australia have also been certified to MSC standard and should not be dismissed out of hand.
Waste is an issue in seafood as in other parts of food consumption, he says. Make sure you eat what you buy, otherwise “you’ve impacted something for nothing”.
Top tips: Western rock lobster, Fremantle octopus, toothfish, pipis, Gulf of Carpenteria farmed prawns
Sascha Rust, Australian Marine Conservation Society
Australian fisheries are compare well to the rest of the world, says Sascha Rust, but that comparison is “against a really low baseline”.
Rust, the Australian Marine Conservation Society society’s GoodFish program manager, says there are few hard and fast rules when it comes to buying sustainably with confidence – the key is to find out as much about what you buy as possible.
“The most simple way [to determine whether your seafood is sustainable] is that you need to understand what species you’re buying, how it’s caught, where it’s from, and then you need to cross-reference it,” he says.
The AMCS has developed a Sustainable Seafood Guide, which can be downloaded as an app. It features a traffic-light system for hundreds of different species of seafood and suggests swaps for species that are over-used or are procured via questionable practices.
“We always point people to mussels, oysters, those kinds of species, because they fundamentally do good for the oceans as filter feeders,” he says. “Those are the sort of species that we generally say: ‘Go wild, enjoy at your leisure.’”
Top tips: Rainbow trout, New Zealand king salmon, cobia, Australian-farmed prawns, Spencer Gulf wild prawns
Lennox Hastie, chef at Firedoor
“It’s extremely difficult as a consumer,” says Lennox Hastie, chef-owner at Sydney restaurant Firedoor. With thousands of fish species, many ways of catching them producers both in Australia and internationally, consumers can be at a loss. “It’s a minefield.”
For Hastie, the best option for charting a course through those waters is to talk with those on the other side of the fish counter.
“I’m always interested to know what [the fishmonger is] enjoying eating or what’s excited them today. Is there something different they’ve seen?” he says. “Not every sustainable fish in Australia has the MSC tick, because they’re just too small to be able to do that. But asking questions about the fishery or fisherman, if it’s sustainably caught, what boat it’s been caught on – the boat’s name should be on the boxes. They should have that information.”
Hastie’s restaurant serves more than a dozen different kinds of seafood a week, and what’s on the menu shifts according to what has come to market on a given day. Flexibility and moderation are key.
Top tip: “It’s about choosing quality over quantity; having less, but having a higher quality.”
