If you love seafood, sustainable options should be the only way to go.

Consider this

Fishing’s

been around since, well, forever. Mounds of mollusc shells known as kitchen middens have been discovered in almost all coastal areas indicating that seafood was an important source of nutrition for early people.

But over time, fishing technology has developed and, together with increasing demand due to population growth, many marine species are under severe threat of extinction due to over-harvesting. Fishing is now a multibillion-dollar industry, driven by global need.

Unfortunately, many fishing operations are indiscriminate in how they remove species from the oceans, so the responsibility falls on us as end consumers to adjust our eating habits. This means choosing our seafood carefully, sticking to sustainability guidelines, and, in turn, forcing the fishing industry as a whole to be more accountable for their actions.

South Africans love seafood, but to protect this vital resource, you all need to consume from the sea in much more sustainable ways.