The Smart Seafood and Sustainable Fish Buying Guide - NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council)

These issues not only threaten ocean health but can destabilize economies and increase international conflict, precisely because the lucrative industry often and so easily evades authorities. IUU fishing is also directly tied to forced labor and human rights abuses at sea and in the seafood supply chain. As a top market for seafood, the United States has the ability to influence change. But much work remains to build an effective American seafood traceability program, including expanding the Seafood Import Monitoring Program, which is overseen by NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service and is a crucial tool to helping combat IUU fishing and labor abuses at sea. 

A whole other issue with imported fish is the lack of regulations on some overseas fish farms, where fish can be exposed to dangerous antibiotics and chemicals (many of which are banned in the United States). The clincher? The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) only inspects about 2 percent of all seafood that comes from abroad.

Of course, not all U.S. fisheries are sustainably managed or adequately ensuring the overall health of ocean ecosystems. As one piece of evidence, take the continued decline of endangered North Atlantic right whales, for which entanglement in lobster lines is a top threat. However, the nation's primary fisheries law, the Magnuson-Stevens Act, has played a critical role in curbing overfishing and rebuilding dozens of once-depleted fish stocks in U.S. waters. 

Diversify to prevent overfishing.

Year after year, Americans opt predominantly for the same five types of seafood: shrimp, salmon, canned tuna, tilapia, and pollock. Each comes with its own set of concerns, but such high demand on only a handful of aquatic species can lead to overfishing, harmful catch methods, habitat destruction, and overuse of antibiotics in the case of farmed fish. (This risk does not apply to all farmed fish;  open-ocean farms tend to be the worst offenders when it comes to antibiotics use and pollutants.)

Meanwhile, the protected ocean waters along the U.S. coasts are teeming with hundreds of delicious and currently abundant species, like mussels, oysters, rockfish, and scup (aka porgy). By choosing to eat these underappreciated species, we can minimize damage and help U.S. fisheries continue to rebound. Even different edible seaweed varieties, which have the potential to absorb carbon dioxide from the ocean and are available dried in many markets, can provide that salty, savory flavor that seafood lovers crave.