KEY DOCUMENTS - Organic Seafood Does Not Include Farmed Atlantic Salmon, Updated Feb 3, 2012

Dr. John Volpe has a new report out that rates different seafood products based on their environmental footprint: http://web.uvic.ca/~serg/papers/GAPI_Benchmarking_Report_2011.pdf.

This link will take you to the Pew Environment Group where you can see its thinking on products that are labelled organic but the consumer might not be getting something that is organic: http://www.pewenvironment.org/news-room/media-coverage/environmental-claims-for-farmed-fish-dont-hold-up-to-scrutiny-85899367273.

The Pew site gives your links to two well-known organic rating organizations.

For the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Sea Food Watch guide go here: http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/SeafoodWatch/web/sfw_regional.aspx. It says to avoid farmed Atlantic salmon. Please note: Seafood Watch will test the credibility of MSC, GAA, Global GAP and Global Trust wild and farmed eco-certification programs in 2012: http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx.

For the Blue Ocean Institute's sea food guide go here: http://www.blueocean.org/seafood/seafood-search-result?keyword=Salmon. Scroll down until you find the red listed Atlantic salmon icon and read the text. The listing means: avoid buying farmed Atlantic salmon.

I have already pointed out that Greenpeace has an annual document that rates environmentally unfriendly products - which includes farmed Atlantic salmon - and moves the 8 biggest North American retailers, for example, Safeway, and their consumers away from farmed Atlantic salmon. Here is one Greenpeace document that red lists farmed Atlantic salmon: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/PageFiles/173748/Oceans_Advocates.pdf. The listing means: avoid buying farmed Atlantic salmon.

The Environmental Defense USA has also put out a fish consumption guide. See: http://apps.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=17694. It says to avoid farmed Atlantic salmon.

Sea Choice at, http://seachoice.org/files/pdf/SC_card_2011_web.pdf, has banded together with seven other conservation organizations that state that farmed salmon should not be bought because it is environmentally damaging. This is a collaboration of eight North American ocean conservation organizations, including:

Blue Ocean Institute (Cold Spring, Harbor, N.Y.); David Suzuki Foundation (Vancouver,British Columbia); FishWise (Santa Cruz, Calif.); Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch (Monterey, Calif.); New England Aquarium (Boston); Vancouver Aquarium’s Ocean Wise (Canada); SeaChoice (Canada); Shedd Aquarium (Chicago).

SEAFOOD WATCH will test “credibility” of MSC, GAA, Global GAP & Global Trust wild & farmed eco-certs