Ocean Wise Media Kit

Introduction

Ocean Wise is a Vancouver Aquarium conservation program, created to help businesses and their customers make environmentally friendly seafood choices. The Ocean Wise symbol on a menu item, in a seafood counter, product or supply sheet assures you that seafood item is a good choice for our oceans.

What Need Does the
Ocean Wise Program Address?

Some seafood dishes are environmentally better than others, but knowing how to tell the difference can be a real challenge for patrons and businesses alike. Ocean Wise allows patrons to confidently identify and choose businesses that provide environmentally responsible seafood items, and provides businesses with the information and support to continuously improve menus from an environmental sustainability perspective.

Environmental issues concerning seafood are many and varied. Broadly, these include:

• Overfishing - removing too many fish from the sea and not leaving enough to re-populate themselves in time for the next catch;
• Bycatch - removing animals from the ocean that were not intended to be part of the catch, such as sea turtles, dolphins, seabirds and sponges;
• Habitat degradation (in relation to seafood practices) - fishing or producing seafood in a manner that negatively impacts the local environment that sea life depends on for survival

Participation

Participation is open to any Canadian business that regularly serves, sells or provides seafood options.