April is Earth Month—the perfect time to pause and take stock of how your everyday actions affect the planet. As you think about ways you’re protecting the Earth, don’t forget the ocean!
Water covers more than 70% of our planet’s surface. What’s more, the ocean plays a key role in our lives, from providing abundant and delicious food to stabilizing our climate. Whether you live on the coast or hundreds of miles away, you can help protect ocean health with choices you make every day.
These actions might seem small, but when thousands of us take them together, like drops of water in the sea, they add up to something big and impactful.
Here are 10 simple things you can start doing today to help protect the ocean:
1. Look for the label: choose certified sustainable seafood
As a seafood consumer, you have lots of choices when it comes to what fish to buy, and not all options are equal when it comes to their environmental impact. Overfishing and other harmful fishing practices can wreak havoc on fish populations, which in turn upsets entire ocean ecosystems. By choosing certified, environmentally sustainable seafood, you can be confident that you’re eating seafood from healthy populations—not overfished stocks.
Making sustainable seafood choices is easier than you may have heard. A quick, easy place to start is to look for certification labels like the MSC blue fish label.
2. Use less plastic
Plastic pollution is a major issue for animals in the ocean and even on land, who may end up confusing it for food and consuming it. That’s one more reason to avoid single-use plastics, reuse what you already have, and use more sustainable alternatives when possible.
3. Spend time near the water
Whether you live near the ocean, or your nearest body of water is a lake, river, or stream, get outside and enjoy it! We’re naturally more motivated to protect places we experience often, and all water eventually ends up in the ocean.
4. Support businesses that care about sustainable fishing practices
Put your money to work supporting your values. Given a choice between shopping at a business that prioritizes sustainability and one that doesn’t, support the former whenever you can. Our list of stores that carry MSC certified seafood products is a great place to start!
5. Ask where your seafood comes from
When you’re ordering or buying seafood, ask where it was sourced and how it was caught. If your server or fishmonger doesn’t know, let them know that eating sustainable seafood matters to you. You’ll encourage their business to prioritize sustainable purchasing choices going forward.
6. Try a new type of seafood
Trying out a new food can be not only fun, but good for the ocean, too! Adding variety to your seafood choices can help take pressure off the populations of the most popular options, like salmon, shrimp, and tuna. Check out our sustainable seafood recipe collection for inspiration. You might just find a new favorite.
7. Learn more about how fisheries work
Between small family fishing businesses and large commercial operations, there’s a vast range of practices in how fisheries operate. But sustainability isn’t determined by size. Learn about what makes a fishery sustainable, and why it matters—and you’ll be better prepared to make ocean-friendly choices.
8. Volunteer for an ocean cleanup
Getting hands-on with a cleanup project is a great way to make a meaningful difference and build a closer relationship with the ocean. Look for volunteer opportunities near you through organizations like Surfrider or the International Coastal Cleanup.
9. Reduce food waste
It’s a shame to let seafood go to waste! To help protect fish populations, avoid buying more than you can use, and freeze anything you can’t cook in time. Save or repurpose your leftovers to make the most of every tasty seafood meal.
10. Share what you’ve learned about issues facing the ocean
When it comes to protecting the planet, there’s serious strength in numbers. Tell your friends and family about your best tips, show them how easy it is to find the blue fish label in stores, or even share this blog post!
A healthy ocean is vast, vibrant, beautiful, and full of life, and all of us play a role in keeping it that way. Building simple, sustainable habits like checking the labels on your seafood can add up to a big difference over time, especially when many of us act together!
Make sure that protecting the ocean is on your Earth Month to-do list, and remember that the MSC blue fish label is there to help you started.
