Princes Tuna Launches Sustainable Seafood Plan. Will Supermarkets Be Next?

Score one for the oceans. Princes Tuna, a leading brand of canned tuna sold in the U.K., recently agreed to implement a seafood sustainability program and support the establishment of protected marine reserves in the Pacific Ocean. It's a huge move for the tinned tuna purveyor — according to Greenpeace, Princes currently relies on "ocean annihilation devices" to catch most of its fish.

Those "ocean annihilation devices" are also known as fish aggregation devices, or FADs (pdf). FADs are structures that attract fish under or around them, increasing the load that fishermen haul in. While FADs effectively capture more tuna, they also attract all kinds of other marine species, such as vulnerable animals like juvenile skipjack tuna, rays, sea turtles, and sharks. The fishing industry's use of FADs is helping to push already-struggling species to the brink of extinction, with Princes Tuna leading the charge.

Princes Tuna may currently rely heavily on FADs, but that's about to change: The company says it will phase out its use of FADs by 2014. Instead, Princes will use only pole-and-line or purse seine fishing, two methods that are considered to be less environmentally degrading than FADs. The company also announced that it would support the Pacific Common marine reserves, a proposal to establish a network of protected ocean areas in the Western and Central Pacific Oceans. About half of the world's tuna comes from this region, so these waters are in desperate need of conservation.

Princes' sustainable seafood agreement came as the result of some serious pushing by Greenpeace. More than 80,000 Greenpeace supporters emailed the company, asking it to green up its act. The non-profit's activists even climbed on top of Princes headquarters in Liverpool, while others wore shark costumes in protest of the endangered species that FADs regularly kill. On March 9, 2011, Greenpeace announced that Princes had caved under the pressure.

Princes' agreement to embrace more sustainable fishing methods is certainly a major coup for the world's oceans, but we've still got a long way to go. More than 75 percent of global fisheries have been pushed beyond the point of sustainability. While its great that companies like Princes are implementing sustainable seafood policies, it's clear that we desperately need other seafood purveyors to join the cause.

One of the biggest drivers of oceanic destruction is the supermarket industry. After all, consumers buy about half the seafood they eat at supermarkets — it's a $16 billion a year industry! To really create a sea change in marine protection, then, grocery chains must only sell sustainable species of fish.

Greenpeace and Change.org are working to achieve this goal. Walmart and SUPERVALU (which owns Save-A-Lot, Albertsons, and nine other supermarket chains) are two of the worst offenders when it comes to failing to protect the world's oceans. These stores regularly sell threatened species of fish like Chilean sea bass, orange roughy, and even shark. Greenpeace is pressuring these stores to clean up their acts, but the non-profit needs your help.

The demand for sustainable seafood needs to come from the people that supermarkets care about most — shoppers. If patrons demand only sustainable seafood from their grocers, stores will have to give in to consumer demand or go out of business. You can help conserve global oceans by signing Greenpeace's petition asking Walmart and SUPERVALU to immediately implement sustainable seafood programs in their stores.

Photo credit: jules:stonesoup via Flickr