To celebrate World Oceans Day, the World Wildlife Fund-Malaysia and the Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) on Tuesday launched the Save Our Seafood (SOS) campaign.
The campaign includes Malaysia’s first sustainable seafood buying guide. The pocket-sized guide is printed in English and Bahasa Malaysia and uses the traffic-light system of categorizing seafood species, similar to the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s sustainable seafood buying guide.
The SOS campaign is designed to raise awareness of the country’s declining fish stocks. A survey commissioned by WWF-Malaysia showed that only one-quarter of Malaysians are aware of declining fish stocks.
Malaysians are the biggest consumers of seafood in Southeast Asia, with an average annual consumption of 1.4 billion kilograms. According to WWF-Malaysia and the MNS, the demand for seafood has encouraged overfishing.
“The seafood guide empowers consumers and businesses to make informed decisions in choosing sustainable seafood, which means seafood that is caught and farmed responsibly and does not cause damage to our marine environment,” said MNS Executive Director Dr. Loh Chi Leong.
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