The Monterey Bay Aquarium launched Seafood Watch in 1999 as a special exhibit about the impacts of seafood. People found the information useful, so we made it a permanent conservation program. Our original mission was to help people navigate purchasing sustainable seafood through our seafood ratings and tools like our pocket guides. The program and its scope has grown over the past 25 years. Today, our science-based assessments are a primary resource for understanding sustainable seafood around the world. We also work to transform how seafood is fished and farmed through partnerships with businesses, governments, other NGOs, and producer groups so that people and the planet can thrive now and in the future.

No matter where you live, the ocean plays an enormous role in your life. It drives weather and climate, produces oxygen, and acts as a carbon sink. The very same ocean is threatened by climate change, plastic pollution, overfishing and a host of other issues. One strong positive ocean action that nearly all of us can take right now is responsibly choosing what we eat and where it comes from. That’s why our work focuses on sustainable fisheries and aquaculture. Seafood provides essential nutrition and livelihoods to over 3 billion people worldwide, but seafood is a finite resource. If left unchecked, destructive fishing and aquaculture practices can harm the ocean. Environmentally sustainable seafood, though, helps ensure healthy and resilient ocean ecosystems and supports the wildlife and people who depend on them.

Built on a solid foundation of science and collaboration, our standards set the global bar for ecologically sustainable seafood. Our standards and fishery and aquaculture assessments fill a critical role in the North American marketplace. We assess most of the seafood on the U.S. and Canadian markets and use a three-tiered approach that recognizes better and best performers.