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Original URL: Ocean threat from Hong Kong's taste for seafood
A seafood lunch in Hong Kong is enjoyed by locals and visitors alike, but with threatened species on the menu and fishing practices that endanger marine life, campaigners want to change the city's appetite.
Hong Kong is the second-largest consumer of seafood per capita in Asia—an average resident consumes 71.2 kilos (157 pounds) of seafood each year, more than four times the global average, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature Hong Kong.
Yet the city of seven million has been forced to become one of the biggest seafood importers in the world as local waters are depleted of fish stocks.
Whether in high-end restaurants or waterside eateries, seafood is ubiquitous in the southern Chinese city, where customers often choose their fish live from a tank.
Baked lobster with noodles in cheese and deep-fried prawns in salted egg yolk are among local favourites.
But a "fish tank index" compiled by WWF Hong Kong found that more than 50 percent of the species available in the city's traditional restaurant tanks were from "highly unsustainable" sources.
"Overfishing is driving the collapse of the world's ocean fish stocks and edging many types of fish towards extinction, yet they are still on our menus," WWF Hong Kong conservation director Gavin Edwards told AFP.
"Hong Kong has a special responsibility to turn the tide as one of the biggest consumers of seafood."
(Score: 2, Informative) by Francis on Tuesday August 11 2015, @11:50PM
It depends what you mean by "western world." Around here most of the fisheries have bounced back after decades of overfishing with many of the species available for harvesting again.It's mostly things like tuna that cross over multiple jurisdictions that are the problem. You still have to pay attention to what is and isn't sustainable if you care about it being available in the future, but most of the local stocks are back to a level where you can eat them without any reason for guilt.
Locally, we made some hard decisions, drastically cut back the limits, bought boats and after years of lower catches they're able to start fishing more again. But, it was a priority, fishing is one of our biggest industries, so it was either pain then or pain later. Either a bit of a haircut and hopefully fish in the future or fish the hell out of them now and definitely not have any in the future.