Conservation Partners

We launched EcoFish because there was no link existing between the consumer and sustainable seafood recommendations from the marine conservation community. Consumers were being well educated, but did not know where to find the seafood.

In partnership with the following marine conservation organizations, EcoFish has bridged that gap. These partners provide EcoFish with critical research and direction, and are very important to the EcoFish business model. We are eternally grateful for their generous support!

Monterey Bay Aquarium – The mission of California's not-for-profit Monterey Bay Aquarium is to inspire conservation of the oceans. More than 1.8 million visitors a year tour its exhibitions of regional sea life, and more than 90,000 children a year take part in various free school programs. Its scientific research programs include the Sea Otter Research and Conservation Program devoted to the preservation of the southern sea otter, the Tuna Research and Conservation Center (a joint program with Stanford University) and a close, ongoing partnership with its sister institution, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. The aquarium's Seafood Watch program reviews the health of selected fisheries, and advises consumers on which species to buy or avoid. The Seafood Watch wallet card and the aquarium's award-winning website are at www.montereybayaquarium.org. The aquarium is located at 886 Cannery Row, Monterey, California 93940. Information: (831)648-4800.

Blue Ocean Institute – Using science, art, literature, and community interaction, Blue Ocean Institute works to change people's relationship with the sea by inspiring conservation rather than demanding it. We know of no other conservation organization explicitly dedicated to emphasizing positive messages as pathways to excite more people's engagement in conservation. While other groups work to change policies, we do something complementary: work to change values. By accenting the positive and the permissible, our programs help people envision and implement solutions that are compassionate both to sea creatures and to people themselves.

Our work combines the authoritative with the creative. Through books, articles, the spoken word, and working directly with member of the fishing community, we give people ways to think differently and we give them ways to act differently. Blue Ocean Institute's Safe Seas program works with communities, fishers, and managers toward eliminating mortality of endangered marine animals in coastal gillnet and longline fisheries in the Pacific Ocean. Our From Sea to Table program advances a wider discussion about the oceans by helping seafood lovers better understand their relationship with the ocean through the seafood they eat. In development are our youth-oriented bilingual marine conservation outreach program, Ocean Revolution. And threaded throughout all our programs and fundamental to our approach and perspective, is a Sea Ethic. In his classic book A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold called for a "land ethic" of community interconnectedness and a "search for a durable scale of values." With our goal of instilling a "sea ethic" we strive to extend this search and connection below the high-tide line.

Environmental Defense is dedicated to protecting the environmental rights of all people, including future generations. Among these rights are clean air and water, healthy and nourishing food, and a flourishing ecosystem.

A generation ago, Environmental Defense helped launch the modern environmental movement by winning a ban on the pesticide DDT, thus showing how a handful of individuals can use science and the law to bring about national reform. Since then, we have grown into one of America's most influential environmental advocacy groups, with more Ph.D. scientists and economists on staff than at any other such organization.

Guided by science, Environmental Defense evaluates environmental problems and works to create and advocate solutions that win lasting political, economic and social support because they are nonpartisan, cost-efficient and fair.

Environmental Defense believes that a sustainable environment will require economic and social systems that are equitable and just. We affirm our commitment to the environmental rights of the poor and people of color.

As an American organization, Environmental Defense will always pay special attention to American environmental problems, and to America's role in both causing and solving global environmental problems.

The Packard Foundation Conservation Program seeks to ensure a healthy future for all life by conserving critical natural systems, addressing key threats to these systems, and providing the scientific information and training that will enhance their conservation. Since the Foundation began the Sustainable Fisheries Initiative in 1991, some progress has been made at regional fishery management councils to reduce fishing for depleted species, reduce bycatch, and improve provisions for habitat protection. These efforts must continue to improve agency effectiveness and develop a constituency for conservation. Other strategies include outreach to industry and fishing communities to identify advocates of sustainable management of marine resources; reduction of bycatch, both via regulation and through improvements in gear; the use of market mechanisms, such as certification and subsidy reduction, to create incentives for fishery conservation; and the creation of marine protected areas as refugia for appropriate fishery stocks.

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