The Chief Executive Officer of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) says about 26 thousand seafood consumers around the globe are increasingly concerned about the ocean and aware of climate change.

Rupert Howes said this during the 25th-anniversary celebration of certified seafood sustainability and driving change on the water at Long Beach, Walvis Bay.

The Marine Stewardship Council is an international non-profit organization that recognises and rewards efforts to protect the oceans and safeguard seafood supplies for the future.
 
The Marine Stewardship Council program has evolved over the last 25 years to become an effective mechanism to help identify well-managed and sustainable fisheries.

"Think the oceans are the canary in the coal mine. They're the indicators. And in my part of the world, we've seen two million tons of MSC-certified fish lose their certificates. So the northeast Atlantic mackerel pairing is blue. These fish, known as whiting, are constantly swimming north in search of colder waters. They were able to see the Lord of the Sea icing green as they swam. The Pharaohs took much more fish than they used to take for these species, and the huge problem is that if you add up the unilateral set quotes from all of these countries, some of the richest nations in the world."

More than 530 fisheries are now certified to the MSC Fisheries Standard, accounting for 15% of the global wild marine harvest. 

However, with over a third of the world's fish stocks overfished, resulting in the loss of over roughly 1.630 billion in ocean benefits every year, more needs to be done to protect fish stocks.

"It's exceeding the signs, the scientific advice from a group called advice on setting the allocations and the total catches by between 20 and 40%. So we estimate over the last four or five years, an extra 4.5 million tons of fish have been extracted from the oceans and again, nothing but the certifiers have said, "You're breaching the science, you're losing your MSC certificates and this has caused a huge problem in the marketplace where macro in my part of the world, this is hugely important emotionally."