World Ocean Day is coming up. It takes place every year on the 8th June and is a global day of ocean celebration and collaboration for a better future.
Together with Relais & Chateaux, Londolozi will celebrate World Ocean Day with our meals of the day using only fish – as always – from our SASSI (South African Sustainable Seafood Initiative) green lists.
SASSI define the various fish categories as follows:
Green
This is the group from which consumers are encouraged to choose, as it contains the most sustainable choices from the healthiest and most well-managed populations. These species can handle current fishing pressure.
Orange
This group includes species that have associated reasons for concern, either because the species is depleted as a result of overfishing and can’t sustain current fishing pressure, or the fishery that catches them may cause particularly severe environmental damage and/or has high bycatch, or the lifestyle of the species makes it vulnerable to high fishing pressure. Consumers are encouraged to think twice and consider the implications of these choices.
Red
This group includes both unsustainable species, which are from collapsed populations or have extreme environmental concerns and/or lack appropriate management, and species that are illegal to buy or sell in South Africa (no-sale species). These species should never be bought by consumers. Fish highlighted in bold in this category are illegal to sell in South Africa.
We at Londolozi source all our seafood from only suppliers who can issue us with a Global GAP Certificate – this is an internationally recognized set of farm standards dedicated to Good Agricultural Practices (GAP).
World Ocean Day has been celebrated unofficially since its original proposal in 1992 by Canada’s International Centre for Ocean Development (ICOD) and the Ocean Institute of Canada (OIC) at the Earth Summit – in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Why do we have World Ocean Day?
We have this day to develop a worldwide movement of citizens for the ocean. To protect and be aware of the world’s population and for the sustainable management of the world’s oceans.
At Londolozi we strive each and every day to eradicate plastic from our operation. We have become more aware of just how much plastic we used to use and where it was going.
Together with Relais & Chateaux, we as the chefs gathered in Cape Town recently to discuss this further. What are we going to do? How are we going to prevent plastic coming into our restaurants & lodges?
One of the first things to go was the plastic straw!
500 million straws are used and discarded every day in the United States alone. That’s 175 Billion a year filtering into landfills (environment) and littering our waterways and oceans.
To understand just how many straws 500 million really is, this would fill over 125 school buses with straws every day
A plastic straw alone takes 500 years to decompose, so let’s all make an effort not to use them!
Scientists have shown that up to 12 million tonnes of plastic is entering our oceans every year – that’s a rubbish truck full every minute
Do you know 1 person who shops for 1 year, will use 500 bags?
World Ocean Day is therefore about far more than just sustainable fisheries. It’s about litter, about ecologically friendly choices, about an entire consciousness that needs to permeate through our whole society until everyone is properly aware of the potential environmental consequences of their actions, and the impact they might have on not just local waters, but the world’s oceans as a whole.
A lovely informative blog Anna. Plastic is realy so bad for the environment. Our wildlife, water sources and oceans. We will all just have to start doing our bit and stop using it.
You are so correct Anna on all these ecological issues. Here in California we also have approved fish buying lists issued by the Monterey Aquarium. Our grocery stores only sell sustainable fish varieties, many of them farmed.
We also have a plastic bag ban – we take our own bags to the grocery store or you pay to buy a paper bag. What is frustrating is that there are still so many people that just don’t care about our delicate environment. Just look at the litter alongside the road. Sigh- perhaps one day!!
So right, Anna, and so important on every level to obtain success through awareness and action on all our parts. That Londolozi is aware and active is not a surprise. It was also very interesting to read the stats about plastic straws. I lunched last week with a friend at a very nice restaurant who had decided to stop offering straws all together. They simply were not available . . . I smiled and was glad.
An interesting and timely blog, Anna. Plastic is ubiquitous and difficult to avoid, but with effort, it can he done. Anything to avoid adding to the islands of plastic waste floating in our oceans!
I really hate plastic, I don’t why people still wrap everything in it these days (twice over in many cases)!