You wouldn't want to be seen eating or serving endangered seafood, would you? Here's how to not be caught red-handed.

As awareness of the need to preserve and protect the world’s seafood resources grows, Woolworths is doing everything possible to help customers ensure all their seafood is traceable and sourced from legal and well-managed fisheries.

Having introduced our Sustainable Seafood Policy and signed the landmark WWF South African Sustainable Seafood Initiative’s (SASSI) Retail Charter in 2008, we’re now the first major South African retailer to begin labelling seafood in accordance with SASSI’s green, orange, red system.

The SASSI classification system focuses on locally caught seafood.

• green indicates species that are the best choices as they can handle current fishing pressures and they are from the healthiest and most well managed populations.
  
  Examples are hake, land-based farmed kob, Alaskan salmon, yellowtail, West Coast rock lobster, tuna (pole caught yellowfin and albacore, not bluefin), dorado and SA snoek.
   
• orange means there is concern over the sustainability of a species - they are rare from overfishing and cannot sustain current fishing pressure. Fisheries that catch them may cause particularly severe environmental damage and/or has high bycatch.The life-style (biology) of the species makes it vulnerable to high fishing pressure.
  
  Examples are kingklip, East Coast sole, geelbek (Cape salmon), swordfish, white stumpnose, kob (farmed at sea or line caught) and red roman and we urge you to rather not buy these, especially not on a regular basis.
   
• Note on orange fish such as kingklip that is sometimes available from Woolworths. It's important to note that although retailers may legally sell species on the orange list, Woolworths suppliers source kingklip from only hake fisheries approved by the Marine Stewardship Council so they can be sure that the fish is a non-targeted by-catch to hake. Woolworths will not sell by-catch that is targeted, overfished or from a non-accredited fishery, or if the catch method results in environmental damage.
   
• red (which will never be found at Woolworths) species are protected and/or illegal to sell.
  
  Examples are black musselcracker (poenskop), bluefin tuna, trawl caught kob, red steenbrass and trawl caught sharks.
  
  Fish that are illegal to sell in SA include: galjoen, king fish, Natal stumpnose, Seventy-four, white steenbras and musselcracker, blacktail (dassie) and Cape Stumpnose.
  
  Seafood that falls outside of SASSI’s classifications – such as farmed or certain imported seafood – will carry a blue label at Woolworths.
  
   

For example, though SASSI put kinglip on their orange list, the kingklip from Woolworths is sourced from well-managed hake trawl fisheries where it is caught as part of the monitored bycatch. Kingklip will not be targeted and catches won't exceed the precautionary limits set by Marine and Coastal Management.

Your choice of seafood today will affect what is available to you in the future. SASSI FishMS, a world first, enables you to make the on-the-spot choice when dining out or shopping for seafood. Save it to your cellphone now!

Send the name of the fish as a text message to the number 079-499-8796 you will get a prompt response telling you where the species is on the list, as well as some additional information such as minimum size and bag limit in the case of line-fish. The SMS is charged at standard cellular rates.  

For the complete SASSI database and other sources of info for safe seafood buying worldwide, visit The SASSI List.

The End of the Line is a must-see movie, and one that has the power to save our oceans and the living creatures in it. For more info, visit Endoftheline