Did you know well over half of the U.A.E’s fish catch is of species fished beyond sustainable levels including the ever-popular hammour? By overfishing, we mean catching more fish than what the oceans can sustain, therefore depleting the fish population. If you love your seafood, and want to continue eating it for years to come, then FooDiva urges you to read on.

Luckily the Emirates Wildlife Society in association with the WWF runs the ‘Choose Wisely’ consumer campaign to drive much-needed awareness of this alarming issue, but we need to spread the word further. By choosing to buy sustainable fish only, we can lower the demand for threatened species.

Choose Wisely has categorised the U.A.E’s fish species into three groups;

• Red for heavily overfished stock (60% of fish species)
• Orange for species exploited within sustainable levels
• Green for stock not experiencing heavy fishing pressure

So what fish should you be looking for? Those with very colourful names; the pink ear emperor (shaari eshkeli), orange-spotted trevally (jesh um al hala), sordid sweetlips (yanam), yellow bar angelfish (anfooz), black-streaked monocle bream (ebzimi), two-bar seabream (faskar), ehrenbergs snapper (naiser), yellow fin seabream (shaam) and blackspotted rubberlip (hilali). You can download the wallet size consumer guide here – perfect for supermarket shopping.

Note, in most cases the fish are identified with their Arabic names.

Continue reading on FooDiva.