The saying, “there’s plenty of fish in the sea,” may not always ring true. According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program, we need to choose our seafood carefully in order to lessen the damage cause by overfishing and habitat destruction. Luckily, the Aquarium’s latest attempts at educating the public about the virtues of sustainably-caught seafood have helped push the program out of obscurity and onto your dinner plate.

The pocket-sized guides, categorized by region in the United States, are meant to inform the public about making environmentally friendly seafood choices, and include versions in Spanish and a separate sushi guide. The guides are divided into columns of “Best Choices,” “Good Alternatives” and fish to “Avoid,” depending on whence and whether the fish was caught or farmed. The guides also warn against consuming too much fish containing mercury or other chemical contaminants.

Though the sustainable seafood guides have existed since 1999, considering the environmental importance of the issues, they have only recently begun to garner an appropriate amount of attention from consumers in the past year. In addition to the usual information printed on the pamphlets, a reminder to spread the word about Seafood Watch and sustainable seafood alternatives is now featured in newly updated guides available online. As another modernization, just this year the Seafood Watch program joined both Facebook and Twitter, which should increase awareness dramatically, considering the popularity of both social networking websites. The pamphlets are even available in the form of an iPhone application.

However, with nearly 40 percent of fish species in North America in decline, even these efforts may have insufficient impact so late in the game. In order to truly boost the public’s familiarity with the program, the Aquarium should take wider-reaching actions than merely expanding their web-based services. Not everyone has a Facebook or Twitter account, but all consumers have been to a grocery store.

If Seafood Watch provides monetary incentives for grocery stores and other businesses to make the guides available in their stores, their efforts may reach a larger demographic, including immigrant and other economically disadvantaged people who can be especially at risk as they consume inexpensive seafood. Along with their current online expansion, this more widespread approach to the issue would allow the program to grow more rapidly, and therefore educate more people about the effects of carelessly consuming potentially unhealthy or endangered fish. One point of concern is that a study published this August by the United States Geologic Survey (USGS) found that fish in all of the 291 streams tested were contaminated with mercury, with 25% of fish above the level of what is unhealthy for human consumption. Yet who is aware of this health regard when they are happily bringing home “heart healthy” fish?

As Lowell students, we may think we have nothing to do with seafood. Sure, maybe we picked up some trash at Coastal Clean-up or heard something about our slippery friends in environmental science class, but frankly, some of us don’t even like the taste of fish. So the issue is not so much about what fish we prefer to eat, it is about getting the word out to those who are not aware of the current efforts of the Seafood Watch program. With this in mind, the program can spark change in both the minds of the people and in the depths of the ocean.