[Emptying our oceans] it is not unstoppable. There are many things we can do from writing letters to elected representatives, to being responsible consumers. There is a great deal on this in my book. To decide which fish to buy you have to know where it was caught and with which gear. Ask your fish market lots of questions, most of which they will not be able to answer. But as the fish business learns that consumers want this information they will start providing it. There is a lot more in my book about identifying sustainable fisheries. Also about building movements. Also if you used less hydrocarbon-based energy that would help the seas. If for one week you eat only delivery food and save every plastic bottle and carton in the recycle bin, you will see what an obscene amount of plastic garbage we are creating. A lot of it ends up in the sea. It is the way we live that is destroying our world.

The most important thing you can do is get informed. It is an extremely complicated issue or really series of issues and a lot of well-mening people are looking for bold strokes without really understanding the problem. Fishing is only one part of it and fishermen scientists, and regulators have been working on that for years and still don’t have it right. There are fish you should not eat but then if you are not careful you end up boycotting good sustainable fisheries and then these fishermen have no incentive to do it well. So before you do anything, try to understand what’s going on. 

Read the complete interview from The New York Times.