I had the honour to volunteer my services at a spiritual event in Whistler a couple of weeks ago  which hosted North America’s spiritual Guru Deepak Chopra.  The public event was a gathering of local residents as well as people from all over North America hoping to spend a couple of hours with this incredible figure and learn something deeper about themselves and the world.

Interestingly, the evening spoke more to a global consciousness than an individual awareness.  Deepak spoke of the evolution of our spirituality in North America and how we are making great strides to improve the way we think and perceive ourselves and each other, however it is our human responsibility to begin to take this knowledge and share it with a global consciousness.  His message was to make good on the World, share your passions, stand up for what you believe in and share it.

Guests that spoke at the event were incredibly inspiring, one little girl and her father took the stage after we all watched a news report featuring the two of them.  After a trip up north to the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia, they were stunned to discover that the Grizzly Bears they traveled to see were being trophy hunted right before their eyes!  Kali, the little girl, was devastated by what she saw and decided she wanted to do something about it.  So they wrote letters to the Premier asking him to stop such a horribly barbaric hunt but to no avail.  Kali persevered and contacted Deepak Chopra who in turn offered to sign her next letter for support.  Again, there has been no response but Kali is not giving up.  A little girl with a big heart.  I realized that Kali and I shared a common goal, and at that moment I prayed that we would both have happy endings.

Later we were all asked to chat with the people next to us and discuss the ways that we have been contributing to the World.  This was such a great opportunity for me!  I jumped at the opportunity to share my blog and my decision to refrain from eating seafood for a year.  My group was slightly amazed and possibly confused and didn’t really offer much of a response.  Maybe because they weren’t expecting that anyone would actually be doing anything to discuss or maybe because they didn’t want to hear why I stopped eating seafood.

Regardless, that night I realized just how important my cause is, and how proud I am to have finally done something to give back and support our strained Mother Earth.

It was a magical night, full of inspiration, love and music all in the presence of the power of a collective spiritual energy.  We all left feeling like we were infact an important part of the big picture, one that we can fix if we put are hearts and minds into it.  A powerful gift indeed.

The program that caught my attention 6 years ago that has inspired me to do my part in communicating for Ocean awareness is Ocean Wise founded by the Vancouver Aquarium.  This conservation program was created to “educate and empower consumers about the issues surrounding sustainable seafood”.  According to Ocean Wise, “sustainable seafood can be defined as species that are caught or farmed in a way that ensures the long-term health and stability of that species, as well as the greater marine ecosystem”.

Ocean Wise is a very simple classification program, a species is either sustainable or unsustainable.  Species are recommended if they are:

1. Abundant and resilient to fishing pressures
2. Well managed with a comprehensive management plan based on current research
3. Harvested in a method that ensures limited by-catch on non-target and endangered species
4. Harvested in ways that limit damage to marine or aquatic habitats and negative interactions with other species.

(Ocean Wise)

The Ocean Wise department at Vancouver Aquarium uses internal and external resources to assess the well being of all species, keeping up with all the latest scientific literature released so to relay this information to all participating partners.  Their seafood database is always changing and adapting to ensure appropriate classifications.

Seeing as many of us enjoy our seafood in restaurants, a great place to start protecting ocean habitats and stressed species would be in the kitchens of our favourite local chefs. Ocean wise set out to work directly with interested restaurants and markets to keep them well informed with the latest scientific research thus making ocean friendly alternatives an easy choice for their menus.

Robert Clark Executive Chef of C Restaurant, a man I have had the honour to work with, was one of the first on board with this program and continues to be a spokesperson and representative for Ocean Wise restaurants in the city of Vancouver.  Although Ocean Wise does all of the research, restaurants are required to follow  strict guidelines in order to be granted with the trademarked Ocean Wise logo.  This includes a mandatory training meeting with employees to ensure that staff are well informed about the Ocean Wise program and the sustainable seafood available on their menus to further educate the public they serve each night.  I was one of those people at Raincity Grill, and it was a eye opening lesson, one that continues to inspire me to educate those around me about seafood sustainability.

Today over 100 restaurants in British Columbia are Ocean Wise recommended and the success of the program has  inspired other restaurants across the country to become involved.  However there is much work to be done across the central provinces and the east coast of Canada.

If you own a restaurant and would like more information about the Ocean Wise program please visit www.vanaqua.org or as a consumer you can visit the Vancouver Aquarium’s  website to view their participating restaurants so that you can make wiser dining decisions for your family!

“Sustainable seafood options do exist. And it’s up to all of us to ensure our fisheries are managed in a sustainable fashion so we can maintain the bounty of British Columbia’s seafood industry.”

David Suzuki

In keeping with their mandate “to protect the diversity of nature and our quality of life”, the David Suzuki Foundation has paired up with Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, the Living Oceans Society, the Sierra Club of Canada (B.C. Chapter) to create a new national sustainable seafood awareness program to make safe seafood choices at home much easier.

Their program titled SeaChoice aims to “empower seafood consumers and business stakeholders and users to make choices that best support sustainable fisheries.”  All information about sustainable Canadian Fisheries is available on their website but for iphone users they have gone one step further and created an sustainable seafood application!

A new collaboration with Overwaitea Food Group and SeaChoice is a monumental step toward achieving sustainable standards with grocery retail stores.  Overwaitea Food Group “operates 117 stores across 80 communities in Western Canada, is one of North America’s first grocery retailers to commit to a sustainable seafood policy.” With any luck the remaining grocery retailers will soon follow in their footsteps.

For more information about SeaChoice visit their website www.seachoice.org and download your copy of Canada’s Seafood Guide, a wallet sized guide to help you make easy sustainable decisions for your family!

What are you doing the week of September 19th – 27th?  Join the TD Great Canadian Shoreline Clean Up and help remove litter from all Canadian Shorelines!

Now the second largest conservation clean up in the world once began in 1994 with a handful of staff from the Vancouver Aquarium along the coast line of Vancouver!  Today the clean up is sponsored by TD Canada Trust allowing the program to extend nation wide. Now Provinces and Territories across Canada are cleaning up the shorelines of their local lakes and rivers!

The program requires participants to register in their area as the program is intended not only to clean up the shorelines but to also record the debris found and removed.  All data is tallied and forwarded to the International Coastal Clean up for their records.

“Last year, Canadians  removed 328,733 cigarette butts from our shorelines. Last year, Canadians removed 108,231 food wrappers and 62,405 plastic beverage bottles. These numbers rise every year, which means that Canadians still use our waterways for dumping grounds.”

For more information about this great cause, to register or to organize a clean up in your area please visit: www.vanaqua.org If a clean up is not organized in your community, find an area on your own and help contribute to cleaner waterways.

See you there!