Abalone good, tiger prawn bad -- the guide to sustainable seafood in Singapore

Love fish and want to keep on eating it? Then follow these simple recommendations from World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Singapore's newly launched Singapore Seafood Guide, a pocket-sized manual to sustainable varieties of seafood, as well as the ones to avoid.

Fans of bluefin tuna will be disappointed. We shouldn't be eating that, apparently. Black pomfret from Indonesia and Chilean seabass are also things to avoid. Australian abalone is in plentiful supply though, so get stuck in, as are Alaskan pacific salmon and rock lobsters from Western Australia. Mud crabs from India and Sri Lanka are also encouraged eating, but we might skip those.

Singapore consumes an average of 100,000 tons of seafood each year, making it one of the biggest seafood consumers in the Asia-Pacific region. “By using this guide consumers and corporations can make a difference through informed seafood choices,” says Amy Ho, managing director of WWF Singapore. "When buying seafood or dining out, we can use the Singapore seafood guide to choose species that are fished and farmed responsibly."

"In the past most people have been unaware of where the fish on their plates comes from or whether the species they are eating are heavily overfished or caught in ways that are damaging to the marine environment. Much of the seafood you see in Singapore may be from areas that have been overfished for years," explains Dr Geoffrey Muldoon of WWF’s Coral Triangle Program about the need for the Singapore Seafood Guide.

The Guide itself is dead easy -- it's organized into three colored categories like a traffic light system, with green for all recommended varieties, amber for those we should think twice about eating and red to flag those species you should avoid if you want to do what's right for ocean life. Those wishing to obtain a copy can download it from the WWF Singapore website. It is also currently available at Supernature, Singapore Botanical Gardens, National Geographic Shop, Sentosa Nature Discovery, and will be offered at more outlets shortly.