Sustainable seafood consumption in China

Changing forms of seafood consumption in China hold immense significance for the marine ecosystems that supply this market, and are a fundamentally important challenge to address for global environmental sustainability. Drawing on recent findings from extensive ethnographic and survey research with seafood traders and consumers in China, this paper analyses policies for improving sustainable seafood consumption in China. The paper evaluates how existing policy initiatives undertaken by civil society and the government are affected by the distinctive social, economic and political context in China, and discusses how future efforts can better build on this context. To improve sustainable seafood consumption will require an effective strategy for working in a market environment characterised by a much greater public interest in food safety than food sustainability, and by a governance environment characterised by the strong role of the state.