New England Aquarium: Supporting Environmentally Responsible Seafood Choices - SEAFOOD Ecolabelling: Principles and Practice - page 322

Chapter 16
New England Aquarium: Supporting
Environmentally Responsible
Seafood Choices

Heather Tausig, Michael Tlusty, Lydia Bergen,
Gregory Stone and Kathleen Szleper

16.1 The New England Aquarium

The New England Aquarium, a private, non-profit education, research and conser-
vation institution, opened in Boston in 1969, and currently hosts over 1.25 million
visitors each year. As one of the earliest modern aquaria, it is known for its high
quality live animal and habitat exhibits, engaging hands-on science education pro-
grammes, and worldwide aquatic conservation and research initiatives. In 1992,
concerns about increasing threats to the environment led New England Aquarium
trustees to adopt a new conservation-oriented mission - ' to present, promote and
protect the world of water' . In 2004, the Aquarium's vision statement was expanded
to increase the institution's conservation mandate - to be a place to discover the
blue planet and a force for lasting change in the world's oceans. The increased focus
on global ocean conservation created an important role for the conservation and
research departments of the Aquarium in meeting the challenges associated with
the expanded vision and mission.
The Aquarium's conservation initiatives are now centred in the Division of Global
Marine Programs and focus on conservation policy, education, and fisheries science
through projects that involve policy-makers, scientists, commercial fishermen, cor-
porations, and the public in finding solutions to help resolve aquatic conservation
problems. The efforts of Global Marine Programs staff to engage in a number of
research- and community-focused initiatives over the past two decades have con-
tributed to the Aquarium's reputation as a fair broker of information and a trusted
facilitator, particularly around local and global fisheries issues. It is this reputa-
tion that facilitated the creation of the Aquarium's work advising corporations on
sustainable seafood issues.