Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Programme - SEAFOOD Ecolabelling: Principles and Practice - page 347

Box 17.1 The Epicentre Approach
Monterey Bay Aquarium was the original site of the Seafood Watch programme
targeting the ' early adopter ' audience, consistent with the characteristics and
demographics of the typical aquarium visitor. The West Coast pocket guide was
regionally appropriate and developed with the support of regional fishery and
aquaculture experts. Soon, the Seafood Watch message trickled out beyond our
walls and into our community as aquarium members, volunteers and regional
visitors began spreading the word. An epicentre of activity was created. The
demand for sustainable seafood moved beyond Monterey and into the San Fran-
cisco Bay area where many of our visitors either lived or continued their travels.
By creating Seafood Watch epicentres across the US with zoo, aquarium
and conservation organisation partners, the sustainable seafood message could
reach a far broader, yet still conservation-oriented, audience. Today Seafood
Watch partnerships exist in most major US markets. The types of activities may
vary, but the seafood recommendations and messages are consistent. Seafood
Watch surveys partner activities annually, and is preparing to survey consumer
and business purchasing habits in select epicentres to help determine the most
effective outreach strategies for the future.
17.4.1 Reaching consumers through partnerships
When Monterey Bay Aquarium first explored ways to reach our visitors with the
Seafood Watch programme, we considered putting the pocket guides into the hands
of every visitor by way of inserting them into each visitor map, but decided on a
very different and slightly passive approach. To ensure the information was going
to be used, and not discarded, pocket guides were strategically placed in relevant
exhibits that carried clear conservation messages. Nowhere in the aquarium are
pocket guides randomly distributed. The guides are an integral part of conservation
exhibits and presentations that present a conservation issue (overfishing, bycatch,
etc.) and provide a very specific responsive action (use of the pocket guide) that
people can easily adopt.
The Vanishing Wildlife exhibit (2001 to the present) talks about the plight of
commercially harvested pelagic fish such as tuna and sharks and bycatch such as
sea turtles associated with the fishing gear. If visitors are intrigued as they peruse
the exhibit, they have the choice of picking up the pocket guide as a tool for personal
action (Plate 17.4). This strategy ensures that the pocket guide holder has acquired
some background knowledge on the issues and has already made a preliminary
commitment by merely taking the pocket guide with them of their own accord.
These are our primary audience - the early adopters who are willing to take action
on behalf of ocean conservation and perhaps spread the information to family,
friends, and businesses within their community (Plate 17.5).