Sally Eason says this may be the year that her third-generation fish-farming operation turns a profit. That's partly because more people want to buy fish caught or farmed using environmentally friendly practices, she says.

"This year I'm hearing more of these people who have traditionally been concerned about price saying, 'Have you had your product tested for pesticides?' A year ago these guys didn't care about that," says Ms. Eason, a tall redhead who runs Sunburst Trout Company with her two sons in the watershed of western North Carolina's Shining Rock Wilderness Area.

As Eason says, the sustainable seafood movement seems to be gathering momentum, but the question remains: Will it actually help protect the oceans from environmental concerns such as overfishing, or will it just mean more expensive fish sticks for US consumers?

Wal-Mart threw its weight behind sustainable seafood in February, when the giant retailer said it would eventually stock its North American stores with wild-caught fresh and frozen fish from fisheries certified by the Marine Stewardship Council, a Britain-based organization that addresses overfishing by setting standards for fisheries.

Other big businesses have made similar commitments.

Darden Restaurants, which serves about 300 million meals annually in its Red Lobster, Olive Garden, and other restaurants, recently announced plans to require a certification process for its shrimp farmers, an industry that has attracted increasing attention for its negative effects on the coastal and ocean environments where shrimp are farmed.

"Up until now, the sustainable seafood movement was a white-tablecloth industry," says George Leonard, science manager for the Seafood Watch project at Monterey Bay Aquar- ium. "Very quickly it's gone from a niche concept to a mainstream concept."

Scott Burns predicts more big businesses will follow Wal-Mart's lead this year. Mr. Burns is director of the marine conservation program at the World Wildlife Fund, which is working with Wal-Mart on its pledge. He says the seafood buyers he talks to at these big companies worry about dwindling supplies of fish.

Nearly 25 percent of the world's stocks of fish are overfished or depleted, says the most recent report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Last week, the Marine Fish Conservation Network, a Washington-based environmental coalition, reported that the population of cod on Georges Bank has declined 25 percent since 2001.

"That's bad from a biological point of view, but also it's really bad from an economic and food security point of view," Burns says, noting that fish provide a crucial source of protein for people in the world's poorest regions.

The depletion of fish is compounded by a rising demand for seafood. On average, Americans ate a record 16.6 pounds of fish and shellfish per person in 2004, according to the latest numbers from the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Global demand is also going up, says Leonard. This is why leaders in various sectors of the seafood industry see economic and environmental promise in marketing sustainable seafood.

Dierk Peters, a manager of "sustainability initiatives" in the frozen-foods department of multinational corporation Unilever, says supply is a major reason that sustainablility is a smart business decision. "If overfishing continues, our fishing business will be over one day," Mr. Peters says. "It's about securing the long-term supply of our raw material."

This concern from corporations has brought the issue into the limelight, but will it effect significant change?

"The commitments are great, and they're causing everybody to sit up and take notice, but the real devil's in the details," Leonard of Seafood Watch says. "How do we implement this?"

Page: 1 | 2