Perhaps The Economist isn’t a paper you read regularly… at the risk of having a Sara Palin / Katie Couric moment I’ll admit I’ve let my Economist subscription laps. Thankfully Stetson Tinkham, our director of international affairs, has not (please note he reads many papers and is not the Governor of a state, nor is he running for vice president.) But its recent article on seafood sustainability highlights some important points worth raising.

For starters when you deal in facts it’s important to get em all right. The Economist, despite its high standards, dose not get all the facts right. In this article it bases its warning that fish-and-chip shops and McDonald’s Filet-o-Fish are poised for problems on the apparent fact that the Alaska pollock stock “on the brink of collapse.” This is completely false. Activist rhetoric attempted to claim that the pollock stock was on the verge of collapse but independent ground truth science revealed that claim to be laughable. The scientists at the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) say, “Alaska pollock population levels are high, and no overfishing is occurring.” This isn’t research that requires the help of the library of congress to find. The Economist could have just Googled it or perhaps read the write-up on Reuters or even just asked the scientists who did the assessment themselves– now there’s an idea.

Regardless of the sloppiness with which the research was done for this particular report there is a big picture sustainability fact that journalists are either ignoring or simply don’t realize. When it comes to seafood consumption in the U.S., Americans are already eating sustainably whether they are trying to or not. It’s a fact. Let’s get a little perspective on the issue– the top ten most commonly eaten fish in the U.S. make up 90% of all of the fish eaten in the U.S. And those top ten fish are sustainably managed and have sustainability oversight in place.

So, while environmental activist yell from the rafters that the plight of the Bluefin tuna is a scourge on our collective conscience, plate and palate keep this in mind; Americans eat about the weight of a paperclip in Bluefin tuna per capita each year, choosing to focus almost solely on species like shrimp, pollock and tilapia. Are there stocks worldwide with sorry sustainability stories and consumers who throw caution to the wind with their consumption habits? Yes. But by in large they’re not Americans. We’re doing a good job when it comes to eating sustainably and our fisheries are some of the best managed in the world.

Let’s make a resolution, shall we, members of the media? In 2009 put sustainability in its proper perspective and give credit where it’s do.