A fishaholic’s conscience – Sustainable fish

By: Simon Mansfield - Regional Environmental Management Advisor, Environment Agency, North West Region and fishaholic

Fish seems to be everyone’s favourite, from bears pawing at leaping salmon, to Jesus feeding the multitudes with fish from the Sea of Galilee, but is it possible to indulge our hunger for all things scaly without destroying such an important resource?

The answer really appears to be ‘NO’, and we have all witnessed in our lifetime the decline in numbers of species available. In the seventies, chip shops would stock all kinds of wonderful fish including Huss, Hake, Skate, Rock Salmon etc etc. Now, we seem lucky to get Cod and Haddock.

The Marine Conservation Society (www.mcsuk.org) states that overfishing is widely recognised as the greatest single threat to marine wildlife and habitats. 70% of the world’s fish stocks are now heavily fished and many of our best known fish including cod, haddock, halibut and skate are now threatened species. In the Northeast Atlantic 40 of the 60 main commercial fish stocks are heavily overfished and in the North Sea once-common species such as cod are on the verge of commercial collapse, whilst common skate is virtually extinct.

Problems include:

• Factory Ships hoovering up entire marine areas with vast trawl nets up to ¼ mile wide and ½ mile long.
• Deep-water species being fished, which are often slow growing, long lifetime fish and therefore unsustainable.
• Poor water quality, sludge dumping and marine litter affecting fish stocks
• Unsustainable fishing practices for bottom-living (benthic) flat fish
• Bycatch - part of a catch taken incidentally in addition to the target species (e.g. Cetaceans taken in while collecting Sea Bass).
• Lack of effective EU and UK legislation in protecting marine stocks and habitats, hampered by media coverage supporting the fishing industry.

What can you do?

• Obtain a Marine Conservation Society Pocket Good Fish guide - call 01989 566017 or email info@mcsuk.org
• Sign the Marine Conservation Society’s legislation campaign at http://www.mcsuk.org/MCS_Policy/petition.php
• Try and influence your friends, family, local chippie and canteen to buy sustainable fish (see table below) Also please note that Procurement Teams within the EA are working to ensure this happens with the new catering tender.

and

• Buy or avoid the following:

 

Best Choice	Next Best Choice	Fish to avoid
Clam	Alaska or walleye Pollock	Alfonsinos or golden eye perch
Cockle   (from Burry Inlet)	Bib or pouting	American plaice
King scallop	Black bream, porgy or seabream	Argentine or Great silver smelt
Mussel	Cape hake	Atlantic cod (from overfished stocks)
Oyster  (farmed Native & Pacific)	Coley/Saithe (from North Sea & West of Scotland)	Atlantic halibut
Pacific salmon  (from Alaska)	Cuttlefish – trap caught	Atlantic salmon (wild-caught)
Scampi or Dublin Bay prawn – pot or creel caught from Northern Stocks only	Dab  or seine netted	Black Scabbardfish (trawled from Northern Stocks)
	Dover sole  (from Eastern Channel)	Blue ling
	Flounder	Brill (beam trawl caught from North Sea)
	Grey gurnard	Chilean seabass or Patagonian toothfish (from non-certified fisheries)
	Herring (from North Sea, Eastern Channel, Skagerrak and Kattegat)  (from Thames Blackwater)	Dogfish (incl. catshark and nursehound)
	Hoki   (from New Zealand)	European Hake
	Lemon sole (not beam trawl caught)	Greater forkbeard
	Lythe or Pollack	Grey mullet
	Mackerel  (from Cornwall)	Grouper
	Mahi Mahi	Haddock (from overfished stocks)
	Megrim (trawl caught from West of Ireland and Western Channel)	Ling
	Pacific cod	Marlin (blue, Indo–Pacific, white)
	Pacific halibut	Monkfish
	Red gurnard	Orange roughy
	Red mullet (not from Mediterranean)	Plaice (from overfished stocks)
	Salmon ( and/or)	Rat or rabbit fish
	Spider crab	Red or blackspot bream
	Sprat  (from North Sea)	Redfish or ocean perch
	Whiting (from English Channel)	Roundnose grenadier
	Winkle	Seabass (trawl caught only)
	Witch	Shark (including deepwater sharks)
		Skates & rays
		Snapper
		Sturgeon (wild-caught)
		Swordfish
		Tiger prawn (except )
		Tuna (except  and  or  troll caught Yellowfin and Skipjack)
		Turbot (from North Sea)
		Tusk or torsk
		Wolfish

Source: Marine Conservation Society Press Release 9/02/05

Further Information:

Marine Conservation Society: http://www.mcsuk.org/index.htm
Fish Online (MCS fish guides): http://www.fishonline.org
National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations: http://www.nffo.org.uk/index.shtml
World Wildlife Fund Marine Conservation Programme: http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/marine/index.cfm
Greenpeace’s Save our Seas Campaign: http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en/campaigns/intro?campaign%5fid=3939
The Soil Association http://www.soilassociation.org/
Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) http://www.msc.org/
RSPCA and Freedom Food http://www.rspca.org.uk/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RSPCA/RSPCARedirect&pg=FreedomFoodHomepage

Simon Mansfield
Regional Environmental Management Advisor, Environment Agency,  North West Region
PO Box 12, Richard Fairclough House, Knutsford Rd Warrington, Cheshire WA4 1HG