Fishing. The end of the line?

The world's fish stocks are so overexploited that they are in danger of being lost forever. However the policies of UK and EU politicians are making it worse...

Almost 90% of European stocks are overfished, and around one third are beyond safe biological limits (ie, the adult population is too depleted to provide replacement stock). Some fish stocks, such as cod, have been reduced to less than 10% of what they were 100 years ago. Yet due to some perverse regulations every year around seven million tonnes of perfectly edible yet unwanted fish - known as 'bycatch' - are thrown back into the sea. Or 20,000 tonnes a week from the North Sea.

The EU brought in the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), which sets the maximum quantities of fish that be caught each year, also known as quotas. But despite this overfishing continues and fish stocks are still falling. Quotas limit the amount of fish of a certain species that fisherman can catch over a period of time. When that quota for a certain fish is filled and the fisherman go after other species then its inevitable they trawl plenty of bycatch, which being illegal to land is simply dumped back overboard. Often the quotas are just poorly monitored and enforced. Take Bluefin Tuna, widely regarded as being on the verge of extinction. In 2008 despite scientists recommending an annual catch of 15,000 tonnes, EU ministers agreed a quota of 29,000 tonnes, enough to guarantee the collapse of the species. In fact that year the real amount landed was 61,000 tonnes - four times the scientific recommendation - due to illegal and unreported fishing. In 2009 the EU cut the annual quota to 22,000 tonnes and in 2010 to 13,500 tonnes.  In 2011 the quota will be only slightly reduced to 12,900.  So it is likely to be a case of too little too late as the stocks of Bluefin Tuna are now so far depleted - estimated at only one-third of sustainable levels - that WWF are calling for a maximum quota of 6,000 tonnes per year.

So what's the alternative? Experts, and even UKIP's Nigel Farage, point to the successful national fisheries policies of non-EU countries such as Iceland and Norway. In the US, where they respect the advice of scientists, stocks of fish off the coast of New England were in serious decline in the 1990s, but some sensible policy has brought them back.  At George's Bank an area of 20,000 square kilometres was closed to trawlers with the fishing effort cut in half.  Subsequently in the past 10 years there has been a strong recovery of popular species such as haddock and flounder.  Similar success stories have been reported in Alaska and the North Pacific - prompting wild Pacific salmon, Pacific cod and pollock from Alaska to be certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), the international NGO that sets the standards for sustainable fisheries.  Another initiative set up in other countries have been Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) where trawling is banned, allowing for fish stocks to be replenished.  New Zealand, South Africa, Iceland, Canada and the US have all implemented these to good effect and even that man we Europeans love to criticise as an environmental disaster President George W Bush covered huge swathes of the Pacific with MPAs.  Yet so far Britain and Europe remain stuck in bureaucratic gridlock.

Back in the UK supermarkets are starting to take the MSC guidelines on board, Sainsbury's is currently sourcing around 80% of its seafood from MSC-certified fisheries or from the "green list" of species approved by the Marine Conservation Society.  Marks & Spencer is aiming for 100% by 2012.  Waitrose also scores highly on the sustainable fish supply along with Co-op who not only source from sustainable stocks but refuse to stock some of the more endangered species.  On the other hand Tesco, Morrisons and Asda appear someway behind in either stocking unsustainable fish species such as skate or using unsatisfactory catch methods such as bottom trawling, which destroys the ecosystem on the ocean floor resulting in up to 80% bycatch or who catch tuna in "purse seine" nets, scooping up turtles, sharks and dolphins in the process.  These three supermarkets along with big brands Princes and John West make up the bottom five places of Greenpeace's Tuna league table while Sainsbury's, M&S, Waitrose and the Co-operative are at the top for using pole and line caught tuna.  Following pressure from Greenpeace, and an impending PR disaster on the back of Channel 4's Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's Fish Fight campaign in January 2010, Tesco have pledged to source all of their tuna from pole and line caught suppliers from late 2012, but until then they're best avoided if you really want to stay dolphin friendly.

Under the EU quota system with as many fish being killed and discarded as are landed the Common Fisheries Policy is in urgent need of reform and is set to be reviewed in 2012, so we need to act now to ensure politicians listen to their concerned constituents.  One good way of doing this is to sign up to Hugh's Fish Fight campaign and also contact your MP to ask them to support Early Day Motion 1123 to put a halt to the wasteful practice of discarding fish.  Details of how to do this in a few easy clicks are on the campaign website.  In the meantime you could switch to supermarkets or seafood products which are MSC certified and away from the overfished species of cod, salmon and tuna to more abundant ones like mackerel, flounder, dab, coley and pouting.

Further some of the more abundant species are better for you in terms of heart healthy omega-3 fatty acids. Mackerel and sardines have around 10x the omega-3 levels of Cod or Tilapia, which is farmed heavily for the US market but is known in the food business as "aquatic chicken" for its low cost, bland taste and for having few nutritional benefits. Tilapia is also a case study in how fish farming isn't the answer to overfishing due to the vast amounts of waste the fish create which pollutes the local ecosystem resulting in "dead zones" in the lakes they are farmed in.Tweet