A new campaign, Fish Fight, has been launched by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the Marine Conservation Society, Greenpeace and Client Earth.The aim of the campaign is to raise public awareness and encourage consumer activism over a number of issues concerning global fish stocks and the marine environment. An astonishing half of all fish caught in the North Sea are thrown back overboard!! This cannot be right in any way!!
The first element of the campaign, launching now, is focusing on the broken Common Fisheries Policy and quota system that is the cause of a massive problem of discarded fish, especially in the North Sea. Do watch a short film highlighting the issue, and pledge support for the campaign at: http://www.fishfight.net
6 comments:
Hey there,
the website is www.fishfight.net
NOT .com
How on earth did I do that?? Thanks - have corrected!
This looks like a good campaign but I feel I need some more detail on their aims. The quotas are there for a reason and isn't trawling a bad way of fishing for all sealife? Given the information on the website I'm just not sure what I'm signing (although I do have good faith in Hugh and some of the supporting organisations).
You are right to be cautious - but I still believe we must support moves to change - although this campaign is unambititious in it's first stage - what indeed are it's longer term goals?
See The Independent last week when they say: "Yet fish discard itself is merely an egregious by-product of a fundamentally broken system. The idea that the sustainability of the Continent's fisheries can be safeguarded by national governments meeting in Brussels each year to set quotas for their respective fleets has been tested to destruction. For decades, the quotas have been fixed not according to scientific guidance on what is sustainable, but haggling between national governments, all desperate to return with the best deal for their domestic fishing industries. The consequences have been disastrous. A research paper from the EU Commission admitted last year that a majority of Europe's fish stocks are over-exploited and that almost a third have collapsed. Unless European governments take action, the continent's fisheries will go the same way as Canada's Grand Banks, whose once-thriving populations of cod have been fished to extinction. The entire EU quota system needs to be dismantled and replaced with designated non-fishing zones that allow stocks to recover. Politicians across the continent will need to summon the courage to explain to angry fishing communities that this enforced moratorium is in their own best interests. That is the only way to end the scandal of discarded fish. Indeed, it is the only way to ensure that there are any stocks left in European waters over the longer term."
More at: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-troubles-as-deep-as-the-oceans-lie-ahead-2136810.html
Now if they actually stated a campaigning solution like that I'd sign up with a flash. I think it is a symptom of my own cynicism that I believe if we ask for change without a specification they will take an easy way out and things will get worse. More a reflection on me than the campaign I think ;)
The situation clearly needs to be changed though and for that reason I'm in, although with a slightly worried expression...
I've just written to the campaign to see what their views are. Will let folk know if I get reply!
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