Shifting gears a bit, let’s talk about fishing. In a real quirk of conservation, an attempt to preserve falling fish stocks leads to waste in the British fishing industry.
To comply with the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (and prevent a tragedy of the commons), commercial fishing boats in waters near Britain must throw back tons of fish because they are underweight or the ship has surpassed its quotas on certain species.
According to a Center for Environment Fisheries & Aquaculture (CEFAS) study, British fishermen are tossing back 63 percent of all the fish caught (by number) and 35 percent (by weight).
The problem: only 1 percent of those thrown back survive. Doug Beveridge, assistant chief executive of Britain’s National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, voices my main point:
It really is a shocking waste. Not only are the fish killed unnecessarily – the economic value has been lost and the source of food to the consumer – but they are no longer there to reproduce so it is a double whammy.
Iceland, however, has taken a different approach in keeping fishermen out of certain areas. By doing that, I’m guessing, there’s less waste than simply catching lots and tossing more than half back. While this does hurt the Icelandic fishing industry in the short term, it ensures more sustainable fisheries and a healthier future.
Comments
3 responses to “Catch O’ the Day: Waste”
That makes no sense to me. What is the good of throwing them back if they’re not going to live and reproduce??
This is a great example of why we need to make changes in our lives on our own rather than waiting for governments to come and fix things. We all know what is wasteful and what is not, the challenge is getting people to be mindful of how much we waste. Good post.
Hi Jonathan,
It is as crazy as it seems. I live near Hastings in SE England and by the end of March the beach launched fishing fleet (as you can guess, small trawlers) had already caught their EEC (European Union) quota of Cod for this year!
They still do have to earn a living though and so when they catch Cod among the other fish they have to throw it back as they are not allowed to land it. Yes it is an obsene mad waste.
It is OK for Iceland fishermen to trawl other areas as they mainly have deep sea fishing boats that can stay out for days or weeks and so they can do this, but the Hastings fleet http://www.hastingsfish.co.uk/stade.htm are only small trawlers and so usually only stay out for less than a day.
We also have other small boat fleets in the UK that are essential to the local economy and have always fished in an environmentaly friendly way as they do not have any bottom scraping nets or fish vacuum sucking devices.
Its a mad world…
Regards,
Peter.