Why have so many fish disappeared from our seas? Because we ate them. It’s a succinct point, made by a fisheries scientist in the campaigning film The End of the Line. Motivated consumers now want to eat fish sustainably, but the issues are complex. We need help from sellers.
Supermarkets have taken steps towards better fish sourcing. But around 70 per cent of fish is not eaten at home but in restaurants, work canteens, cafés and fish and chip shops. There are around a quarter of a million such ‘food services outlets’ in the UK. What are they doing to save our fish?
Two new organisations aim to help. Pisces Sustainable Fish Restaurants is linking restaurateurs with more sustainable fishermen. They have scoured the coast to find out which UK fisheries are sustainable or heading in the right direction. Loch Fyne and Moshi Moshi restaurants are part of Pisces, and participating London restaurants include Tom Aikens, Soseki and Paternoster Chop House.
Then there is the Good Catch, a project run by the Marine Conservation Society, the Marine Stewardship Council and Sustain to inform chefs and caterers about fishy issues. As well as running workshops, a guide gives a run-down on more than 50 species and an e-bulletin, Fish Flash, provides updates.
Concerns about fish stocks go way beyond the plate to the state of the planet. Overfishing is now thought to be linked to global warming. A paper published this year in Science magazine reports that fish droppings help the ocean to absorb carbon dioxide.
The Marine Conservation Society’s guide to sustainable fish: www.fishonline.org
The Marine Stewardship Council has a list of stockists of fish with its blue eco-label: www.msc.org
Pisces Responsible Fish Restaurants: www.pisces-rfr.org
The Good Catch: www.goodcatch.org.uk
The End of the Line: endoftheline.com
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