Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Discards - Madness!


Another British celebrity chef, another campaign.



It is so bad, it just totally defies comprehension.
One has to pick one's fights and I'm plenty busy with trying to do something for Sharks - but if you care, check out Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Fishfight campaign website.

Instead of more words, watch the following: obscene!



Solutions?
This is probably unbelievably intractable, as it will likely imply re-writing the European Common Fisheries Policy that regulates the different quotas or TACs - just check out the TACs for 2011 and you'll see what I mean!
But thanks to people like Hugh (and a whole host of NGOs, too), the issue is now firmly on the table - and Maria Damanaki is on the right side of the divide.
Again - and yes I am a fan!

As I said, when it comes to Fisheries policies, I'm basically an ignoramus.But the following graph may be a good starting point for identifying the problem and finding solutions - and not only in the case of discards!
Check it out - see what I mean?

5 comments:

OfficetoOcean said...

Hugh's brilliant, I get the impression this whole Channel 4 Fish Fight is down to him and the others got involved because he's so highly respected...

He did the same thing with chickens and had a huge amount of success a couple of years ago.

Horizon Charters Guadalupe Cage Diving said...

Has anyone done a correlation study on the population growth of bethnic deep water shark species like Hexanchus griseus?

Would seem to me with all this extra bio mass down there this population is probably fat and very happy.

OfficetoOcean said...

I would imagine the biggest problem with that is the cost (sending people down that deep for the lengths of time required ain't cheap!) and that television-wise it's not seen as sexy, at least not as sexy as watching GWs breach at Dyer Island for example.

I'm with you though, I'd love to see more investment into the more "alien" shark species!

The thing is though, to reach the people and get the buzz, it needs to be on television, maybe I'm naive in beleiving that but as I said, I'm totally with you!

DaShark said...

I don't like where this is going guys...

So let's assume that the Sixgills are thriving as a consequence - are we gonna start promoting more discards? :)

OfficetoOcean said...

Ha! I've just realised, I think I totally got the wrong end of the sticke where Patric was coming from, I see what he meant now!

Whoops :D