Attending the premier of a fishing industry film commissioned by Seafish in London recently, David Stevens concurred with with comments from the Fisherman's Apprenctice Monty Halls. Scottish skippers are currently reporting the biggest fishing for twenty years in the North Sea and off the West coast of Scotland - yet the media seem still be encouraging chefs and other well meaning but ill-informed presenters to use terms like over-fishing and greedy fishermen - this needs to stop now.
"There was also a presentation from Monty Halls the star of the fisherman's apprentice, which aired on the BBC 2 last year.Monty explained that even as a seasoned marine environmental graduate and Royal Marine and also having spent 8 months as a fisherman himself in the Cornish village of Cadgwith, he was no expert on either subject.He also explained that what he had learned from his time as a fisherman, was people like him, NGO's, and the celebrity chefs who work in a medium that can educate the public, should stand back at times and take account of what they say. What they say has a huge effect on the fisherman and their communities, and all to often the programme editing is to biased and agenda driven rather than taking a balanced view, and listening to what the fisherman, scientists and politicians have to say, in what is a very complexed issue to explain"
Ed comment: We are all too familiar with the celebrity chef endorsing the use of 'hand dived' scallops - without considering just how impractical this is for all but a few select occaisons - hand dived scallops make up a minute % of the tons of scallops landed in the UK and will never be anything more than a niche market for a handful of select restaurants able to charge premium prices.
Looking forward to seeing the film David!