After reaching its 100,000th subscriber by 5.30pm, FishFighters had reached almost a quarter of a million by midnight Thursday - such is the power of publicity after Hugh appeared on the BBC's One Show this evening!
Friday 14 January 2011
The power of BBC TV!
After reaching its 100,000th subscriber by 5.30pm, FishFighters had reached almost a quarter of a million by midnight Thursday - such is the power of publicity after Hugh appeared on the BBC's One Show this evening!
The power of BBC TV!
After reaching its 100,000th subscriber by 5.30pm, FishFighters had reached almost a quarter of a million by midnight Thursday - such is the power of publicity after Hugh appeared on the BBC's One Show this evening!
Thursday 13 January 2011
Arthur's Hell on High Water!
Chef and eco-friendly restaurateur Arthur Potts Dawson is passionate about the environment and sustainable food, and not exactly a fan of trawler fishing - boats fish with huge nets and catch vast numbers of fish, the majority of which ends up dead back in the ocean because they cannot be sold.
Trawlermen risk their lives on a daily basis battling the forces of the ocean. But with fish stocks in crisis, many environmentalists want to put an end to commercial trawler fishing. For the men who carry out this incredibly physical job however, it's all about economic survival.
In a bid to understand the realities faced by the trawlermen who are trying to make ends meet, Arthur takes to the seas for one week, living and working alongside lifelong fishermen on a commercial trawler and testing his ethics as he sees first hand the struggles faced by commercial fishermen. He has to find his sea legs and work round the clock to help deliver the right catch while tackling the rough seas.
Will the experience challenge Arthur's preconceptions, or will he still believe that a fisherman's methods and way of life need to change for the good of our seas?
Tuna tables - who's top?
Don't forget! - This summer, support the local fleet of tuna boats that use pole and line exclusively!
With Sainsbury's at the top and John West at the bottom, here is the Greenpeace's Canned tuna league table's methodology:
The tuna retailers' league table has been compiled on the basis of data obtained from four sources:
•Retailer and brand supplier responses to a product survey issued by Greenpeace commencing in May of last year.
•Correspondence with retailers and brand suppliers arising from the survey.
•Information obtained from Greenpeace Active Supporters engaging in spot checks of their local supermarkets.
•Material that is publicly available on retailer and brand supplier websites.
The data obtained was evaluated by Greenpeace against a set of criteria broadly designed to test each company's commitment to sustainability in relation to their tinned tuna products.
The true cost of tuna
The biggest tuna fishery in terms of volume is skipjack - the tuna most likely to end up in cans. While skipjack is not yet overfished, if fishing continues at current rates it won't be able to sustain itself. What's more, the methods used to net skipjack all too often catch young yellowfin and bigeye, threatening these species further. Yellowfin, a much more commercially valuable species, makes up 35 per cent of the world's catch. Today the majestic bluefin only represents 1.5 per cent of the landed volume of tuna, but its dollar value is astronomical. In 2001, a single bluefin tuna set an all time record when it sold for US$173,600 in Japan.
Numerous other marine species are hooked and netted in the global tuna fisheries. Around 100 million sharks, plus tens of thousands of turtles, are killed every year - causing devastation to the entire marine ecosystems.
Information courtesy of Greenpeace 2011.
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| Pole and line tuna boats - Ben Loyal and Nova Spero. |
With Sainsbury's at the top and John West at the bottom, here is the Greenpeace's Canned tuna league table's methodology:
The tuna retailers' league table has been compiled on the basis of data obtained from four sources:
•Retailer and brand supplier responses to a product survey issued by Greenpeace commencing in May of last year.
•Correspondence with retailers and brand suppliers arising from the survey.
•Information obtained from Greenpeace Active Supporters engaging in spot checks of their local supermarkets.
•Material that is publicly available on retailer and brand supplier websites.
The data obtained was evaluated by Greenpeace against a set of criteria broadly designed to test each company's commitment to sustainability in relation to their tinned tuna products.
The true cost of tuna
The biggest tuna fishery in terms of volume is skipjack - the tuna most likely to end up in cans. While skipjack is not yet overfished, if fishing continues at current rates it won't be able to sustain itself. What's more, the methods used to net skipjack all too often catch young yellowfin and bigeye, threatening these species further. Yellowfin, a much more commercially valuable species, makes up 35 per cent of the world's catch. Today the majestic bluefin only represents 1.5 per cent of the landed volume of tuna, but its dollar value is astronomical. In 2001, a single bluefin tuna set an all time record when it sold for US$173,600 in Japan.
Numerous other marine species are hooked and netted in the global tuna fisheries. Around 100 million sharks, plus tens of thousands of turtles, are killed every year - causing devastation to the entire marine ecosystems.
Information courtesy of Greenpeace 2011.
Taking the Fish Fight forwards - public support is growing!
Kudos to Channel 4 - viewing figures for Hugh's new series FishFight jumped above a new CSI on Channel 5 and almost beat a new series of Taggart on ITV - seems the folks at home are as interested in murdering fish as they are in another 'murrda'!.......
By Wednesday morning the number of online FishFight supporters joining the campaign to end discards had jumped from the 52,000 on Monday.......
to hit 90,000 by Thursday morning - at this rate the 100,000 mark should be reached by around 8pm Thursday evening.
In tonight's episode at 9pm on Channel 4, Hugh's fish fight takes him to Scotland, to the largest farmed salmon company in the world, then to Brussels and Westminster to try to and make some waves.
In order to add some urgency to his campaign, Hugh launches a website http://www.fishfight.net/, which goes viral, and picks up 24 000 supporters in just 24 hours. Fishermen from all over the country descend on Westminster to add their voices to the protest, which ends with a rallying cry to all of us to try to help sort out the mess our fisheries are in.
Hugh believes we all need to try and eat different types of fish, to relieve some of the pressure on cod, tuna and salmon, and we need to add OUR voices to the campaign to stop discards.
and by half five!
they just keep signing up!
By Wednesday morning the number of online FishFight supporters joining the campaign to end discards had jumped from the 52,000 on Monday.......
to hit 90,000 by Thursday morning - at this rate the 100,000 mark should be reached by around 8pm Thursday evening.
In tonight's episode at 9pm on Channel 4, Hugh's fish fight takes him to Scotland, to the largest farmed salmon company in the world, then to Brussels and Westminster to try to and make some waves.
In order to add some urgency to his campaign, Hugh launches a website http://www.fishfight.net/, which goes viral, and picks up 24 000 supporters in just 24 hours. Fishermen from all over the country descend on Westminster to add their voices to the protest, which ends with a rallying cry to all of us to try to help sort out the mess our fisheries are in.
Hugh believes we all need to try and eat different types of fish, to relieve some of the pressure on cod, tuna and salmon, and we need to add OUR voices to the campaign to stop discards.
By 5pm on Thursday!.......
FishFight - round 2.
Last night was tuna's turn to taste the tousled chef and good food guru Hugh Fearnley-Whittinstall's FishFight and his campaign to increase the diversity of fish consumed in the UK by highlighting the problems associated with satisfying the huge consumer demand for just three species, cod, tuna and salmon.
With an 'own-brand' tin in hand, a simple search on Google for the company that processed the tuna using the ID code used on the side saw Hugh's team heading off to Ghanian waters. At the same time, he heads off to the Maldives where purse seining has been banned in their waters to see how a tuna fishery is carried out by pole and line boats - as opposed to the huge pursers that fish in the Indian Ocean and supply much of the tuna eaten from tins in the UK. Archive footage taken on a purser shows turtles, manta ray and sharks being caught, with the sharks being stripped of their fins before being thrown back over the side.
Before chancing his luck on one of the local tuna boats he takes the opportunity to dive alongside the local manta ray fish - an almost magical experience. Once aboard the tuna boat he investigates the floating feeding stations set by the purser companies that are set to attract the tuna shoals which saves them having to chase the shoals over the ocean.
His attempts to speak with Tesco and Princes Foods about their labelling on camera prove almost as elusive as the tuna. As the programmes are hitting our screens, some of the supermarkets are taking action to reduce the heat over labelling their products - it seems that Hugh's FishFight is not without impact.
With an 'own-brand' tin in hand, a simple search on Google for the company that processed the tuna using the ID code used on the side saw Hugh's team heading off to Ghanian waters. At the same time, he heads off to the Maldives where purse seining has been banned in their waters to see how a tuna fishery is carried out by pole and line boats - as opposed to the huge pursers that fish in the Indian Ocean and supply much of the tuna eaten from tins in the UK. Archive footage taken on a purser shows turtles, manta ray and sharks being caught, with the sharks being stripped of their fins before being thrown back over the side.
Before chancing his luck on one of the local tuna boats he takes the opportunity to dive alongside the local manta ray fish - an almost magical experience. Once aboard the tuna boat he investigates the floating feeding stations set by the purser companies that are set to attract the tuna shoals which saves them having to chase the shoals over the ocean.
His attempts to speak with Tesco and Princes Foods about their labelling on camera prove almost as elusive as the tuna. As the programmes are hitting our screens, some of the supermarkets are taking action to reduce the heat over labelling their products - it seems that Hugh's FishFight is not without impact.
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