Remember this? The Fish Fight, discards and the EU one year ago

EU fish discard ban from Rebecca Novell on Vimeo.

Millions of tons of fish are thrown overboard each year due to strict quotas imposed in an attempt to conserve stocks.

Now the European Commission wants to make a change to this. It has unveiled a proposal to ban the practice of discards.

Shot by Jessica Dowse. Reported by Rebecca Novell.

Fight the good fight!

Les Mis

The reality of Les Mis

The choice is yours

Do you sometimes opt to buy the cheap fish on the slab at your local supermarket as a substitute for UK fish like cod and haddock whose stocks are supposedly in a precarious state?...

The RelianceII steamed 180 miles to west side of Shetland to stay away from cod/haddock on the east coast of Shetland and look what we get big fishing of coley...some people seem to think there is no fish left in the sea....how wrong they are..

"Dirty Waters, Dangerous Fish" from SSG on Vimeo.

Watch this video about catfish production along the polluted Mekong River and maybe this might notr seem like such a good deal - even makes eating horse look like a good option!

Visit www.safecatfish.com for more information.

Scallop shells!

Seafish @seafishuk Get a balanced view on nds of environ & needs of ind w Prof Mike Kaiser, Trevor Jones & Mark Gray youtube.com/watch?v=sJpMPP…

sandy west ‏@sandy253 @Realfishfight i know hees not a chef but jeremy clarkson has stood up for uk fishermen in the past. Some top gear film crew worked on T Men

NFFO @NFFO_UK @ZacGoldsmith for both sides of the story,pls read our latest response to Greenpeace report offering to meet/discuss nffo.org.uk/news/nffo_urge…

Seafish @seafishuk Our response to @hughsfishfight seafish.org/about-seafish/… we ask people to get the facts about the issues raised first #fishfight #fishfacts

NFFO @NFFO_UK MPA Fishing Coalition Chief 'slams poor MPA science' in this week's Fishing News @FNW_IntraFish intrafish.com/fn/epaper/ #MCZs

Budding Rose PD418 @buddingrose418 the farmers we could learn alot from them..they know how to promote their industry !! news.sky.com/story/1052921/…

OCEAN2012UK @OCEAN2012UK Excellent workshop held by @RichardBenyonMP yesterday with fishermen, scientists, NGOs & govt speaking together to solve problems #fishfight

MitchTonks @MitchTonks @Realfishfight fancy coming to Westminster on 25th when Hugh is there to make a protest ?

Kate Dobson @DevonScallops @FishStock1 @MitchTonks @Realfishfight @RichardBenyonMP that would be amazing, stand up and be counted! I say, we all have a voice

Jim Portus @FishStock1 @DevonScallops @MitchTonks @Realfishfight I'm up for it! Hoping that @RichardBenyonMP offers a meeting to sort fish from offal!

Kate Dobson @DevonScallops @MitchTonks @Realfishfight ate you going I would love to protest against them! callum williams @scubascoopin @hughsfishfight I wonder if the gobshite Could fish for a living and try to support his family I think it's time he had a go #treehugger

callum williams @scubascoopin Started to wastch Hugh the gob shite last night what a load of crap he doesn't have a clue should stick to hugging trees #hughsfishfight Guardian Environment @guardianeco What the horsemeat scandal and fish quotas tell us about Europe | Andrew Watt gu.com/p/3dp3h/tf

Fish is the dish @fishisthedish 25% of UK children are Vitamin D deficient, leading to a rise in rickets #eatmorefish ow.ly/gfSpG

Wild Harbour Fish Co @WildHarbour Heres Seafish response to fishfight programme. seafish.org/about-seafish/…

An open letter about Hugh's Fish Fight from David Linkie for this week's Fishing News:

Re: Hugh’s Fish Fight

The extremely biased and negative view of scallop fishing portrayed last week on C4 Hugh’s Fish Fight displayed a total lack of responsibility on the part of Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall.

Having been educated at Oxford University before becoming a freelance commercial journalist, surely he should be aware of the need to inform the public by presenting balanced facts, rather than trying to indoctrinate them with extremely one-sided and distorted personal opinions.

Whilst trying to provide first-hand and well-informed articles/features for Fishing News for more than 25 years, I have had the opportunity to spend considerable time on a variety of vessels fishing scallops (as well as fisheries compliance vessels) in a number of areas around the UK, including the English Channel, Irish Sea, Isle of Man, west coast of Scotland/Outer Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland.

This experience has also encompassed going on sea-trials for new scallop vessels, the building of which provides valuable employment continuity for both boatyards and equipment/gear suppliers. If the seabed around Britain were as barren and desert-like as Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall conveniently portrays them to be, does he really think that bank managers would enable a skipper/owner to take on the level of long-term financial commitment required to build a new boat? Equally, if scallop fishing damages the seabed to the extent Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall claims, then how does he explain the fact that some of the best scallop catches continue to be taken from grounds that have been fished for over 40 years?

The creation of loose sand sculptures decorated with pseudo sea growth, before promptly removing them with scallop and beam trawl gear towed horizontally by tractors on dry land on a sunny summer’s day, was a very cheap publicity stunt which, in the eyes of many, went a long way towards undermining much of Hugh Fearnley-Whittinstall’s credibility.

So too did the suggestion early in the programme that the CFP was being reformed as a result of his efforts. This is a total insult to the thousands of fishermen who have endured years of self-sacrifice in order to achieve long overdue reform of the CFP, as well as the unstinting efforts of equally committed association leaders and politicians.

The UK fishing industry continues to lead from the front in terms of implementing new initiatives that are already proving highly effective in ensuring the long-term sustainability of both fishermen and the stocks on which they are reliant.

Why was the fact that, within the last 12 months the Shetland scallop fishery has been awarded MSC accreditation, not worth a mention? An extremely wide raft of finely tuned management rules and technical gear measures are in place across all fisheries, but again viewers were not given an opportunity to evaluate these facts for themselves.

Neither were they made aware of the fact that Faroese midwater trawlers, shown at the beginning of Hugh’s Fish Fight (together with Icelandic vessels), are overfishing the mackerel stock by 300,000t, with the result that the MSC accreditation achieved by Scotland. Ireland and other EU countries, together with Norway in view of their well-managed and sustainable fishery, is currently suspended. 

Will this oversight be corrected in the remaining two episodes?

David Linkie - at the Fishing News

My Hero! (this time)

He loved Spike Milligan and must miss him sorely, Charles often seems to side with the irrational verging on insanity or shows a lack of level-hedaed reasoning (homeopathy masquerading being based on science for example) but, on this occasion, we salute the man!

Long Live Charles! Long Live the King! 

to be, or maybe not to be, that is.....

Full story courtesy of the Daily Telegraph:

Under the headline: Prince Charles to battle council over closure of historic kipper smokehouse that survived the Blitz.

Prince Charles is preparing to battle authorities after Britain's oldest working fish smokehouse was shut down after a single resident complained about the smell.

It had survived for more than 130 years and was bombed in the Blitz but Walter Purkis and Sons was told to close by Haringey council following a complaint from a resident in a nearby flat block in Crouch End, North London. The Purkis family were informed last month the smokehouse was in breach of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and the Clean Air Act 1993.

However, the Prince of Wales, a strong supporter of traditional and organic foods, has stepped in to help the owner of the business, John Purkis, whose family has been in the fish business for generations.

Last week a female member of the Prince's staff came to see the Purkis family and asked for details about what had happened. It was explained that the smokehouse won a reprieve and was once again allowed to produce its kippers, smoked salmon and mackerel. However the family were worried the reversal of the ban may only be temporary.

Kipper smokehouse that survived Blitz under threat 10 Jan 2013

"A woman came into the shop and told my son John that she was representing Prince Charles. Apparently, the Prince had read about what happened and had asked her to look into it."

"John told her there was going to be a meeting with the council and she asked him to send her all the details afterwards. It seems the council is now trying to pass the buck to [the department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] Defra.’