I am writing this to you from Sheffield on a topic which isn’t an immediately obvious concern from somewhere so far inland, fisheries policy. This is currently a hot topic in the run up to the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) review in 2012 with Channel 4 running a season of programmes about the issues as I write.
I am supporting the Fish Fight campaign against the practice of discarding perfectly good fish as a side effect of the Quota System. This environmentally and economically damaging practice not only affects the livelihoods of our fishing fleets but undoes a lot of the stock conservation efforts that the quota system has been designed for as the over quota fish are thrown back. The only group getting any benefit from this are the crabs who get a free lunch.
Fish Fight is not just a celebrity chef or two but has the involvement of Client Earth, the Marine Conversation Society, the WWF, The Angling Trust, Ocean2012 and Greenpeace. If you want to read about the various ideas that are in the melting pot for fixing this issue they are on the web at http://www.fishfight.net/solutions/.
What is needed now is a Rainbow Trout coalition (please forgive the awful pun) to work towards fixing this problem. I hope you can be part of that effort.
Sent to: The Rt Hon. David Blunkett MP, Edward McMillan-Scott MEP, Godfrey Bloom MEP, Andrew Brons MEP, Linda McAvan MEP, Diana Wallis MEP and Timothy Kirkhope MEP
No comments:
Post a Comment