UK Conservation Group Launches “Fish To Avoid” ff

The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) has launched its consumer awareness campaign ‘Fishwatch’, to celebrate Seafood Week (7-14 October).

MCS surveyed all major UK supermarket chains with its own questionnaire during the Summer of 2005. They found that whilst some supermarkets, from whom between 80 and 90% of the fish eaten in the UK is purchased, have a responsible attitude to buying fish, others continue to sell fish from unsustainable sources.

Only one of the ten supermarkets surveyed, Lidl, declined to provide any response.

Fishwatch builds on the successful publication of the MCS Good Fish Guide and the comprehensive web resource, Fishonline (www.fishonline.org). Lists of Fish to Eat and Fish to Avoid to inform consumers about which fish are sustainable and which are under threat have been published by MCS on Fishonline.

MCS has now identified where fish on the Fish to Eat list can be purchased and which of the species on its Fish to Avoid list are still being sold by the main UK supermarkets.

Bernadette Clarke reports: “Based on the information supplied by the supermarkets that responded to our questionnaire, Waitrose sells the largest number of species (19) from our Fish to Eat list, whilst 16 species are available at M&S and 15 at Tesco.

Amongst the fish we ask consumers to avoid, skate and rays are most widely available. M&S, which delisted all skates & rays in 2004, and Asda are the only two supermarkets that responded to our questionnaire which do not sell these species.

European hake, Atlantic halibut, Blue marlin, shark, monkfish, and warm-water prawns trawled in the wild are other examples of species from unsustainable fisheries that are on sale in some supermarkets. Supermarkets can help by promoting lesser known fish species such as bib, witch, dab, coley and gurnard to the consumer, thus reducing pressure on more popular species, such as cod from overfished stocks”.

MCS is now inviting consumers to contribute to Fishwatch, by asking questions of their supermarket fishmongers and completing a questionnaire provided by MCS.

“Supermarkets play a huge role in shaping how our fisheries and fish farms are managed”, says Bernadette Clarke, MCS Fisheries Officer.

 â€œWhilst the more responsible retailers are making an effort to remove over-exploited and biologically vulnerable fish from their shelves, others continue to sell them”.

MCS hopes that Fishwatch will persuade supermarkets to stop selling species on the MCS Fish to Avoid list, to support sustainable fisheries that have been independently accredited, and move to selling more species that still have healthy stocks and are harvested by more selective fishing methods. Market research recently undertaken in Europe by the Seafood Choices Alliance shows that nearly 80% of consumers and retailers say the environmental impact of seafood is an important factor in their purchasing decisions, and that the greatest barrier they face when making environmentally-friendly decisions is a lack of information.