What does Fishes pay attention to?

“Fish currently supply the greatest percentage of the world's protein consumed by humans. This fact may soon change, however, given that most of the world's major fisheries are being fished at levels above their maximum sustainable yield; and many regions are severely over fished. More than 70% of the world's fisheries are overexploited, which threatens the health, economy, and livelihoods of communities all over the world. The global fishing fleet is estimated to be 250% larger than needed to catch what the ocean can sustain ably produce.

Over fishing, formally defined as "situations where one or more fish stocks are reduced below predefined levels of acceptance by fishing activities" means that fish stocks are depleted to the point where they may not be able to recover. Areas such as the eastern coast of Canada and the northeastern coast of the U.S. have fished certain species to collapse, which consequently caused the fishing communities that relied on those stocks to collapse.

In some cases, depleted fish stocks have been restored; however this is only possible when the species'ecosystem remains intact. If the species depletion causes an imbalance in the ecosystem, not only is it difficult for the depleted stocks to return to sustainable levels, other species dependent on the depleted stocks may become imbalanced causing further problems.

Access agreements through government deals are helping fisheries in developing nations negotiate better agreements with rich countries that will help protect the marine environment and livelihoods of fishing communities. These local people rely on fish to sustain their health and their livelihoods.

Foreign fishing fleets of enormous size and power from rich countries can overwhelm local people and deplete the fish stocks causing further harm to the marine environment by disrupting the food chain. The more fish stocks become overexploited, the more fisheries must search for productive waters which are then quickly depleted.“

Marinebio.org

A good example of this is with Japan and the government offering subsidies of US$2-3 billion annually. This enables them to improve and increase there fleets which ultimately do more harm to the marine ecosystem. At least the EU are making head way with their subsidies by offering them to decreasing fleet size and retraining fisherman for alternative employment.

This is urgent and changes must happen in this life time. As with the climate change which needs dramatic change in our generation; our seas face the same danger. I can remember first learning about climate change in my last year at school back in 1990. Since then I have taken a keen interest and have spoken to many people around the world in those years with surprising results. Even as recent as last year I was at a dinner party in New York and the conversation of climate change came up, only two out of a table of eight people actually believed that climate change was really happening. The same is for our seas and although there is media attention about the extinction of our seas, because people cannot see the direct results from day to day they do not believe it is actually as vulnerable as we are being told.

Like wholefoods in America Fishes is making a stand to deal and trade in sustainable fish. We have taken the decision to work closely with MSC and small sustainable fisheries to educate both the buyers and also the end consumers. Thanks to the pressures of NGO’s on larger retailers we are seeing a dramatic move towards sustainable products. This has also lead to problems because now when the buyers are asking their suppliers for sustainable products most of the larger companies are sitting on the fence waiting for the other suppliers to make the move first. Ultimately the end consumer is not being offered the choice.

With Fishes we are offering the buyers the choice by networking them with other sustainable suppliers allowing the buyer not just one line but a choice of lines across a large range of different categories from fresh to frozen to canned.

We can see already that we are leading the trend with clients such as Albert Heijn, Casino Groupe, Marine Harvest and in the near future Globus and Waitrose.

Andrew Bassford

So in a few words Fishes pay attention to:

›  Quality (day catch, taste, structure)

›  Fish population (Needs to be healthy and stay stable in quantity)

›  Fishing method (No side catch, no soil damage, season catch)

›  Fishery’s management (no illegal activities, good quota administration)

›  Care for fishermen and other staff