Plenty more fish in the sea

I was struck recently by the advertising approach taken by a newly
opened sushi restaurant in south Dublin. It's posters sought to entice
customers through the door with the slogan “Don't worry, it's not just
fish”. Now in marketing terms, this is roughly equivalent to Colonel
Sanders saying, “C'mon in, the coleslaw is great” but here in Ireland,
on reflection, it made a certain amount of sense.

Down through history, when it comes to eating fish, the Irish have
always had something of an ambivalent attitude. As the salmon of
knowledge lay sizzling in the pan before him, Fionn Mac Cumhaill never
showed the least interest in actually eating the thing. Similarly,
it's a frequent source of wonder to many why an island nation like
Ireland could experience famine while the oceans around teamed with
the food that has sustained so many other races.

Even in more contemporary times the 'fish on friday' tradition, though
belonging to a bygone age of devotion, has left an indelible cultural
mark on our collective culinary psyche. In my time in college in
Galway I could probably count on my fingers the number of times I ate
a fish meal, usually joining the long queues of ravenous and
frustrated carnivores outside McDonagh's Fish and Chip shop on Ash
Wednesday and Good Friday. Hethens and heretics to a man but
nevertheless they remained incapable of digesting meat on a holy day
of obligation. For the Irish, fish was not food, it was observance;
penance.

Recently this has been changing. We're eating more fish than ever and,
dare I say it, maybe even enjoying it. Growth in demand for seafood is
outpacing that of other protein products in the Irish food market, in
part through increasing awareness of the health and nutritional
benefits associated with fish and also because of a greater variety
and quality of product on offer. Yet, just like the reveller that
arrives late to the party to find the beer fridge empty, it seems the
fun will soon be over and all that will be left is the cleaning up.

Concern about the depletion of global fish stocks has been increasing
of late. It is generally accepted that the global fishing catch peaked
in the late 1980's and has been in steady decline since that time.
More recent estimates are have added urgency to these observations.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation some
75 per cent of wild marine fish are now said to be either or
overfished or fully-exploited. In parts of European waters, stocks of
cod are as low as 10% of what they were a century ago.

As looming environmental disasters go, depleting fish stocks have
received relativley few column inches thus far but now some watchdogs
claim that we could be looking at piscean genocide and empty oceans by
the middle of this century. Having lost lives, land and mythical
cities to the depths of the sea it seems we are now exacting our
revenge by unpicking the vast ecosystem that is submerged beneath its
surface. The removal of even one significant fish species from the
food chain can result in a simplified ecosystem that is vulnerable to
total collapse.

This years World Ocean's Day in June saw perhaps the beginning of the
effort to turn back the tide on this issue. The documentary End of the
Line premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, providing a compelling
insight into the impact of overfishing on the world's oceans, in
particular charting the plight of the blue fin tuna, a popular
delicacy at some of the worlds top dining tables, now perilously close
to extinction. The film is being accompanied by a global environmental
campaign with widespread green support for sustainable fishing
policies.

At the same time, Marks and Spencers has announced its plans to source
only pole and line-caught tuna for its meals and products. The chain
has never stocked blue fin tuna and this latest move sets a further
positive precedent for retailers and their suppliers. Greenpeace
recently criticised high profile tuna producers such as John West for
using unsustainable fishing techniques, frequently snaring other
species in their nets which are thrown back into the sea dead. Pole
and line-catching, such as that endorsed by M&S, avoids such waste.

Sadly there appears little political will as yet to delve down into
this problem. The European Common Fisheries Policy, for instance, was
revised in 2002 ostensibly to preserve European fish stocks. It's
stated objective is 'sustainable exploitation' and this oxymoronic
phrase is revealing. By any reasonable measure, it has failed in this
regard, consistently ignoring recommendations for sustainable fishing
quotas and prioritising the interests of the fishing industry over
conservation and environmental concerns. Such behaviour is recklessly
shortsighted in the face of startling evidence of the overexploitation
of our common waters and the urgent need to reduce our fishing fleet
and a reconfiguration of the interminable politics which decide the
current quota system.

Yet if we can take hopeful message from the End of the Line campaign
and M&S's new sustainable sourcing policies, it is that of consumer
power. Here in Ireland our consumption of fish remains modest by
international standards and the industry remains relatively
underdeveloped. There is significant scope for diverting some of
fisheries employment into diversified fish processing and in leading
the way for sustainable fishing practices in our waters. As with all
market developments, this is most likely if it is demand. When it
comes to fish our consumer behaviour is relatively newly formed, and
therefore amenable to change. Promoting a sustainable seafood culture
is vital and this can be a two-way process, providing information on
what fish to eat and when with consumers responding by eating and
shopping conscientiously. Quite what the response will look like in
places like Japan is another matter but for the moment it is clear
that action needs to be taken or else we may soon be saying sayonara
to sushi, catch you later cod.

Fishy Facts

The fishing industry in Ireland is worth €702 million per annum
It provides direct employemnt to 11,615 people
700,000 tonnes of fish are caught in Irish waters annually
38% of our fish is sourced from farming, below the EU average
The areas showing the highest proportions of fully-exploited stocks are
the Northeast Atlantic, the Western Indian Ocean and the Northwest Pacific.
www.endoftheline.com