It is fact that the UK fishing industry has been open, transparent and future-focused – despite facing challenges such as discards. According to Seafish, the authority on seafood the fishing industry, which has been in the spotlight this week on Channel 4, has been dealing with the issue of discarding fish for some years.
Chief Executive of Seafish, Dr Paul Williams, commented that discarding represents a terrible waste of our precious natural resources and the public have now seen how devastated fishermen are when they have to throw dead fish back into the sea. The problem of discarding is there but the focus on solutions is yet to be shown.
Seafish, the fishermen, the scientists and Government have been working on ways to mitigate these problems for many years – some of which offer real hope for the future, alongside possible changes to the Common Fisheries Policy. According to Seafish main part of mitigating discards is putting more resources into measurement. “We have to know how many fish are discarded – not knowing that undermines our best efforts at managing fish stocks sustainably.
