I became a pescetarian when I was 11; so for nearly half of my life I've been on this diet (I'm now 20) and I've been thinking about it differently in the past few months.
Mainly due to all the publications, tv shows and campaigns that are highlighting the very serious issue we have concerning our excessive fishing, and the devastation it's having on the environment. Basically, we are slowly but surely changing the ecology of our seas, and with detrimental impacts on all sea-life.
The main threats are:
Overfishing - This eliminates important animals in the ecosystem and also decreases the valuable source of food.
Predator loss - By the killing of sharks purely their fins for (mainly) the Chinese population. This has a very serious impact on the food chain.
Climate Change - Yes, this too is having an impact, increasing the acidity levels in our oceans. Many creatures are struggling to adapt to these new inhospitable conditions.
Pollution - We all know about it, and we all in some way or another contribute to it whether we like it or not. However, dangerous levels of pollution whether it be rubbish in our seas trapping animals, or toxic waste is affecting the quality of life in our oceans.
Habitat destruction - Caused mainly by trawlers, devastating natural coral habitats and leaving many sea life animals without a natural habitat to live in.
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| A Sealion drowned in a fisher's net. |
Yes. We're causing a lot of damage to our oceans and seas aren't we. Luckily there are organisations and people out there who want change, and who care about conserving one of the biggest ecosystems on Earth.
The size of the problem first caught my attention when Selfridges (a famous London department store), held a campaign called 'Project Ocean'. This was a five week long campaign, with lots of publicity and public attention. As a Londoner I don't know anyone who hadn't heard of the project; and that's saying quite a lot!
I guess we've reached crisis levels due to all the recent campaigns, and celebrity involvement such as the British chef, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. He has started a campaign called 'Hugh's Fish Fight' which has had a total of 747,416 people sign-up to the campaign in Europe so far (I recommend you check out the link).
All this attention has had an impact on the fish/shellfish that I now buy and eat in restaurants. Previously I'd buy a tin of tuna without even thinking about whether it was caught using a sustainable fishing method. Now all I do is look for 'caught by pole-line' and that it's dolphin friendly. If it isn't, I don't buy it, simple. I recommend buying Sainsbury's own brand tuna over John West as it is 100% responsibly sourced.
While you may not think checking whether the: prawns, tuna, cod, or salmon you buy are responsibly sourced, the method by which they are caught can have a massive negative impact on the environment (such as the use of deep sea trawlers).
Whilst researching this area, I came across some quotes which really caught my attention:
"One in five people on this planet depends on fish as their main source of protein" - Food and Agriculture Organisation... Oh, that'd be me then!
"We are in the situation where 40 years down the line we, effectively, are out of fish" - Pavan Sukhdev, UN Environment Programme.
Realistically, we need to change our fishing habits as soon as possible. A lot of people are already doing this by buying responsibly and educating others to do so too.
Here are a few useful sites that give you more information on the great fish fight, and how you can help conserve part of the biggest ecosystem on Earth:
Save Our Seas Foundation
Information on Sustainable Fish
Marks and Spencer's Forever Fish Campaign
WWF (World Wildlife Fund) - More Fish Campagin
Thanks for reading...
Lauren-Eloise x
N.B. All images are from Google Images.
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