Читать книгу Inspired Star Block Quilts - Paul Shovlin - Страница 11

If you eat fish you will have undoubtedly realized that you need to ask questions about how your fish is caught. There is no doubt that there are areas of the fishing industry which are taking too much fish and shellfish from the seas with little or no thought of future stocks. Each year another fish is highlighted by the environmentalists as being in serious threat, whether it’s the prized blue-fin tuna or the humble cod. But there is a future for commercial farming and as a consumer you are in the best position to lead it.

So where do you start? Firstly in the UK and Europe there is a generally agreed understanding that fishing has to be controlled. This is done with quotas, where a set tonnage of fish that can be taken from each part of the sea is allocated across a period of time. This is enforced here in Britain by the Marine and Fisheries Agency who monitor what the commercial fishermen are doing. Every fish caught in British waters is logged and its size and condition recorded. Therefore it is possible to trace every fish served to you back to where and how it was caught. Obviously there are some fishermen who don’t record their catch and sell them on the black market, this ‘black’ fish is not monitored and obviously can’t be traced. So when you buy fish you should be able to ask how and when it was caught and with what method. If you don’t get an answer then it’s probably best to go elsewhere.