Seafood

Cheap seafood costs too much in human suffering

Posted by Willie — 14 December 2015 at 1:09pm - Comments
All rights reserved. Credit: Dita Alangkara/Associated Press
Children and teenagers sit together to be registered by officials during a raid on a shrimp shed in Samut Sakhon, Thailand.

About 8 years ago, I had the joy of doing a live news interview from a fish processing factory in Grimsby. Being in a fish processing factory in Grimsby was fine, it was wearing a hair net on national TV that wasn’t.

The story being discussed was seafood brand Young’s decision to ship UK-caught shrimp all the way to Thailand and back, a move that was ‘better’ in terms of CO2 emissions, and cheaper for consumers.

But what price do we pay for cheap seafood?

Seven Deadly Fins

Posted by Willie — 30 October 2015 at 4:01pm - Comments
Seven deadly fins - scary creatures from the deep sea
All rights reserved. Credit: Greenpeace
Which ocean creature sends a shiver down your spine?

If you go down in the deep today, you might get a big surprise. At Hallowe’en the usual ghosts, ghouls and monsters are all-too-familiar. But if you want a real fright, you really need to see what’s lurking in the sea. 

So, prepare yourself as we introduce you to seven of the spookiest, kookiest and most sinister denizens of the deadly deep, deep sea.

Name that tuna

Posted by Willie — 30 April 2014 at 1:51pm - Comments
All rights reserved. Credit: Willie Mackenzie / Greenpeace

Tuna are fish, and they are wild animals. But to many people, they are simply understood as food. It can be a bit confusing when the short hand of ‘tuna’ is used, as it covers a whole family of species, from the relatively-tiddly and widespread skipjack, right up to the majestic but beleaguered bluefins.

Why Greenpeace can't - and won't - endorse farmed salmon

Posted by Willie — 21 March 2014 at 4:13pm - Comments
All rights reserved. Credit: Greenpeace / Daniel Beltra

Greenpeace doesn’t endorse farmed salmon. There you go, that’s it in black and white. Next time you see someone say we do – feel free to forward a link to this blog-post.

I’m writing this to set the record straight after a few instances of producers and retailers (and even the occasional NGO) wilfully misrepresenting us as having supported, endorsed, or given their salmon farming some sort of ‘best practice award’.

The price of scallops - time to judge dredge?

Posted by Willie — 14 February 2013 at 12:44pm - Comments

‘Dredge’ is one of those evocative words that just doesn’t sound nice. When it comes to the seabed, the effects of dredging are certainly none-too-pleasant. That’s true whether it’s scouring out the seabed on purpose to remove sand and gravel, or using heavy metal fishing gear to churn up the sea floor to catch scallops that live in it. 

The trailer for the new series of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Fish Fight (which starts tonight at 9pm on Channel 4) shows quite graphically what dredging for scallops looks like. 

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