overfishing

When I was little, salmon and shrimps were posh, fancy food, served up at celebrations and the like. Fast forward a few decades and both of those have descended to becoming everyday food, available in pre-packed sandwiches and cheap meals in every supermarket.

But cheap and available at what real cost?

Antarctica is special. It’s home to globally recognisable species that we, as a planet, value. It’s a continent apart from all others, and it’s a place we have all pledged to protect for the future.

But this isolated continent is surrounded by a sea, the Southern Ocean, that doesn’t yet have the protection it needs.

It’s a sad day, but I think I have run out of krill puns. Well, I’ve been banging on about this for a few years now, and since Happy Feet 2 basically unleashed every krill joke possible, courtesy of Matt Damon and Brad Pitt, there’s not a lot left.

And that, dear readers, is my worry about krill itself.

At a most basic level, the idea of protecting areas for nature and the benefits that brings is pretty simple. Where it gets tricky is when there are competing interests in the form of human activities.

‘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. 

Earlier this week, we exposed that the UK’s top fishing lobby – the National Federation of Fisherman’s Organisations (NFFO) – is not what it says on the tin. Traditional fishing is in crisis and it seems that small-scale fishermen aren’t getting the representation they deserve. Our investigation revealed some very interesting surprises and it has elicited a very fervent response from the NFFO.

At a time when we’re all concerned about what goes into our food, the phrase "it's not what it says on the tin,” has never been more appropriate. Our latest investigation into one of the most powerful and influential fishing industry bodies in the UK has exposed a clique of foreign fishing barons, including companies linked to illegal and destructive fishing.