end of the line

Having made a startling movie which has changed the way people think about what’s on their dinner plate, Charles Clover and the End of the Line team have now turned their attentions to restaurants which are still serving endangered fish.

A survey of more than 100 top restaurants conducted for their new guide, fish2fork.com, found that nearly 9 out of 10 were serving at least one 'fish to avoid' from over-exploited stocks. And some of the most critically-acclaimed eateries are among the worst offenders - 7 out of 25 Michelin-starred restaurants visited served species officially listed as endangered on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List.

It's finally here.

The movie that changed the way people think about what’s on their dinner plate is hitting a small screen near you. The End of the Line will be screened at 10pm on More4 tomorrow night, Tuesday 20th October.

Every once in a while in my meanderings through the web, I come across something that really hits the spot - like this amazing animation from Phil Reynolds, for example. Phil's taken an idea from Charles Clover's book about overfishing, The End of the Line, and he uses it beautifully to illustrate the problem of 'bycatch' - the non-commercial species which are also killed during the process of bringing our favourite fish species to the table.

So. Is the glass half full, or half empty?

There are of course other options, and it may well be difficult to tell because you are looking at the glass from a funny angle. That certainly seems to be the conclusion when reading the various media interpretations of an important new study published in the journal Science on the world's fisheries.

Sugababes star Amelle Berrabah helps to promote our 'Endangered Sushi' message outside Nobu London © Dennis Gill

The End Of The Line has certainly been getting the rich and famous agitated on the often-overlooked issue of fish. The film's narrator Ted Danson has been a long time campaigner on oceans issues but in the past couple of weeks many more famous faces have been getting interested in fishy things.

The End Of The Line author Charles Clover talks to us about his book, the film and the plight of the ocean.

What's the film about?

It's an adaptation of my book, exploring how fishing is currently the most destructive human activity on 70 per cent of the planet's surface.

Fishing with modern technology is wiping out whole ecosystems we have barely started to understand. It's driving species such as the bluefin tuna towards extinction, undermining the food security of billions of people and damaging the oceans ability to act as a sink for carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – all to provide us with delicious things to eat.

Hot on the heels of The Age of Stupid comes The End of the Line, a disturbing and powerful film about one of the world's most shockingly ignored problems - overfishing.

For centuries people have viewed the seas as an unlimited resource which can be tapped into at will, and one that will rapidly replenish itself regardless of how much we take from it. But the more we learn about what's happening in our oceans, the more we realise that this is no longer true, if it ever was.

Red fish alert! Guppies hit the slopes to help promote 'End of The Line' © Greenpeace / Mackenzie.

Update: guppies go skiing - watch the video »

Park City during Sundance is crazy busy. The Main Street, hotels, and carparks are all chockablock, and everyone has a film to sell or see. So, clearly we needed something to attract a bit of attention and make obvious Greenpeace's support for the End Of The Line film. If you've read my previous posts, you'll be aware that part of the solution (after some complicated logistics) involved five Greenpeace US volunteers  plus two red fish suits from Greenpeace Netherlands (thank you guys!).