Last updated: 3 July, 2024 @ 18:15
The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) yesterday released its latest update to the Good Fish Guide.
For those that aren’t familiar, the Good Fish Guide helps consumers make informed choices regarding sustainable sources and species. The latest update highlights some encouraging, and somewhat less encouraging, news.
Sprats – Good Fish Guide Best Choice
The inclusion of the English Channel Sprat as a green-rated, Best Choice to Buy species is great news. We’ve long championed the simple beauty of the Sprat, and indeed we’re all currently eagerly awaiting the start of the Sprat season down here in Poole (any minute!).
More good news for the region is the inclusion of hand-dived, Lyme Bay Scallops on the Best Choice to Buy list. Numbers are thought to be healthy and fishing by hand is low-impact environmentally.
Encouragingly, ratings for 20 species have improved overall, demonstrating the benefits in better management of fisheries .
Fish to Avoid
Unfortunately, it’s not all good news. Ratings for some 21 species have worsened with nine added to the Fish to Avoid list.
Cod is still taking a hammering, with most fisheries under pressure. Sadly, that comes as no surprise. Clearly more needs to be done in promoting the alternatives to Cod, Haddock. Salmon, Tuna and Prawns (the Big Five).
Hake is one such example of a good alternative to Cod. A fish so revered in Spain and France is bizarrely almost entirely overlooked by UK consumers. What’s more, Hake has just moved to the MCS green-rated Best Choice to Buy rating. It’s a beautiful fish, and one that can be used in a host of recipes.
It’s not such good news for the American Lobster, which has moved to the MCS Fish to Avoid red list. We would ask, why are we buying the American Lobster anyway? The alternative is found in fishmongers up and down the UK, in the form of the magnificent European Lobster.
The European Lobster is currently rated between 2-4 by MCS depending on source).
Squid moved to red list
The headline-grabbing news from the MCS update is the decision to place Squid on the Fish to Avoid red list. ‘Fishing outrage! Brits told to avoid calamari and cod as UK waters face ‘worrying future,’ screamed the Daily Express.
The MCS see if differently. “Squid caught in the UK have been added to the red list as there is no management in place to help protect them, and scientists don’t have figures on how many of them are actually living in our waters, so we don’t know how many are sustainable to catch,” said Charlotte Coombes, Good Fish Guide Manage. “The data that they do have suggests that populations might be on the decline in several areas”.
The MCS clearly does a lot of good work. However, the decision to move Squid to the Fish to Avoid list appears to be based on assumptions. In some ways, the ‘better-to-be-safe-than-sorry’ approach is understandable, but perhaps it would have been more sensible, and considerate to those earning a living from Squid fishing, to move Squid to the red list pending confirmed scientific research into stock levels. We’ll keep an eye on this one.
The Good Fish Guide is a free resource and is found here.