Future-proofing our fish supply: 'Whatever the small boats bring us, we take'

How can we make sustainable choices when it comes to eating fish? It's possible by focusing on regenerative seafood like oysters and mussels can rehabilitate the ocean

Pic: iStock

DESPITE living on an island surrounded by the sea, we have a complicated relationship with fish. After struggling through the rigid Catholic fish-on-a-Friday ethos — no matter how old that fillet was — and coming to the realisation that fish can be fresh, delicious and nutritious and that we should eat more of it, we’re now encountering questions of sustainability. Where has the fish come from and how it has been fished?

Last month, three civil society organisations — Marine Conservation Society, Seas At Risk and Oceana — launched a campaign to end bottom trawling in marine protected areas across the EU. A fishing practice that has been widely condemned, bottom trawling involves dragging weighted nets along the ocean floor to scoop up large numbers of edible fish while also killing other marine life, destroying underwater habitats and decimating fish stocks.