IT’S doesn’t take a team of top investigative journalists to work out that there simply is not as much fish around as there used to be, at the fishmongers or in the sea.
There are a number of good reasons for that: over-fishing and maximum harvesting, loss of habitat, worsening pollution and climate change. Let us, however, take a closer look at the issue.
The Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries issued a Status Report* last year which showed that South African stocks of wild fish are continuing to decline, in line with the world trend of declining fish stocks. Apparently a recent United Nations report says that more than two-thirds of the world’s fisheries have already been over-fished or are harvested to the maximum and the remaining third is in decline. The South African report says that specifically deep-water hake stocks are depleted, harders are depleted to heavily depleted, abalone is also depleted to heavily depleted (poaching is a major problem here) and anchovy stocks are at their lowest level in 15 years.
Apart from the impact of this situation on us, the consumers, the South African commercial fishing industry is worth R6-billion a year and employs 27,000 people, so we’re not just talking about your favourite fish’n’chip shop on the corner here.
This is not a uniquely South African problem either. In Brussels the European Union** has agreed to try to end decades of over-exploitation of fish stocks in the region by adopting policies that will see stocks recover by 2020. The agreement also aims at reducing the practice known as discarding, by which fishermen throw nearly two million tons of fish a year back, dead or dying, because they want to fill their quotas with more valuable species.
I have mentioned before in this column that parts of the Mediterranean have become known as ‘dead spots’, where there is virtually no sea life whatsoever. My wife and I know from personal experience that coastal restaurants in Mediterranean countries once famous for their seafood, now have little or no fish at all. I remember a restaurant in Turkey, it’s entire window display (a feature of such establishments) consisted of a single sardine surrounded by lettuce and ice – needless to say, we did not share the sard and deprive them of their display.
Locally, when buying fish at the fishmonger or in the restaurant, stick to what is considered non-threatened. That would include hake (not deep water), angelfish, butterfish, dorado, calamari, sardines (if you’re lucky!), snoek and yellowtail. This list comes from the Southern African Sustainable Seafood Initiative, a project of the Worldwide Fund for Nature – South Africa. It’s part of the so-called Green List, the Orange List (to be avoided) and the Red List (don’t touch!) are way too long to include. Just be careful about what fish you buy.
And finally, a recent survey of children in Britain showed that 64 percent of them did not know that tuna was a fish. On that note, cheers and bon apetit!
*Environment Management, Media24 Magazines, Sandton, 2013.
**The Natal Mercury.
