This particular "action alert" may have been specifically American,
but the problem is just as bad in European fisheries. The North Sea,
between Britain and the rest of Europe, is so polluted and overfished
that it is nearly dead. The EC's highly esoteric "quota system"
allows different countries to catch a certain amount of a certain
size of fish. They are supposed to use nets with a specific size
mesh to ensure this. What happens in practice is that the undersized
fish, or fish of a different breed who are not included in their
quota, are thrown back (dead). Fishing for "industrial" purposes is
not covered by the quota system at all and so countries such as
Denmark catch large amounts of fish and process it to produce fish
meal for animal feeding and fertiliser, amongst other things.
The only way to allow the fish to recover would be to ban fishing
completely from whole areas, but no government will face the
political backlash from communities whose livelihood depends on
fishing. Even banning fishing wouldn't work where pollution is the
problem.
Sincerely,
June Brough.
