Save our fish....

Watching part of an episode of Rick Stein in France this morning on Saturday Kitchen, I was again reminded of how stupid the EU fishing quotas are and yet we seem to be the only country that follow them religiously. You only have to walk down to the harbour of any fishing village when you are on holiday anywhere in the Mediterranean to see the catches that are landed by the local fishermen and which are all purchased by local housewives and restaurateurs. Some of the fish are so small but they are landed and all are eaten.
This does not happen in the UK where our fishing fleet, obeying the stupid rules, prefer to throw those which are too small and anything over their allowed quota back into the sea...dead. This means that these fish are not given the chance to grow to maturity and we wonder why some species are being fished to near extinction.
One of the other problems we have in the seas around our country are the huge factory ships from other countries in Europe and beyond, which take thousands of tons of fish from our waters, ignoring all legislation and generally getting away with it. Although our fisheries are patrolled by Navy vessels there are not enough of them and they appear to be virtually powerless to stop this.
There are some enlightened fishermen in the UK who realise that in order to preserve their livelihoods, they have to make drastic changes to the way they fish and the kinds of equipment and nets they use. In some localities around our coast there are 'no fish' areas where all fishing is banned in order to allow certain species to recover their numbers and this is proving to be highly successful. Some are using different nets so that small fry can escape rather than being caught, only to be thrown back dead and some have stopped 'bottom trawling' in order to preserve the seabed and all the flora and fauna that it supports.
For some considerable time I have been very choosy about buying fish and prefer to deal with the fishmonger and fishermen at the farmers' market where the fish is fresher, cheaper, sustainable and line caught. I think we should respect the fish we catch and eat it rather than waste it. If more people were aware of how their fish is caught and the effect it is having on the environment and fish stocks for the future, perhaps they might think twice before buying it.