Just gone fishing

It seems that if we carry on as we are, the phrase "just gone finishing" may be one of the past as there will be nothing to catch. A new documentary, The End of the Line, has predicted that by 2048 we could have hunted the world's fish popluation to extinction.

What really struck me about the situation are the numbers...

• Global fishing industry is subsidised to the tune of about $14bn a year
• 90% of Europe's fish stocks are over-fished
• 40-60% of fish caught a year are thrown over the side (to keep within EU quotas)
• The mouth of the largest commercial net is big enough to swollow 12 jumbo jets
• 70% of the worlds fish stocks are now fully exploited

The difficulty is that not only are governments trying to protect their interests (i.e. the country's fishing industry) which often leads them to ignore scientific advice, but we are also being advised to eat more fish (the Foods Standards Agency is still pushing its "eat two [fish] a week" campaign). Worldwide we are now eating five times as much fish as we did in 1950 and, in the UK, sales of fresh fish outstripped fresh poultry for the first time last year.

So what is the solution? Should we stop eating fish? Just yesterday Paul McCartney suggested we should have Meat Free Mondays. Should we add to that Fish Free Fridays?

The situation is complex and, although there is some hope from sustainable fishing policies in countries such as New Zealand, there needs to be co-ordinated bold moves from governments around the world. After all if we don't act now we'll be dealing with the collapse of an entire industry and not just the fact that there's no fish to go with our chips.