Fishy Tales

Yesterday, while I was visiting a Wildlife Trust site I picked up a leaflet from their Petition Fish campaign stand. This campaign pushes for the UK governments to maintain momentum during the creation of the first Marine Protected Areas, which should occur sometime this year. In 2009 the Marine Act was passed but since then worrying signs have raised concerns that any protected areas won't be quite protected enough.

The Trust's petition calls for protected areas which are

• in the right places; where real nature conservation is needed
• supporting recovery from past declines; not just keeping things at the same level
• well managed with adequate regulations and control.

So far Petition Fish has had over 9,000 actions, go to the Wildlife Trust's website to add your voice, I have.

Back to that leaflet I picked up. It was the Pocket Good Fish Guide produced by the Marine Conservation Society. This clear, colour coded leaflet gives an extensive guide to eating fish sustainably, it even tells you for each species where in the world it's ok to eat them from. For example, Mackerel is a good fish to eat from anywhere, Bluefin Tuna should always be avoided but Salmon should be avoided if caught in the wild Atlantic, thought carefully about if farmed in the Atlantic and happily eaten if from the Pacific or if organically farmed in the Atlantic.

You don't want to be carrying an A4 leaflet around while out shopping so there's a push out card telling you the best and the worst fish to buy. So you can just pop it in your wallet, ready for the shops!

On a similarly fishy note, Nicholas Milton has recently released his Top Ten Environmental Heros and Top Ten Environmental Villains of 2011. Fish friend Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is in the heros list at number two for his Big Fish Fight earlier in the year. There are some other interesting names on both lists so check them out.