It may come as a surprise, but even as an island nation with a long and rich history of fishing, the UK imports massive quantities of fish from abroad in order to fill our plates. If we relied on our own fisheries, counters at supermarkets and fishmongers across the country would empty today and for the rest of the year – our fish dependence day.
Dependence itself isn’t a problem. Our dependence day for coffee or tea would fall on the first of the year, but that’s hardly surprisingly and isn’t due to a UK production problem. But that we rely so heavily on foreign waters to match our fish consumption is important for two reasons.
Firstly, overfishing has depleted UK fishing areas to such low levels that the quantity of fish available falls short of what our appetites demand. If we hadn’t depleted our fish stocks, or if we now rebuild them to higher levels by fishing less in the short term, we could fish at a higher but sustainable level in the long term. Results from NEF’s Bio-Economic Model of European Fleets indicate that doing so could nearly double UK landings, pushing our fish dependence day off the end of the calendar.
Secondly, our fish dependence highlights just how significant the role of trade is in the fishing industry. There are some species, like mackerel, herring or nephrops, where the UK exports its landings to eager consumers abroad, but we also import a great deal of cod, haddock and shrimp to meet British tastes – a fish swap that frustrates British fishers themselves.
he top 15 imports to the UK, mapped above, include: cheap fishmeal from Peru, used for aquaculture; species that used to be caught in greater numbers in the UK, like cod from Iceland and haddock from Norway; and favoured tastes from foreign waters, like shrimp from Thailand and tuna from African nations.
The problem with our imports is that significant quantities are coming from waters with declining fish populations and worse fisheries management and practices than ours. It’s one thing to try and rebuild our own fish stocks, but the end goal of sustainability must also include those places from which we get our fish. The UK fish dependence day shows just how much of our consumption relies on fish from abroad and therefore the scale of this issue.
The silver lining is that we know what must be done to rebuild fish stocks to higher levels. Fish, as a renewable resource, will repopulate if given the chance and stocks around the UK can reach higher levels. Plus, the EU fish dependence day fell two months ago on July 5th, so we’re doing better than some.
We’re also moving in the right direction. Since 2010 when we started this series UK fish dependence day has moved five weeks later in the year. There’s a mix of trends, but some of this is due to the slow but evident recovery for some fish stocks. Our job now is to manage fisheries according to the best available science and ensure a recovery takes place immediately and for all fish stocks – as the EU Common Fisheries Policy requires.
Sustainable management of a resource is the best approach to generate social and economic benefits like revenues, profits and jobs. Fish is perhaps the resource that best demonstrates just how dependent economic health is on the underlying environmental health.
— source neweconomics.org