Stop battering cod - what you can do to help save them

North Sea cod are in trouble and could be wiped out in a matter of years. Willie, our campaigner aboard the Arctic Sunrise, explains why you should write to David Miliband, environment secretary, to ask for marine reserves now - http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/what-you-can-do/marine-reserves-now

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• greenpeace
• oceans
• northsea
• arcticsunrise
• cod
• fishing
• marinereserves
• sea
• ships

[crangk]

Allright.. I am a fisherman.

1: its a load of bull that we only interrest in profit..If we catch all the fish now, what are we goin to make a living of next? nothing.

2: Greenpeace. peace (said in greek accentr) on you. you wanna preserve the world.. allright. Try this perspective. fishermen along africas coast line may not fish much.. but there aint that much to fish. but if they dont catch as much as the can? there family will die of starvation!.. try perspectives !

[GreenpeaceUK]

@crangk Try this for a perspective: Subsistence fishing of the W African coast is threatened because trawlers from all over the world (mainly EU and Asia) are now fishing there, as catches decline in their traditional grounds (like the N Sea and Med). It's like a gold rush with ever more and bigger boats chasing fewer fish - and most equipped with state of the art sonar making shoal location easier.

Obviously not all fishermen are in it purely for profit, but big companies (like Mitsubishi...

[GreenpeaceUK]

... for example, who are the world's biggest tuna buyers, and have over 60,000 tonnes of bluefin in cold storage, to be released on to the market as stocks fall and prices rise) certainly are.

The scale and methods of modern industrial fishing have already removed 90% of big predatory fish (like tuna and cod) from the seas - witness the way 'new' food species are regularly introduced (hoki, chilean 'sea bass')

as stocks of our traditional favourites decline.

Watch "The End of the Line" ...

[GreenpeaceUK]

... (the recent film about the consequences of destructive overfishing) if you want to see detailed examples of this process, and some ideas about how we can salvage this desperate situation.

[GreenpeaceUK]

Shanondor, as I made perfectly clear earlier in this debate abusive comments will be deleted -

keep it clean and you're welcome to have your say.

[beeksy]

We need to seriously sort this out. My grandad used to say that shore fishing for Cod was excellent in the UK in the the 1940s and 50s. Now you will be lucky to catch at all. Idiot trawler men are only interested in profit and have scuppered any attempt to get reserves by bullying and threatening people who are just trying to conserve stocks for future generations. Really heart breaking what we are doing to the sea it really is. Human beings are scum.

[motherlodeuk]

If you take the time and trouble to read the research, evidence pretty much the world over is of massive declines in fish stocks due to decades of industrial overfishing - read 'The end of the Line' by the Telegraph's Charles Clover (not a noted lefty or Greenpeace fan). And what exactly is so 'fuckin idiotic' about trying to save fish stocks from extinction - cos that's what's gonna happen if you guys get your way - and your(and my) children will have to live with the consequences...

[BigBadDav1]

thats how people make a living

[ciaranF24]

It's strange how searching for call of duty took me to this

[shawnstam]

The seal populations have more to do with it than anything. But we need to save them for tourism right. Thats cool there will be a mass die off of them shortly. It happens evertime they over populate. As for green peace they are just a non-profit, and the people who work for them only get paid if there is drama. So they start a stink and it keeps there pockets full. When the money runs out green peace will be gone with all of these other organizations.

[crangk]

@GreenpeaceUK still .. i main tainthat all the small fishermen will be the danger. bigger but fewer fishers.. that will leave big areas untouched for longer periods ?

[captainwull]

@beeksy Shore fishing for cod is excellent up here on the east coast of Scotland. When I was a young boy in the 60's there were'nt any cod caught here. Now almost every day you will see scores of anglers fishing off the peir catching cod.

Solely blaming "idiot" trawlermen for no cod in your area is wrong, its probably more to do with the explosion in seal population.

[zoch78]

This kind of thing turns me right off Greenpeace.Shame on you.

[antgreen1]

not so bad you have the time to do this kind of work, whats the pay like?

[beeksy]

What about breeding and releasing them on a mass scale?

[beeksy]

Ur a cunt draggin half a mile of net behinf you. That is sick and greedy fucked up shit.

[mtjdwan]

what a load of bullshit

[motherlodeuk]

Time for a reality check guys - Greenpeace are just trying to help conserve fish stocks while there are still some left. A new World Bank/UN report blames massive over-capacity and overfishing for the world-wide collapse in fish stocks. And poor regulation is the other major cause. Check the story on the BBC under "Fisheries waste 'costs billions'". Says "half the world's fishing fleet could be scrapped with no change in catch." Just thought you ought to know... Global Marine Reserves NOW!

[eric01989]

ive been fishing for 12 years,rod and line, cod seem to cycle every few years in turns of numbers and reproduction, the last two years have been poor, but the years previous and future year , have been and are set to be good years for catching, im 90% catch and release except for a few fish my neighbours want every now and then, but i believe green peace and similar parties are exaggerating the problems to gain publicity and dare i say it, profit/ get off your high horses lads

[Jannemnn81]

Stop eating cod and tuna!

(for the uneducated dumbos: cod = for example fish sticks. I experienced that even people who vote for the green party in Germany do not even know five fish who live in the North Sea and Baltic Sea. A friend of mine who votes for the green party even said that he wouldn't stop eating tuna because he likes the taste of it. That's so ridiculous! Most people who consider themselves as being environmentalist are quite the opposite of that).

[Jannemnn81]

Humans are dumb!

[Jannemnn81]

I used to fish cod in the North Sea when I was a child. 15years ago I caught cods of more than 30pounds. These days are over! In recent years I caught just a few small ones. Now I decided not go fishing cod anymore. I do not want to catch the last ones. There is no more cod left. It's a shame. People do not care because cod is just a boring fish not a cute icebear-baby. Same with tuna. It's a shame!

I blame our politicians for that!

[Jannemnn81]

"go protest the eu and leave the fishermen alone"

-

Concerning the fishermen, well they will lose their jobs too if they do not stop fishing cod. Our oceans will be dead places soon. In my opinion it's already too late. People wouldn't eat pandas or tigers (except the small-dick perverts in Asia)..

[GreenpeaceUK]

Because cod are carnivorous they need to be fed roughly 3 times their own weight in small wild fish during the farming process. So if all our cod (tuna, salmon etc)were farmed there wouldn't be enough wild fish to feed them. The only farming that might be sustainable would be of non-carnivorous fish like tilapia, but there would still be issues with toxins affecting life on the sea floor under the fish pens.

[banzaiian]

the north sea is in crisis lol maybe if they didnt throw perfectly good dead fish back in the water there wouldnt be a problem..

go protest the eu and leave the fishermen alone.. or better still dont eat fish