Choosing a Good Fish

Posted: 19/05/2010 6:14:30 p.m.

But the task is not as easy as it sounds. Without actually fishing for it ourselves we have to rely on our suppliers being honest, and guidance from different environmental caretaking groups such as Forest and Bird or Greenpeace.

Right now we are using line caught snapper from Northland supplied by Leigh Fish. Forest and Bird (http://www.bestfishingguide.org.nz) place snapper on their ecological ranking near “worst choice” but Greenpeace say line caught snapper from Northland is okay, so we’ve gone with that. Forest and Bird have Blue Cod near “best choice” where as Greenpeace say only use Blue Cod from Southland, which is caught in pots. So cross referencing is required.

While we are still getting the hang of it, we can be caught out. Last week dodgy weather in Northland suddenly cut off our supply without allowing us enough time to buy Blue Cod from Southland. So we ended up buying line caught Hapuka from Cook Strait which is on every ones ‘worst choice’ list.
We will keep working away at building systems and relationships with suppliers so we can serve fish that is the most plentiful and responsibly caught, just as we prefer to use seasonal fruit and vegetables because they’re most plentiful.

Why do we bother? We believe consumers; that’s you and us, have to be very
careful with the care of our oceans. Governments and the three large fishing corporations that own 75% of New Zealand’s fishing quota may not be the best at doing it for us (just look at Orange Roughy and Blue Fin Tuna.) They, respectively, need to take care of seats in parliament and shareholders dividends in the short term.

This especially shows up with the current situation with Antarctica’s Ross Sea. You may not realise it but while we have a Treaty protecting the continent of Antarctica, the surrounding oceans are fair game. The Ross Sea is especially precious because up until recently it was one of the very few ecosystems that man has not seriously affected. It’s like a giant laboratory for scientists to use for all their studies on climate change etc.
But now many nations including NZ are squabbling over a share of the fishery, namely catching the Antarctic Tooth fish. So far 1 million have been taken and the delicate ecosystem is becoming endangered. See http://www.lastocean.co.nz

When are we going to give Mother Earth a break? For me, interfering with
the Ross Sea is like taking her last baby. At Logan Brown, every time we sell our responsibly caught fish dish we donate $2 to The Last Ocean Trust. This will help them spread the word.

Thanks for reading this blog all the way to the end. Must mean you are concerned for our oceans or that you think it is all a load of gobblers. Please tell me what and why!