Chefs want action to save cod and chips

Top chefs Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall and Antony Worrall Thompson are spearheading a campaign to save classic pub dish cod and chips.

As EU fisheries ministers meet in Brussels, environmental charity WWF is calling on governments to ban fishing methods which threaten the survival of several fish species.

The charity says that with the levels of cod officially allowed to be caught still above the numbers that scientists believe makes the species sustainable, it is 'madness' that tens of thousands of tonnes of cod are caught and thrown back dead or dying each year in nets targeting other species.

There is often a substantial bycatch of cod by scampi fisheries due to the small mesh size of the nets. In addition, around half of all plaice caught are discarded overboard, usually dead, as a result of bycatch

Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall said: "Soon cod and chips, our national dish, will have to be imported as we can't catch enough cod off our coast for fishermen to make a living. This shows the extraordinary mismanagement of our seas with the majority of stocks being overfished.

"If the fisheries collapse then it is not just the fishermen that will suffer. The environment will suffer as fish are brought from further afield, chefs and the public will suffer as we will no longer be able to find high quality, freshly-caught fish on our doorstep."

Antony Worrall Thompson said: "Destructive fisheries policies have massively damaged the UK's marine environment, not just the fish stocks but their habitats and other species found in the same area. If this mismanagement continues we will end up eating jelly fish because there will be no fish left. I don't know any recipes for jelly fish!"