[This guest post comes courtesy of Gwyneth Hill, a former Masters student who now works for Sustain. The views presented do not necessarily reflect those of King’s Sustainability]
This year’s Earth Hour is on its way, starting at 20.30 on Saturday 28th March. How you can do your bit to save the planet the might ask. This year, we’re turning our thoughts to the Oceans for Earth Hour 2015. Marine life is under treat from plastics, litter, pollution, and increases in acidity and temperature. However, nothing threatens our oceans more than irresponsible and unsustainable fishing. Not only are target stocks decimated, but non-targets such as sharks, rays, turtles and seabirds are caught up and killed by fishing gear. Long lining vessels searching for tuna drag their hooks through the water like a knife, stabbing and wounding the ocean as they go. Over 70% of European fisheries are over exploited and critically endangered species such as the European Eel and the Bluefin Tuna. While the killing, trafficking and sale of terrestrial endangered species are abhorrent to most of us, we don’t really bat an eyelid when we see jellied eels for sale or sharks (marketed at rock or huss) in our fish and chip shops.
So how can we solve the problem? One option is to look at the Marine Conservation Society Good Fish Guide, (however it does requires the public to know where and how something was caught, information that is not always publically available). The best thing to do is to look out for the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) logo on menus and in the supermarket. The MSC certifies fisheries as sustainable and responsible. Once a fishery has been certified, it can use the MSC logo when selling its products, so that when the fish arrives to the consumer they can be certain that it was fished sustainably. Farmed fish is not always the answer as they can be dirty, spread pollution and still rely on wild fish for fishmeal. Look out for Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) certified farmed fish. There is a limited supply in the UK as the ASC is a young organisation but you can find it at Sainsbury’s.
For this year’s Earth Hour I’m asking you to Be an Ocean Hero by helping to get King’s College MSC certified. The Earth Hour team have joined forces with the MSC and are asking you tell your university that sustainable, responsible fish is what you want on your menu. This includes responsibly farmed fish too! Join the campaign by posting a selfie of you pulling a fish face on twitter or Instagram and challenge your friends to do the same with the #fishface #EarthHourUK #msc and the three best selfies will win an iPad mini! Phrases like “I support sustainable fishing, let’s sea your MSC #fishface for #EarthHourUK @insertname @insertname” work really well.
By making this one small change to our purchasing habits, we can have a really dramatic impact on our marine environment, so get posting people!
