A new battle against discards begins in France with Fish Fight
By Lewis Smith
September 13 2012 Fish2Fork
Melanie Laurent is urging diners to join a campaign to prevent more than a million fish being tossed back into the sea dead by fishermen each year.
The actress, the French voice of the documentary film The End of the Line which highlights the threat of overfishing, is backing an initiative to halt discards.
She was joined by celebrity chef Pierre Sang Boyer and seafood champion François Pasteau in launching the Fish Fight campaign in France at an event in Paris, at the famous Marché St Germain.
Fish Fight, led by UK celebrity chef and campaigner Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, was set up in an attempt to stop fish being discarded at sea.
An estimated 1.3 million tonnes of fish, many of them juveniles, are estimated by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to be discarded in the North East Atlantic annually, with up to 900,000 tonnes in the North Sea alone.
Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) rules are blamed for the waste and the Fish Fight campaign, which already has more than 800,000 people signed up to it, is calling for reform of the regulations.
European fisheries commissioner Maria Damanaki has issued proposed reforms what will, if approved by Europe, will see discards stopped and sustainability put at the heart of fishing practices.
The launch of Fish Fight is intended to increase pressure on political leaders and the fishing industry to accept rule changes which will stop the needless destruction of fish stocks and improve the management of fisheries.
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