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BRITAIN'S largest seafood producer last night praised a new report on the "parlous" state of fish stocks published this week by Nature magazine.
Ian Hagg of the Findus Group which owns Young’s and The Seafood Company, said: “We welcome these latest research findings as a valuable lesson in understanding just how abundant the oceans can be and how important is their contribution to feeding a growing world population.
"We (Findus)are proud of the work our business has done in leading a culture of change and improvement in the seafood industry and welcome recent advances in introducing more precautionary management systems in UK, EU and other major fisheries around the world."
The Nature report said that fish stocks around the UK have declined so precipitously that sail-powered boats in the late 1800s were 17 times more efficient at catching fish than their high-tech modern descendants.
Researchers from the University of York and the Marine Conservation Society analysed a previously untapped set of information on the amounts of bottom-dwelling fish such as cod and haddock landed by UK fishing boats. They corrected this data for the ‘fishing power’ of ever-improving boats and found that landings per unit of fishing power fell by 94% from 1889 to 2007.
Mr Hagg added: "For those concerned about the status of the world's fisheries, we offer the reassurance of products such as our Young’s brand, the fish for which is sourced responsibly under the rigorous criteria of our Fish for Life programme.
"We also made a significant step in supporting the global drive towards independent sustainability certification when we announced last month our ambition to source all wild capture seafood for our retail brands from MSC certified fisheries by 2012.”
Should fisheries be closed during breeding time to allow stocks to reach more sustainable levels?
