A new sustainability report from Seafish, a U.K. fishery assessment group studying England’s inshore fisheries shows a marked improvement on several stocks, including North Sea cod.
The report includes the findings of an examination of over 450 English inshore fisheries by Seafish's Project Inshore program.
Among the report’s findings, several species are ready or nearly ready for a full Marine Stewarship Council (MSC) assessment, including cod stocks, which the report found were recovering well after being labeled in the past as a species to avoid due to low stocks.
The report also found some other species, such as trammel net caught sole in the Western Channel, drift net-caught North Sea herring and Thames Estuary cockle were all ready for MSC assessment as well.
The report also found, however, that red gurnard stocks aren’t doing as well, and many other popular species and alternative species are not being monitored as well as they should.
“Project Inshore is timely and it’s been an exciting year to this point” said Paul Williams, CEO of Seafish “Whilst none of the fisheries are required to move forward to realizing MSC certification, it has been an appropriate, impartial way to help us benchmark the fisheries and develop sustainability plans. We are looking forward to working with the fisheries on the next phase.”
Later this year, Project Inshore is expected to release a final version of the same report, which will include sustainability recommendations.
