UK group accelerates push to end discards

The United Kingdom’s Discard Action Group (DAG) on Wednesday announced that it committed to a new plan to tackle the problem of discarding fish.

Coordinated by Seafish, DAG has agreed to form four new focus groups that will each have its own action plan with the aim of accelerating any measures that could help reduce discards. The four groups are science and information gathering, regulatory change, selectivity and technical measures and marketing.

DAG also announced that it invited Channel 4 and the Fish Fight campaign to film on one of the vessels involved in a discards initiative already being trialed.

“DAG has been doing great work for the past three years, acting as an ‘issue forum’ and playing a pivotal role in mediating a common approach to discard issues affecting the whole seafood supply chain from sea to plate — from the fishing industry, government, NGOs and processors, through to the retailers and foodservice,” said Mike Park, DAG chair and executive chairman of the Scottish White Fish Producer’s Association.

“Recently, the Channel 4 Fish Fight campaign has raised awareness of the issue of discards and reinvigorated the debate — and we are moving closer to the European debate on the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy. That’s why our group is now going to work more intensely with fishermen, scientists, policy-makers, fishing gear technologists, retailers and the foodservice sector to come up with some real solutions that will address this complex problem.

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