As many of you will have seen, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) has this week moved mackerel from their list of "fish to enjoy" to their list of "fish to eat occasionally".
As the MCS have pointed out, this is in response to the continued impasse between several non-EU states (Iceland, Faroe Islands and Norway) and the EU regarding the quota status of the mackerel population in the northern Atlantic. In effect, the MCS are making a political point in order to bring some focus to bear on this issue.
It must be stressed that the population of mackerel in this region is currently healthy, and the non-EU states are seeking to increase their quotas unilaterally because of the health of the stock. What is at dispute is the volume of mackerel that the non-EU states are proposing to harvest. As mackerel are highly migratory and actively cross national territorial waters (known as "straddling stocks") the EU and its fishermen are seeking to protect the good work done in managing this stock in EU waters.
The mackerel that Flying Fish supplies its clients is from the south west of England, a stock far removed from that under dispute and is from a small, day boat fishery with a quota of only 1000 tonnes. As such, the mackerel we supply is does not form part of the stock that is currently under negotiation between the EU and non-member states and customers can continue to purchase and enjoy our mackerel as they have always done.
It should also be noted that Flying Fish considers the mackerel caught in Scotland (the area of the UK with the greatest interest in the on-going impasse) as sustainable and also from a well-managed fishery.
