A TV CHEF has launched a fight against the discarding of fish in a bid to give the flagging industry a boost.
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has added his voice to the battle against throwing back fish that can't be landed because of EU restrictions.
More than 30,000 people have signed up online to join Hugh's Fish Fight, a campaign to end the practice of discarding fish in European waters.
And the wild food enthusiast hopes his new television series of the same name, which starts in January, will boost awareness of the problems facing the industry.
The news of his campaign was cautiously welcomed in Newlyn, where the Cornish Fish Producers' Organisation has long called for changes to the strict regulations on which species can be landed.
The group's chief executive officer Paul Trebilcock said any bid to raise awareness was good news, but "a lot of celebrity awareness campaigns are good at flagging up a problem, but that doesn't always find a solution."
Backed by Greenpeace and the Marine Conservation Society, the chef is aiming to get hundreds of thousands of signatories to an open letter to the European Commission calling for an end to discard.
"According to an EU report in 2007, between 40% and 60% of all fish caught in the North Sea are being discarded. Experts agree that the figure is at least as bad now as it was then," said the Channel Four chef. "Some are undersized fish and some are species for which there is currently little market.
"But much of it is over-quota fish: prime cod, haddock, coley, whiting, plaice, and other major food species, for which the fishermen have run out of quota.
"In the pursuit of other fish for which they do still have quota, they cannot avoid catching large numbers of the 'wrong' species. The fish are being thrown away because to land them would be illegal. Only a tiny proportion of these fish will survive."
article copyright THE CORNISHMAN