Last year we challenged leading UK supermarkets to clean up their act by removing destructively fished seafood from their shelves - our new report shows that many of the biggest names on the high street have responded positively, and are leading a revolution that is transforming the entire fishing industry.
One year ago only two supermarkets had any real policy on sourcing seafood
sustainably, now seven out of nine of the major chains have made serious progress, with only Somerfield and Iceland lagging behind at the foot of our latest league table .
At the top are Marks and Spencer, leading the way for the second year running, closely followed by Waitrose. Of the rest ASDA, bottom last year, has made enormous progress with a commitment to sell only sustainably managed seafood within three to five years.
We are happy to acknowledge their hard work. Oceans campaigner Oliver Knowles commented "the seafood industry in the UK is undergoing nothing short of a revolution. Supermarkets are in a prime position to drive forward the protection of the oceans. They should be praised for the considerable progress that they have made in the last year but even the best can do better."
The great bycatch disaster
Despite the enormous progress made by supermarkets over the last 12 months, a large amount of the seafood they sell is still caught using methods highly destructive of the ocean environment. One of the worst methods currently in use is beam trawling, which wreaks havoc on the seabed and on ocean life. It is also is massively wasteful, with up to 70 per cent of what's caught in the net being thrown away as bycatch, dead or dying. Our oceans are being stripped of life at such a rate that this literally cannot continue, and we are calling on all supermarkets to take immediate measures to ban beam trawled species from their shelves.
To make this point Greenpeace staged an event in Trafalgar Square on Thursday 5th October 2006, covering its central section with tables full of sea creatures needlessly killed as bycatch. We served up a fish dinner, (complete with tuxedoed waiter!) to demonstrate how much sealife dies just to get one flat fish such as skate or plaice onto our plates. Hundreds of people came to look - most were shocked and amazed at the scale of the destruction. Take a look at a few of our pictures here and decide for yourself.
