A group of four Bristol East Greenpeace members took the National Express down to London on Monday to join the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall fishfight march to Westminster.
We gathered on Jubilee Gardens next to the London Eye and armed ourselves with cardboard sea creatures. The Greenpeace contingent comprised a colourful shoal of mackerel, cod and flatfish. Eventually the march shuffled off in the direction of the Thames.
We waved madly at a few inflatables in the river in “Save our Seas” livery as we ambled across the bridge. A stiff wind chilled us to the gills and I regretted not bringing our group’s snug narwhal outfit. However, the narwhal is there to highlight our Arctic campaign and Greenpeace HQ prefer, logically enough, to keep campaigns distinct. Narwhals are rarely found in UK waters.* However, right at that moment on a windy Westminster bridge, I couldn’t have given a scampi for purity of campaign message. We were very glad to reach Westminster Abbey where the marchers gathered in a penguin huddle (oops Antarctic reference, sorry HQ!) opposite the Houses of Parliament.
From the stage Hugh F-W described how scientists have advocated the creation of a minimum of 127 Marine Conservation Zones in English waters. Government is currently only putting forward 31 of the 127 sites for protection.
Marine Conservation Zones would exclude the most destructive fishing methods like scallop dredging or beam trawling, but would allow lower-impact methods of fishing to continue. Areas protected previously in this way have demonstrated seabed recovery, which benefits fisherman in the wider area as fish stocks increase.
Hugh soon got the crowd chanting:
“What do we want?” – “127!”
“When do we want them?” – “Now!”
“What do we want?” – “MCZs!”
And so forth.
There were also impassioned speakers from the Marine Conservation Society, SeaLife and the British Sub-Aqua Club.
After the rally, we did some networking with other campaign groups and met one of our local MPs, Kerry McCarthy. We then hurtled to Westminster tube station to defrost in the foyer.
The last program in the Hugh’s Fish Fight series is on Channel 4 tonight (Thursday) at 9pm. The program will feature prawn farming in Thailand and highlight the potential for marine protection zones around the UK. And there should be some coverage of Monday’s march, so keep an eye out for the Greenpeace banners!
You can follow a link to respond to the DEFRA public consultation on Marine Protection Zones from www.fishfight.net.
* The internet tells us that a narwhal was spotted off the Hebrides back in ’76 :-)
Comments