Think about fish

In the drive for increased profits the environment often loses out. The overfishing of our seas illustrates this perfectly. Simply put we are taking fish faster than they can reproduce and so their numbers are decreasing rapidly. Eventually stocks plummet so low that local populations become extinct. This is bad for the environment and bad for the people whose livelihoods depend on the fishing industry.

We can reverse this trend in two ways; by putting pressure on the supermarkets to stock their shelves with fish that have been gathered using sustainable practices and by choosing not to eat fish from depleted stocks. Marks & Spencer and Waitrose are noted for their sustainable practices but some of the larger supermarkets are still selling fish from endangered stocks.

Firstly, organisations like Greenpeace are persuading supermarkets to improve their seafood policies. They need your help however, and a novel way of doing this is to get active and send a plaice card to your local supermarket.

Secondly, you can vote with your feet and only buy species that are not over fished. Greenpeace provides a brief guide and Fish Online provides an extensive list of fish to eat and fish to avoid. If fish is available at your local Farmer's Market, ask questions about how and where they were caught.