Britain's appetite for fish and chips could be threatening Arctic ecosystem
Britain's appetite for fish and chips could be threatening Arctic ecosystem
Britain's appetite for fish and chips could be threatening one of the world's most fragile ecosystems as fishing fleets move further north to supply demand. The UK imports more than 100,000 tons of cod each year and fishermen are taking advantage of melting sea ice in the Arctic Circle to source it in greater numbers. The amount of sea ice has reached an all-time low this summer - a staggering 100,000 sq km below the previous record set in 2010. Experts say a vast expanse, an area about six times the size of the United Kingdom, has vanished in the past 30 years.
The Norwegian government has a very clear responsibility to make sure that there is protection of the areas that are vulnerable and opening up.
UK campaigner Daniela Montalto
In a Sky News special report, we joined an Arctic research expedition to analyse the effect on life below the surface. Campaigners are worried the melting ice is being turned into a business opportunity by the fishing trawler fleets in particular. As Arctic sea ice retreats, fisheries in the Barents Sea are pushing northward into newly ice-free waters near Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Circle. But knowledge about these waters is limited, leaving some worried the extra fishing activity could have harmful effects on the environment. Earlier this year, fishermen and seafood suppliers struck a major deal that will protect some parts of the Arctic region from industrial fishing for cod. Companies including McDonald's, Tesco, Birds Eye, Europe's largest frozen fish processor, Espersen, Russian group Karat, and Fiskebat, which represents the entire Norwegian oceangoing fishing fleet, have said their suppliers will refrain from expanding their cod fisheries further into pristine Arctic waters.
The sea floor is a complex place and the life down there, including the soft corals, may be many centuries old until a net just snaps them off - and that's it for centuries. Here we have a chance to get it right.
Dr Carl Safina, an ecologist from Stony Brook University in New York, speaking to Sky News
