The Sustainability Award
sponsored by The Fishmongers’ Company’s Fisheries Charitable Trust
This award recognises and rewards outstanding innovation and achievement towards improving sustainability and environmental responsibility within the UK or Irish fishing industries in 2019.
Entries are encouraged from both large-scale projects with major sustainability outcomes, and from small-scale projects that provide tangible improvements to address specific sustainability problems.
No voting is required – this category will be decided by a panel of industry judges.
Odyssey Innovation
Odyssey Innovation Ltd offers free net recycling solutions for polyethylene trawl and nylon gill nets through its recycling partner Plastix. The net recycling programme has been developed to support both the fishing industry and conservation. There are no viable net recycling schemes in the UK, so most go to landfill. Plastix, based in Denmark, is the only specialist net recycler in Europe capable of dealing with our nets. The scheme also recycles rigid marine plastics. Net collection services operate at 16 SW harbour drop-off points and nets are recycled from the Ocean Recovery Project, net makers, beach clean groups, Keep Britain Tidy, the National Trust and nets found during dive retrievals by Fathoms Free.
Fishing for Litter
Fishing for Litter has operated since 2004 in Scotland, creating a network of 20 harbours with over 300 fishing vessels registered to the scheme, and over 1,550 tonnes of marine litter has been collected. Participation in the project has grown over the years and the amount of litter collected has steadily increased as it becomes a firmly established working practice.
Participating vessels are given bags to collect the marine litter caught in their nets while fishing (‘passive’ fishing for litter). Filled bags are deposited on the quayside and harbour staff move the bags to dedicated skips for collection and disposal. There is no cost to the fishermen or harbours (beyond the time taken to collect and place in the skips).
The Wash Brown Shrimp Fishery
The Wash on the East Coast of the UK is one of the most heavily designated and protected areas around the UK coastline. And yet, a viable commercial fishery still operates. The Brown Shrimp (Crangon crangon) fishery has existed here for generations but was given the ultimatum by the buyers that MSC certification would be needed as the outlets were demanding it.
Working together over several years, a team of organisations gained accreditation for the fishery ‘from the Humber to just short of the Thames’. The industry is still here, and the environmentalists are satisfied – a win/win situation.
No voting is required – this category will be decided by a panel of industry judges.
To see other category shortlists, click here
