The End of the Line

Fish is the aspirational food for Western society, the healthy, weight-conscious choice, but those who eat and celebrate fish often ignore the fact that fishing is an industry as technologically advanced as space travel, with an attitude to conservation 10,000 years out of date. Trawling on an industrial scale in the North Sea smashes everything it does not catch, taking 16 lbs of dead marine animals to produce just 1lb of sole. Regulation isn't working, with fishermen losing money, dolphins dying unnecessarily and fish stocks collapsing, despite the warning of the extinction of cod in the seas off Cape Cod. Because of the shortage of traditional varieties the market has moved on, competing, sometimes illegally, with local fishermen in the waters off Africa, the Caribbean, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. "The End of the Line" also looks at the role of conservationists, the governments and multi-national companies and considers some models for recovery, for example how Barents Sea cod, Icelandic cod, North Sea herring have been rescued from near extinction, the possibilities of fish farming and the potential of locally managed offshore marine reserves.
"Charles Clover's book is not only timely: it is absolutely necessary." - Margaret Atwood. "The worldwide scandal of overfishing must be given a public platform before it is too late - I know of no better person to undertake this task than Charles Clover." - Brendan May, Chief Executive, Marine Stewardship. "The global fisheries story desperately needs to be told in book form, and I cannot think of anyone better qualified to tell it." - George Monbiot, author "The Captive State".