Fish discards, wasteful in so many ways. An idea.

As the profile picture may suggest every now and again I like to chuck a line in the water but have always eaten my catch and generally fish from the shore.

Discards have always troubled me, as has the price and availability of fish.
We live on an island yet some of our more plentiful fish are treated with premium prices; this of course is in part due to the desire to eat meat but also because we are accustomed to white fish and no bones.
Personally I am not, bones melt away or can be taken out with the spine, and a fork is pretty handy for taking away flesh.
Fish stocks need preserving but so does our sanity in food consumption, there has to be a middle ground that allows us to support the fishing industry while staying ecologically aware.

Hugh's Fish Fight doesn't do ideas, they informed me they are just campaigning on the message so I wanted to outline an idea that last year I sent to Natalia Manas-Sentis the EU Minister for Fisheries and Richard Benyon MP.

Idea
Discard is collected either during fishing, near or onshore. If offshore it could be deposited in buoyant crates and picked up by teams following either rf transmitted signals or in some other transfer method.
1) Discard is then sold through a government department or by a non-profit private business that could act in a few ways; record fish stocks and utilise the finances raised from sales to fund itself and to protect the future of fishing/fishermen, allow for better price negotiation for fish stocks especially for those fish that are not popular, or even feed some of our poor if someone felt particularly altruistic. This could be distributed through a Healthy Eating Scheme and increase the variety of fish that is eaten by the mainstream.
2) If selling was not an option due to EU regulations on competition a donation system to public organisations could work. or the fish be handed over to sellers, gratis, for a negotiation of donations to the fisheries department.

If handed to sellers, such as supermarkets, it would allow competition to exist for less premium fish, or the ways in which the less popular fish are consumed.
Two schemes could exist, one to manufacture fish products and the other to sell whole fish.
Profits/donations could be used to not only fund the scheme but also provide pension contributions to fishermen, support to unemployed fishermen, research projects and new initiatives to protect the environment.


Every five years (or a decided period) there could be a widening of protection zones and any jobs lost by fishermen could be made up by conservation roles in those zones. We would be widening the understanding of fishing within its core employees and also allowing potential innovative ideas to come out from within the industry; like the rolling not scraping trawler nets or specific sized net holes (not ideal I know).

Universities could also benefit from research projects linked to the organisation and so could the increase of employment/innovation opportunities; such as developing different feed, farming and sorting techniques.
Our general understanding of the sea would widen as would our ability to influence other nations to utilise our ideas and innovations. 


Fishing needs to change, I personally go to the coast for mackerel but also eat anything else I catch, our understanding of the war on the sea needs to switch and so does the type of fish we eat.

People have become oblivious to the variety of fish available to our waters but greed has also gripped our businesses to the detriment of a sustainable lifestyle, especially in the United Kingdom.
There needs to be a balance and it has to come from changing the dynamic of fishing and eating habits; whether education or process this is a global problem and one which will cause every nation economic and social frustration.