February 2018

At least 7.3m tons of fish (usually dead or dying) are thought to be discarded each year from marine fisheries around the world. But these estimates come mostly from observations of large-scale industrial fisheries. Limited attention has been paid to small-scale fisheries, which are assumed to have low discard rates – some estimate as little as 3.7% total catch, compared to more than 60% for some large-scale shrimp trawlers. Small-scale or artisanal fisheries – for which there is no universal definition – are generally considered more sustainable than their large-scale industrial counterparts, but there is increasing evidence that shows this is not always the…

Britain’s seagrass is a refuge for numerous species of fish, stabilises sandy beaches, and helps to lock away the carbon which humans produce. The meadows that surround the country’s coast have been called the “canaries of the sea”, due to their sensitivity to a changing environment. And like a canary in a coal mine, their health can be used as an indicator of the condition of coastal areas. We know that the seagrass meadows surrounding the UK are in a perilous state of decline, and our recently published research has now uncovered one of the biggest causes. Our study suggests that a major…