25 January 2016
Scientists are doing a fantastic job in rubbishing the damaging exaggerations, distortions and selective use facts by some academics, NGOs and environmental journalists, writing about fishing.
A website set up last year provides a platform where the
latest nonsense is coolly analysed and if necessary taken to bits, by experts
in the field. The cfood website has rapidly
established itself as the go-to place
for a balanced, rigorous, scientific perspective when the latest outlandish
claim about fishing appears in the media, or is published in an academic
journal.
In recent posts on the website, confused assertions about
unaccounted catch and exaggerated claims for marine protected areas have been
tackled; and the case is also made for getting the balance right when assessing
the environmental impact of fishing compared to other forms of food production.
It is telling that the scientific community itself has felt
it necessary to set up this forum in which the flood of media distortions about
fishing can be challenged by specialists who are deeply steeped in the data and
methods of fisheries science. This is a rebalancing exercise after years in
which superficial journalism, sometimes aided and abetted by agenda-driven but
media-savvy NGOs, have presented a simplistic catastrophe narrative about
fishing that is simply at odds with the facts.
Those minded to
publish propaganda masquerading as science will know that in future their words will be scrutinised by
specialists in the field and misleading exaggerations and distortions will be
exposed in short order.
The cfood website is no apologist for overfishing or for
minimising the environmental footprint of fishing. It is however, a place where
rigour, evidence, and the proper application of the scientific method are
valued and as such we welcome it wholeheartedly.