The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) is today launching its latest online guide to buying eco-friendly fish. The one-stop-shop is aimed at consumers concerned about the sustainability of the fish they eat. The website provides information for 150 species of seafood, with revised lists of ‘Fish to Eat’ with a clearer conscience, and ‘Fish to Avoid’ from unsustainable and damaging fisheries. 

Fishermen from the South West are leading the way with several species caught in the area now listed as ‘Fish to Eat’, including: pilchards or sardines from Cornish waters, fished using a traditional method known as ‘ring-netting’; pot-caught crab from waters off Start Point, Devon; and line-caught and tagged pollack and seabass from Cornwall.

Species new to the “Fish to Avoid” list include the European eel, as stocks are at an all-time low; anchovy from the Bay of Biscay; langoustine from North and North West Spain and the Portuguese Coast; and herring and Greenland halibut from overfished stocks.

For more information on eating greener fish, take a look at the website www.fishonline.org . A handy pocket-sized Good Fish Guide, featuring the 2006 lists of fish to eat and fish to avoid, can be obtained FREE – send a SAE to MCS, call 01989 566017, e-mail info@mcsuk.org or download a copy from the website.