International Photojournalist and Photographer

Angling, freshwater fishing, is one of the most popular pastimes in the UK. Millions of men and women enjoy extended periods of relaxation watching their float bobbing on a pond, wishing for the next twitch on their rod end or repetitively retrieving their spinning tackle in the hope that a monster will mouth their gyrating tiddler. No catch no problem. It’s only a hobby, an escape from the hum drum of life and its tedium and, excepting a brace of fly caught trout, we would never dream of eating that little Rudd or Roach we just hooked, even if we were entitled to so do. A ‘blank fish day’s’ real importance, however, is for the opportunity to publicly make amends for your poor performance when, after the first half pint and packet of crisps, personal embarrassment is U-turned into an epic tale of  the one that got away and just how aggressively the beast fought until even the new, ultra expensive designer fishing line cracking like a whip, gave up the ghost.

Not so for the freshwater fishermen of South East Asia. Catching fish, from the canals and ponds which store water and transport life to the green rice fields, is a necessity. Fish for food to live and to feed the family. The fishermen here sport no green wellington boots, just bare feet; no designer labelled waistcoat-trouser ensemble hiding a myriad of accessory pockets to be filled with more useless paraphernalia after the next visit to the Angling Megastore. No, only an old tee shirt and nylon trousers or underpants here. Specialist sun caps with interchangeable shades, so essential for a successful day on the  ”you cannot fail to catch here” newly stocked lake are replaced with a worn knitted hat.

Fishing techniques are different in South East Asia too. Weighted nets are cast into the murky water by the fisherman who then get in and get dirty. Pressing his precious net onto the silty bottom with only his head remaining above the surface the fisherman cajoles and ensnares the fish, some tiny, some larger somehow into his hands or into the net. No extended microfibre keep-nets intrude into the water here. Just an old plastic bucket for the small fry and a basket at the pond edge for the larger specimens, some of which will be barbecued for lunch on the bank side with his friends before the afternoon session.

Later, on returning home, the fisherman will pass his catch to women and girls in his family team who clean, grade and prepare the fish for supper and into meals for the next few days. No fish too small to eat here, no EU quotas, no waste. Every bit of each fish will be eaten, excepting perhaps the bones of the larger of the catch. Larger fish barbecued with local herbs, small fish seasoned, wrapped in banana leaves and steamed over the same wood fire. Essential protein to supplement the daily ration of sticky rice and Son Tum or similar raw salad depending on the region or country.

It is reported that in the West, millions of tons of fish caught from the seas around us each year are thrown back dead because they are not to the taste or want of the population, or some bureaucratic limit to catch mass or fish size, designed to protect the fish habitat, has been exceeded by the fishing boat. Cod stocks, we are informed are dangerously low, yet we cannot face freshwater carp, pike or some other unpopular but edible sea fish alternative with our chips. Perhaps if we were ever truly hungry – famished – with little food in sight would we think differently?

Today, in western society for the vast majority of us our next meal is relatively easy to find. Even in this era of austerity and belt tightening – and it would be an interesting study I suggest to investigate if one outcome of the 2008 economic crisis is in fact an overall decine in the average British waistline or a reduction in childhood obesity – we have food to nourish us. Has society generally failed to comprehend the link between the fish supper sitting on it’s  lap  and the habitat from where it was harvested? Misplaced the connections within the food chain in the murky waters of our commercial food suppliers?  Or are we are just ambivalent, far too busy to concern ourselves with shocking tales of good food wasted or modified because, even if it were to be true, it has no  impact on our busy daily lives, apparently.

Naturally we will groan to our friends and work mates when a seriously important issue such as the rocketing price of petrol has a palpable impact on our wage packet and lifestyle. If the groundswell chattering continues and is mirrored in the newsprint which informs us, intensifying our outrage still further, someone in government may be piqued into action. A messenger dispatched with news of some policy gesture which will ameliorate the problem, an announcement targeted specifically to pacify us and the media which drives us 24 hours a day. “Victory for Sun readers as fuel duty is cut by 1p a litre,” quotes the Sun newspaper on March 23rd 2011.

Yes, the mass media will report on some celebrity cause to draw our attention to other prosaic issues, for example, North Sea fishing ‘discards’. “BRITAIN’S fishermen are forced to throw nearly half of their haul back into the sea DEAD,” quotes the Sun, and then colours the argument, citing our membership of the EU and the “loony laws” they impose on us as the sole reason for the action, simply diverting their readers attention from the real issue and guaranteeing the desired stimulus to get  tongues wagging and maintain ‘an agenda’ on the back burner (just take a peek at the readers’ comments attached to the report and one may assume the article was a debate on Britain’s continued membership of the EU). In 2008 Conservative politicians, when in opposition “pledge[d] to end ‘scandalous waste’ of fish thrown back into sea,” reported by the Telegraph newspaper. There is little evidence that the majority of the media are taking the government to task on this promise. If newsprint reported more feverishly that by landing all the fish caught for example, ’Fish and Chips would cost on average 75 pence less per portion’ or whatever then maybe their followers would see the impact of food waste on their personal finances. Pressure then no doubt on the government to develop alternative legislation and enforcement to proactively protect our fish stock habitats without the use of archaic and crude  control mechanisms, this campaign strongly supported I suspect by the campaigners favorite newspaper.

Our parents and grandparents would tell us that it is immoral to waste good food. They lived through times when it was difficult to purchase foodstuffs and the faint echo of  their voices reminds us that you could not afford be ‘picky’ about what food sat on the table for the evening meal. The Asian fishermen and families pictured in this story reflect this same sentiment today. They understand the food they eat, they realise that they cannot continue to fish from the same pond, morning and night, day after day or become fashionably fussy about tonight’s meal. It is incomprehensible to them that we would not eat all the fish we caught, whatever its size or species, freshwater or saltwater. Such an alien concept that we could throw fish back into the water – dead – because it is undersized, tastes unusual, or for which the supermarkets have no customers. They think that we  joke if we tell them that a fisherman cannot land lots of the fish they catch because they will be fined for exceeding their annual fish quota.

The Asian fishermen pictured here manage their own [micro] environment and the water courses from which they catch their fish. Over fishing or poor management results in little or no food for the family. It would be naive to believe that nationally and globally, we do not need some intelligent strategy to manage our seas, fisheries and fish stocks, and to protect the livelihood of our fishermen, hence current EU regulations. We would be culpable if we did not protect and police our legitimate fishing workforce and the natural fishing areas in which they work from profit driven, ethically and environmentally immoral scavengers from wherever they come; this requires sensible legislation of course.

Surely our society should actively press its elected leaders, through such sensible legislation, to end the criminal waste of discarded commercially caught fish and should task supermarkets to stock alternative, cheaper and less popular species for us to choose. I’m sure the financially squeezed families and hardworking North Sea fishermen would both agree and profit. Fish for food to live and feed the family. Government and Inter-Government economic, food and environmental strategy should engage our mind boggling 21st century technological advances to safeguard the fish habitats of the world to provide future stock for the exponentially expanding number of our offspring. I’m certain that the still voice “Waste not want not” of our predecessors would agree with this sentiment. And freshwater fish on the menu? Now there’s an idea.