The call to end overfishing in the European Union has been given a boost by global celebrities posing naked with fish.
Fishlove is a series of striking images featuring celebrities such as actors Dame Judi Dench, Greta Scacchi and Helena Bonham-Carter to raise awareness of destructive fishing practices. The portraits have been used to promote campaigns such as those run by the Marine Conservation Society, Blue Marine Foundation and OCEAN2012.
Twenty of the portraits are currently featuring in the ‘Ending EU Overfishing: The Decade Past and the Decade to Come’ photographic exhibition which runs until 9 June in front of the EU parliament in Brussels.
“For more than a decade, Fishlove portraits have exposed the naked truth on how overfishing continues in European waters,” said Nicholas Röhl, co-creator with Greta Scacchi of Fishlove.
“EU fisheries management has improved marginally, but has failed to meet the EU commitment to end overfishing. Ministers need to take urgent action now if they are to achieve ecologically diverse, clean and healthy seas as they promised,” he added.
Six years of campaigning culminated last night (6 June) in a gala held at Brussels’ Museum of Natural Sciences and attended by EU Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Virginijus Sinkevičius.
“This evening’s gala event marks the end of six years of the Our Fish campaign, however our colleagues at Oceana, Seas At Risk and ClientEarth will continue to demand political action that responds to the urgency of the planetary crisis we face,” said Our Fish programme director, Rebecca Hubbard.
“Naked celebrities with fish might seem controversial but undermining the ocean’s capacity to tackle climate change is far worse,” she added.
