Our initial opinion is that the Jolene long-line fishery for thornback (roker) and cod should be supported because the method used, if widely applied in appropriate locations, are part of the solution.

Jolene, in our opinion, does well on quality, and, for sustainability, on the selectivity of the fishing method and the wider environmental impact. The area where it doesn’t do well is Sustainability, sub-category ‘State of Stocks’. Here it scores ‘1-worst case’, but largely as a result of the actions of others. North Sea cod is considered to be vulnerable to collapse in science evaluations. ICES recommends closure of all fisheries targeting cod, to be consistent with the EU’s precautionary approach. Until recently, for similar reasons, ICES also recommended no fishery directed at thornback, although in their 2008 Advice they revised the status of that stock upward, for this area of the North Sea only, to ‘stable, possibly increasing’.

This situation has arisen due to past and current management failure to ban methods of fishing, such as trawling, where these use mesh sizes, locations and/or seasons that kill vast numbers of juvenile whitefish.

Of course there are many points of detail that lead us to this initial opinion, and we go into this in detail, along with links to the sources of information we took account of, in our ‘Chapter and Verse’ pages for this fishery. Some fishers, environmentalists and sea anglers may not agree with us, for various reasons. It is important to note that boat by boat assessments, even where the same fishing method is superficially similar, is especially important in low scoring fisheries. Our assessment only applies to the Jolene, with which we have direct experience. Restauranteurs considering actively supporting this fishery should be aware of its potentially contentious nature, and we will discuss the pros and cons, and provide active support, for those chefs who are considering sourcing from this fishery.