To Islington Vue Cinema last week to the premier of End of the Line, a film that pulls not even the most gruesome punch to show how fish are being 'mined' to extinction. Dubbed The Inconvenient Truth About Fish by The Economist magazine, the film chronicles the plundering of fish stocks around the world.  

Trawlers scrape the sea bed into a desert and use whizzy technololgy to literally 'herd' fish into nets. The waste is shocking and the stupidity of grinding up fish to feed other fish in farms jawdropping. As is the (sometimes criminal) complicity of governments, the food industry, restaurants, and indiscriminating you and me. The EU, for example, is buying fishing rights for its trawlers from desperately poor and hungry countries, like Angola.

Despite all that, I found the film, like the book by former Daily Telegraph journalist Charles Clover on which it is based, full of hope. The stars are just so beautiful - in death as well as in life - and there is so much we can do to change what is happening - starting today.

By fishing at about half the pace we do now (with lines, more locally, and without waste,) we could make a huge difference. So, whether you eat fish or not, see the film, get the nifty guide to what fish to avoid and start quizzing fishmongers and waiters at every opportunity. Join the larger campaign to prod politicians into regulating the fishing industry sensibly, and lobby to secure the marine reserves that will give fish stocks the time to recover.     

UK distribution and campaign details can be found here.

Read Forum's report Fishing for Good.