Today, the Sustainable Eel Group issued an open letter in The Telegraph. The content of the letter is as follows:
SIR – Britain has been quietly increasing exports of European eel to Russia over the past few years, from half-a-million juveniles in 2022 to three million in 2024. This is despite the fact that the species is endangered, and no river in England and Wales is close to meeting its conservation target. There are now proposals to increase the exports five-fold, to 15 million.
Advocates for this policy maintain there is a surfeit of eels in the Bristol Channel, and that re-routing the stock to Kaliningrad will ensure a greater proportion make it back to the Sargasso Sea to spawn.
However, the conservation logic is cover for a commercial trade, where eels are grown-on in a contained area and eventually harvested for consumption. Yuri Maslov, the director of Kaliningrad’s fisheries agency, is on record as saying that, while the imported fish could theoretically leave Russian waters in several years, “by that time they will have already been caught”.
Even in times of peace, it would be irresponsible to propose a trade where monitoring procedures are compromised. In the current geopolitical climate, trade with Russia is also surely an issue of national security – a view supported by many of the 55,000 signatories to the petition to end the trade.
It would be better for the eel and the elvermen if the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pursued a cost-effective programme of “conservation fishing”, catching and re-releasing the juvenile fish into suitable habitat in Britain.
Andrew Kerr
Chairman, Sustainable Eel Group
Chris Packham
Conservationist and presenter of BBC Springwatch
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Chef, author and broadcaster
Tessa Munt MP (Lib Dem)
Mark Lloyd
Chief executive, Rivers Trust
Vanessa Becker-Hughes
Eel ambassador and founder of the Somerset Eel Recovery Project
Richard Benwell
Chief executive, Wildlife and Countryside Link
Charlie Burrell
Conservationist and founder, Knepp Wildland
Charles Clover
Co-founder and senior advisor, Blue Marine Foundation
Paul Coulson
Chief executive, Institute for Fisheries Management
Willem Dekker
Former chairman, ICES Working Group Eel
Alastair Driver
Honorary professor of environmental management, University of Exeter
John and Elaine Elkington
Founders, Volans
Mark Everard
Associate professor of ecosystem services, University of the West of England
Richard Fleming
Nature writer
Ben Goldsmith
Former DEFRA non-executive director
Zac Goldsmith
Former minister for climate, environment and energy
Derek Gow
Conservationist and wildlife reintroduction specialist
Rupert de Mauley
Former parliamentary under-secretary, DEFRA
Richard Page
Environmental and marine consultant
Paul Powelsland
Barrister at Lawyers for Nature
Carl Sayer
Professor of geography, University College London
Charles Rangeley
Conservationist and chairman, CaBA Chalk Stream Restoration Group
James Robinson
Chief operating officer, RSPB
Read yesterday’s submission to The Telegraph