TV chefs Gordon Ramsay, Hugh Fearnley- Whittingstall, Jamie Oliver and Heston Blumenthal have joined forces to save the defenceless fish. Sarah O’Meara finds out why.

HUGH Fearnley-Whittingstall has been out in the North Sea trying to save one of his favourite foods.

No, his River Cottage chickens haven’t escaped and gone for a swim (although that would make great television), this time he’s watching out for the fish.

Three years ago, the earnest, wavy-haired TV presenter, who lives a self-sufficient life in front of the cameras on his plot of land in Dorset, started a campaign to improve the plight of British chickens and brought the horrors of battery farming into the spotlight.

Now he’s going to do the same for fish, although he admits this time it’s rather more “complicated”.

With fish stocks diminishing around the world, last year he and Jamie Oliver agreed something needed to be done. Teaming up with Heston Blumenthal and Gordon Ramsay, the four celebrity chefs decided to do what they do best and make some high-impact television.

Hugh’s Fish Fight is one of four programme strands going out on Channel 4, exploring the culinary world of fish.

Once again Whittingstall is on the campaign trail uncovering the realities of overfishing, while Blumenthal will be cooking up alternative delights from the ocean, Oliver keeps it simple with five-minute fish lessons and Ramsay goes swimming with sharks.

“More than half of the fish caught in the North Sea are being thrown back dead,” says 45-year-old Whittingstall, discussing a problem he discovered when heading out on a trawler north of Scotland last year.

“For every fish that ends up being consumed, another fish ends up dead floating away in the sea. It’s just wrong.”

While the world is facing the overfishing of popular species such as cod, tuna and salmon (Whittingstall says they represent 50 per cent of what we eat) the chef discovered EU measures to protect fish stocks ironically result in many being thrown back.

“Certain species, like cod, rightly need protection and so boats get given an annual quota for catching them,” he explains. “The problem is fishermen catch all those fish within a few months, but will continue to fish for other species, and catch a lot of cod in their nets at the same time. These then get thrown back dead into the sea.”

During the course of one trip, Whittingstall estimated £35,000 worth of fish went over the side.

When he and Jamie Oliver campaigned against the intensive farming of chickens three years ago, both producing programmes for Channel 4, Whittingstall said their united front was slightly “accidental”, but this time the pair have been working together.

“We both wanted to address this issue, albeit in very different ways, and instead of panicking or fighting over it we said, ‘Surely this is a good thing and we can make this work’. We’ve been very joined up from the beginning and I’ve been talking to Jamie a lot in the last few weeks.”

Oliver will be rustling up irresistible dishes using fish with which viewers may not be familiar.

“Jamie’s show is directly complementary to mine. I deal with the underlying issues, the politics of fisheries and global conservation issues and Jamie does a brilliant job of showing everyone how to cook ten different species of fish they may not have tried before.”

“The problem we’ve identified in all our shows is that we are, as a nation, absolutely obsessed by three species of fish. You only have to take that 50 per cent statistic on board and you immediately know there will be unfortunate consequences from that level of obsession.

“If that’s half the fish we eat, it’s not going to be sustainable for very long.”

Whittingstall says he was devastated to see the levels of waste while on the fishing boat: “After one trawl, I suggested we take all fish that normally go down the chute straight back into the sea, into baskets on the deck.

“After just one five-hour trawl, we had 21 baskets of fish; 600 kilos of prime cod and coley.

“The crew couldn’t believe how much fish there was. We could have fed 2,000 people – and that’s just from one trawl of the day.”

Describing the moment as a “real low point”, he adds that men working on the boat were very distressed about the situation.

“Most of the time they’re in the hold working on the catch, so they don’t really see it. This brought it home to everyone.”

Naturally, Whittingstall wasn’t content with being a foot passenger while on board and soon found his place in the galley: “I wasn’t going to spend three days as a guest on a trawler and not cook the guys some fish. They would have thrown me overboard,” he laughs.

The good thing is the one thing you’re allowed to do with the discarded fish is cook it on board the boat: “A lot of their meals are made up of from fish that would normally be thrown away. I took a couple of beautiful cod and coley, roasted some potatoes, onions and herbs, and marinated chunks of fillet in a little bit of olive oil and herbs.

“Then I put these chunks in among the potatoes and shoved it in the galley oven for ten minutes until they were all nice and crisp. And we basically had a version of roast fish and chips, which was lovely.”

■ To join his protest against EU quotas visit fishfight.net