I bought a pair a few months ago and they are the some of the coolest jeans I’ve ever owned.  The girl who sold them to me described the label as the new ‘Diesel’ in jeanswear and I couldn’t agree more – the quality and fit are superb!

According to their website, Kuyichi began in 2001 as dutch NGO Solidaridad’s answer to the lack of organic cotton jeans available in the fashion industry.  Knowing the enormous impact that the cotton industry can have on people and the environment, owing to child slave labour and harmful pesticides, they began importing organic, fair trade cotton from Peru to make their jeans.

Every pair of jeans has a track and trace code on the label, so you can hop online and find out exactly where and how your garment has been made.  How’s that for accountability!

The don’t seem to have a shop on their website (I bought my pair from Equa in London N1) but here is a store locator for Europe: http://www.kuyichi.com/kuyichi/?page_id=41

This is one label I’m very happy to support

Bye Bye Bluefin

I was sad to learn that one of the species at highest risk of overfishing, Bluefin Tuna, has been predicted to disappear by 2012 (WWF).  I was particularly shocked to learn from the film that there are certain companies in Japan that are buying up large quantities of frozen Bluefin tuna and stockpiling it so that they might sell it at premium prices when the global population is fished to extinction!  Completely unscrupulous, right?

Support Sustainable Seafood

The film has it’s own website and blog, and it suggests that consumers can help promote change by asking their supermarkets and favourite seafood restaurants: a) where their fish is caught and b) by what means.  They even offer a free pdf download ‘score card’ that you can fill out and leave with your bill, after you’ve eaten at a restaurant with seafood on the menu.  See: http://endoftheline.com/blog/archives/tag/bluefin-tuna

It’s great to see that the London Paper has really got behind sustainably-sourced seafood by publishing regular articles for their ‘Know the True Price of Fish’ campaign.  Last week they even provided a UK consumer supermarket comparison guide, broken down by fish species, with Co-op coming out on top and Sainsbury’s in second place.

It’s a tricky deal trying to find fish to eat that’s eco-friendly.  You definitely want to avoid bottom-trawled fish because of the destruction it causes to seabed ecosystems.  Pole and line caught fish is the most eco-friendly but is probably not an economically viable method to meet mass demand.  Line caught fish is okay if it is caught on short lines.  Long lines are responsible for killing thousands of large seabirds each year, who unwittingly get hooked and drowned when trying to eat the catch from the lines.  Not to mention the devasting deaths and injuries that marine animals suffer as a result of getting tangled in the discarded lines. Purse seine nets cause less damage then bottom trawlers but still result in a fair amount of bycatch (ref: the London Paper), that is, unwanted fish species and other marine animals that are thrown back into the sea, often dead.

Is Farming the Way Forward?

One question which I’ve had on my mind for a while now, is whether fish farming is an alternative means of supporting the global seafood market.  I had heard in university bits and pieces about the pollution and resulting diseases caused by the large amount of ammonia produced and from keeping such high density populations in small spaces.  But ‘The End of the Line’ film made the point that many farmed species are carnivorous and need a lot of fish meal to sustain them in captivity.  For example, it takes approx. 5kg of anchovies to feed just 1kg of farmed salmon!  At that ratio, it is not possible for salmon farming to continue for very much longer.  One subject in the film suggests that we should consider eating smaller fish species ourselves, rather than trying to produce unsustainable numbers of large fish species.

For now, all I can advise is that you look out for the Marine Stewardship Council’s (MSC) label on the seafood available in supermarkets and when dining out, and avoid restaurants that choose to bury their heads in the sand and features threatened species (such as Bluefin tuna) on their menus.

MSC Sustainable Seafood label

For an illustrated list of seafood species that are considered to have sustainable fish stocks, please see the MSC website: http://www.msc.org/cook-eat-enjoy/fish-to-eat

And if you get a chance to see ‘The End of the Line’, then do so!

I did some work experience with EJF a few months ago and was suprised to learn the real reasons why we should all be wearing organic cotton (see future posts about organic cotton to come…).

The designs have been donated by some top international and up-and-coming fashion designers, and as the cotton and production time has been donated free of charge, 100% of the sale price goes to EJF’s valuable work.

These designs by Luella Bartley and Betty Jackson are my personal favourites:

See all of EJF’s super-cool organic cotton t-shirt designs here:

https://www.ejfoundation.org

This is my very first blog post (I finally got around to it!).

I set this blog up to record my thoughts and findings about living a guilt-free existence in an increasingly green-conscious world.  Hopefully, if there is anybody reading my blog, then they will have 1+ of 3 things in common with me…

a) they want to live a greener existence

b) they want to know more about ethical food

c) they get easily distracted from work and end up browsing through crap on the web

My first task is to stay motivated enough to keep updating this blog regularly.  Your feedback to any posts will help me keep on task, so don’t be shy!

Cheers,

Laura