7 important takeaways from the seaspiracy documentary - can fishing ever be sustainable?

I recently watched Seaspiracy Netflix documentary and what I learned from the documentary was shocking, to say the least. Much of the information was totally new to me, so I’m very glad I watched it and got to learn so much. The Seaspiracy documentary is 100% worth a watch, in my opinion, because on top of being informative, it is visually stunning and the storytelling is gripping from beginning to end. But, in case you don’t have an hour and a half to devote to the documentary or don’t have Netflix, I’ve summarized my biggest takeaways from the documentary. So please note that the majority of this information is from that documentary, but there is so much more that I didn’t include here! Keep reading to learn my biggest takeaways.

WHALES, DOLPHINS AND SHARKS ARE CRITICAL FOR A HEALTHY PLANET, BUT THEIR POPULATIONS ARE IN DANGEROUS DECLINE.

Healthy whales and dolphins are necessary for a healthy planet. They are part of a system of animals and organisms working together to absorb 4x more carbon dioxide than the Amazon rainforest and generates up 85% of the oxygen we breathe. If whales and dolphins die, the ocean dies.

There is an international whaling ban since 1986, but many countries still do it secretly, and recently Japan said they would resume commercial whale hunting.

Sharks are also key for keeping the ocean healthy, but their populations are in severe decline. Humans kill 10,000-30,000 sharks per hour, and about half of those are "bycatch" from the commercial fishing industry (meaning they were caught accidentally while fishing for something else). Some shark populations have declined by up to 80-99% in the last few decades!

PLASTIC IS KILLING US

Can you guess which ocean animals are dying thanks to plastic? Yup - whales! Many whales die due to ingesting too much plastic. And remember who dies if the whales die? Yup - us!

A garbage truck load of plastic is dumped into the sea every minute, and those plastics break down into what is called microplastics - tiny pieces of plastic that seep into everything we do.

Plus, commercial fishing contributes greatly to ocean plastic - 46% of the garbage in the great garbage patch is fishing nets, whereas plastic straws, which get a ton of media attention, only account for 0.03% of plastic entering the ocean.

COMMERCIAL FISHING WILL EMPTY THE OCEANS BY 2048

If we continue our global fishing activities, we will see almost empty oceans by 2048.

For context, only 3% of the natural Pacific Blue Fin tuna population remains, largely due to overfishing. Pacific Blue Fin tuna is now an endangered species. Mitsubishi controls about 40% of the world market in Blue Fin tuna. ONE of these fish can sell for over 3 MILLION dollars.

Consider this global fish population decline:

Halibut -99%

Cod -86%

Bluefin Tuna -97%

Haddock -99%

THE HUMAN COST OF FISHING IS ENORMOUS

The human cost of the fishing industry is extremely high. The industry is rife with human trafficking - In Thailand, there are about 51,000 fishing boats, and most are run off of slave labour.

Parts of Africa have had their main food supply cut short due to commercial fishing, leaving locals hungry. This seems to have contributed to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa because as fish supplies disappeared, people had to turn to bush meat, which enabled the spread of the disease. On top of this, many Somali pirates started out as fishermen whose livelihoods were displaced by commercial fishing and had to turn to other means of survival.

BLUEWASHING AND FALSE SUSTAINABILITY ADVERTISING

Sustainable fish marks are mired in controversy and conflicts of interest, and there is rampant false advertising when it comes to the commercial fishing industry.

Sustainable fishing marks and certifications, like “Dolphin Safe,” can't always account for the negative impact of accidental bycatch that is a result of the fishing industry and dodge questions about whether or not they can actually guarantee that the fish sold in stores with that label is, in fact, dolphin safe.

Many spokespersons for the organizations couldn't even define sustainability when asked, and many refused to talk about what sustainable fishing is at all. On top of that, several government observers of "sustainable" fishing vessels have mysteriously gone missing at sea or were murdered in their own homes.

Plus, some commercial fishing operations engage in bluewashing. Bluewashing is essentially when companies pretend to follow the UN’s Ten Principles of their Global Compact so they can use the Global Compact logo and look like they’re more sustainable than they are while strategically avoiding compliance. The term “bluewashing” references the blue color of the UN logo.

GLOBAL WARMING IS ACCELERATED BY OVERFISHING

It's possible that declining fish populations contribute to warmer oceans. Because as fish swim around, they push was water down, where it cools. But as fish populations near extinction, they don’t perform this function as often.

Plus, 93% of all global CO2 is stored in the ocean by marine vegetation. But certain types of massive fishnets, which can be big enough to swallow 13 jumbo jets, are dragged along the bottom of the ocean and destroy huge portions of ocean vegetation which is crucial for helping to regulate the ocean temperature.

Fish farming is NOT THE ANSWER

Farmed fish is also problematic. Much of the feed that farmed fish receive is made from fish oil and ground fish... Much of which is sourced from wild fish. Plus, many farmed fish live in terrible conditions and in some fish farms, about 50% of the fish die before they ever make it to our plates, making these farms highly inefficient.

SO WHAT’S THE SOLUTION? EAT LESS commercially caught FISH.

Simply eat less commercially caught fish or cut it out of your diet completely if that’s possible for you. That’s it! There’s no flashy solution, we don’t need new technology. We simply need to eat less fish that comes from unsustainable sources.