Ali Tabrizi Archives - Saving Seafood

What Netflix’s Seaspiracy gets wrong about fishing, explained by a marine biologist

April 13, 2021 — I wanted to like Seaspiracy, the recent Netflix documentary that has lots of people talking about the damage that industrial fisheries inflict on the oceans and our souls. Since premiering on March 24, the movie has made its way onto (and off) Netflix’s Top 10 watch lists in a number of countries, and everyone from Tom Brady to Wells Fargo analysts have weighed in.

For decades, I have been writing and speaking about the damage Seaspiracy depicts in scientific articles, interviews, and yes, in documentary films as well. While much progress has been made, far too many people still have no idea of the problems facing the oceans. So, the prospect of a popular film on Netflix that could make the threat of destructive fisheries meaningful for its 200 million subscribers is something I welcomed.

The film includes all the damning evidence and dramatic footage required to make the important point that industrial fishing is — throughout the world — a too often out-of-control, sometimes criminal enterprise that needs to be reined in and regulated. In this, it reinforces and shares with a wide audience a knowledge that is widespread in the ocean conservation community, but not in the public at large.

However, overall Seaspiracy does more harm than good. It takes the very serious issue of the devastating impact of industrial fisheries on life in the ocean and then undermines it with an avalanche of falsehoods. It also employs questionable interviewing techniques, uses anti-Asian tropes, and blames the ocean conservation community, i.e., the very NGOs trying to fix things, rather than the industrial companies actually causing the problem.

Most importantly, it twists the narrative about ocean destruction to support the idea that we — the Netflix subscribers of the world — can save ocean biodiversity by turning vegan. In doing so, Seaspiracy undermines its tremendous potential value: to persuade people to work together, and push for change in policy and rules that will rein in an industry which often breaks the law with impunity.

Read the full story at Vox

Fishing industry blasts Netflix ‘Seaspiracy’ documentary for suggested seafood boycott

April 12, 2021 — A Netflix original documentary about the environmental impact of fishing has drawn the ire of local and national seafood experts, who have criticized “Seaspiracy” for a portrayal of the commercial fishing industry that they say is dangerous and misleading.

A group of industry professionals shared what they thought the 2021 documentary got wrong and what they wish it had done instead during a virtual panel hosted by the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association on Friday.

The controversial movie encourages viewers to boycott the seafood industry as the most effective way to help save the oceans. It is directed by British filmmaker Ali Tabrizi and is from the same team that created “Cowspiracy,” a similar film about the farming industry.

“Seaspiracy,” which has come under fire for using questionable data and studies, explores the role of plastic, whaling, marine parks and others for their impact on the oceans, but lays most of the blame on the commercial fishing industry, claiming that the idea of a sustainable fishery is a myth and accusing the industry of mass animal abuses.

It paints a dramatic picture: victims of the slave trade warn Tabrizi that his life is at risk if he keeps filming; dozens of dead sharks have their fins hacked off on a warehouse floor; the water turns red as whales are slaughtered; the filmmakers don hidden spy cameras and are tailed by police.

The imagery is effective, but critics warn that its overarching message, that there’s no such thing as a sustainable fishery and that the only way to save the oceans is to give up seafood, is not only fishy, but flat out wrong.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Don’t Watch Netflix’s Seaspiracy

April 8, 2021 — Yesterday, the sun was shining bright, and birds were chirping outside my window, and the buds were really starting to come out on the trees. It was a stupidly perfect day really, and I had to go ruin it all by watching Seaspiracy.

The Netflix documentary has been among the streaming service’s most popular films since coming out in late March, and yet nearly every marine scientist I’ve seen talking about it has wanted to see the movie sunk into the Challenger Deep, never to be seen again due to rampant misinformation. I’ll leave much of the debunking of the bad science in the film to the subject matter experts. (That includes some of those quoted in the film, who have also said they were misrepresented.) What’s just as disturbing about Seaspiracy, though, is the facile way it frames up how to solve the problems facing the ocean and society in the privileged vegan bro savioriest way possible.

The premise of Seaspiracy is that Ali Tabrizi, its director and narrator, wanted to make a movie about the wonders of the ocean, but quickly got freaked out that humans’ actions were strangling the seas. It chronicles his transition from doing local beach cleanups to getting concerned about whaling and going to the infamous cove in Taiji, Japan, where dolphin slaughters take place on the regular. That sets off a round-the-world trip and interviews with nearly three dozen experts or people involved in the fishing industry.

Read the full story at Gizmodo

Seaspiracy: Netflix documentary accused of misrepresentation by participants

April 1, 2021 — A Netflix documentary about the impact of commercial fishing has attracted celebrity endorsements and plaudits from fans with its damning picture of the harm the industry does to ocean life. But NGOs, sustainability labels and experts quoted in Seaspiracy have accused the film-makers of making “misleading claims”, using out-of-context interviews and erroneous statistics.

Seaspiracy, made by the team behind the award-winning 2014 film Cowspiracy, which was backed by Leonardo DiCaprio, pours doubt on the idea of sustainable fishing, shines a spotlight on the aquaculture industry and introduces the notion of “blood shrimp”, seafood tainted with slave labour and human rights abuses.

Launched last week, the 90-minute film is already trending on the platform as one of its Top 10 most watched films and programmes and has been praised by celebrities including Bryan Adams, the vegan Canadian rock star, who urged his followers to watch it and stop eating fish. Chris Froome, the seven Grand Tour-winning British cyclist, tweeted that “my mind has been blown” by the film. George Monbiot, the environmentalist and Guardian columnist, who appears in it, described it on Twitter as “a brilliant exposé of the greatest threat to marine life: fishing”.

Directed by Ali Tabrizi, a film-maker from Kent, the wide-ranging documentary questions the sustainable seafood movement and looks at the way the Dolphin Safe and Marine Stewardship Council labels may not be able to provide the assurances consumers are looking for.

Read the full story at The Guardian

Industry pans Seaspiracy as misleading

March 31, 2021 — Groups and organizations involved in the global seafood industry, as well as individual stakeholders and scientists, are responding with concern to a new Netflix documentary, “Seaspiracy,” which purports to investigate the impact of commercial fishing on marine ecosystems and wildlife.

The 90-minute film, which has consistently led Netflix’s top 10 rankings around the world since its late-March release, was created by the same team behind 2014’s “Cowspiracy,” a similar feature-length documentary spotlighting the animal agriculture industry.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Seaspiracy film assails fishing and aquaculture sectors that seem ready for a good fight

March 26, 2021 — The following was released by the Global Aquaculture Alliance:

Seaspiracy, a documentary-styled film released on Netflix this week, intends to shock, and on that count it succeeds.

The 90-minute exposé shows ocean pollution and its vast effects on marine life; it displays grotesque images of dolphins and whales being slaughtered and of vast bycatch species dying, alleging that commercial fisheries have little regard for marine animals and birds; and it outright dismisses aquaculture for its use of marine ingredients and for what it says are poor culture environments.

With the financial backing of Hollywood star and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio, Seaspiracy follows in the footsteps of the similarly produced film Cowspiracy, released in 2014. Like its predecessor, this new film’s clear aim is to turn viewers off of animal proteins in favor of plant-based diets. It doesn’t pull any punches in doing so, alleging:

That the oceans will be empty of fish in 27 years and will become a barren wasteland
That aquaculture’s use of fishmeal and fish oil in feeds reduces it to “wild fishing in disguise”
That farmed salmon are raised in lice-plagued waters and the fish are “swimming in circles in their own filth”
Dismisses the concept of sustainable seafood entirely
That the best action is to abstain from any seafood consumption whatsoever.

To make his case, director Ali Tabrizi exhibits victims of forced labor on fishing vessels, notably those from previously documented cases in Thailand. One person who survived tells of physical abuse and the constant threat of death from vessel operators.

Read the full release here

Seaspiracy: Recognizable Propaganda

March 25, 2021 — The following was released by the National Fisheries Institute:

The concern with some slickly produced propaganda pieces, masquerading as “documentaries,” is that audiences will not recognize the film’s true agenda. Despite the artistic aerial shots, exciting albeit hyperbolic cloak-and-dagger scenes and stirring action-movie like sound track, there is little concern Seaspiracy will be mistaken for anything but a vegan indoctrination movie.

The film begins by suggesting, without evidence, that fisheries bycatch is an issue “governments [have] practically given up on enforcing.” Then touts a narrative that an “internationally recognized seafood label [is] a complete fabrication.” All this before whipsawing viewers from the argument that getting rid of plastic straws was once considered a pollution fix but that now the only real solution is getting rid of the entire commercial fishing sector.

Before long the producers describe a fishing vessel with the caveat that, “what it really is, is a death machine.” They then dive headlong into an embrace of the idea that the oceans will be empty by 2048, which is based on a completely debunked 2006 statistic, refuted by none other than the author of the original study. The 2048 statistic was put to rest by a follow-up report in the Journal Science released in 2009 under the title New hope for fisheries.

Gravitating towards the popular call to ban fishing in 30% of the oceans by 2030, the film turns to an author, who owns a vegan food company, an animal rescue sanctuary and is also apparently a dentist. His endorsement of the 30 by 30 slogan/policy is based on his calculation that, “in reality, less than 1% of our oceans are being regulated.” This is of course not only inaccurate it’s nonsensical. But it doesn’t end there. He goes on to compare choosing fish based on some eco labels to, “essentially saying it’s more sustainable to shoot a polar bear than shooting a panda.”

During a segment on Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported fishing in Africa director Ali Tabrizi claims, “In the United States up to 1 in every 3 wild caught fish imported have been caught illegally and therefor sold illegally. Stolen, often from countries in most need.” The methodology behind this wildly inflated statistic has been picked apart in the very Journal where it first appeared; “Methods to estimate IUU are not credible.” Meanwhile, papers using the same approach have been retracted. While IUU is a serious issue and unacceptable at any level, Tabrizi’s calculated film making seeks to conflate over estimated IUU numbers with U.S. seafood imports from Africa. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports less than 2% of U.S. seafood imports come from Africa.

Before setting their sites on aquaculture, the filmmakers can’t help but slip in a vegan dog whistle in describing fishing boats they say “…It became clear these vessels were more like floating slaughter houses.”

Adeptly leading viewers down the primrose path, fish farming is lauded as a potential “method that could provide some kind of solution” before it is eviscerated with out of date tropes like the lie that farmed salmon is died pink. The film later digs up another classic in complaining about PCB’s in fish but never (ironically) mentions that Harvard University research finds seafood broadly, not just farmed salmon, makes up only 9% of the PCBs in the average American diet, while products like vegetables make up 20%. Yes, vegetables.

As the film begins its expected arch into unabashed vegan rhetoric about fish feeling pain and how, “animals… use democratic decision making,” it logs a chapter about labor abuses in the seafood space. This is a serious and concerning topic that the filmmakers bring nothing new to. While their interviews with silhouetted victims are heartbreaking, what is really on display here is, as the New York Times put it, a “cheap imitation of hard-hitting investigative journalism.”

In the end the film sputters to a close with what is essentially a predictable commercial for highly processed plant-based alternative products.

The following are excerpts from the New York Times Review of Seaspiracy:

“The film’s rhetorical style often feels like a cheap imitation of hard-hitting investigative journalism.”

“Even the film’s notable points seem to emerge only briefly before sinking beneath the surface, lost in a sea of murky conspiratorial thinking.”

Read the full review at the New York Times