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

Inadequacy of US screening system for IUU risks laid bare in trade study

April 7, 2021 — Seafood caught via illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and fishing involving forced labor amounting to USD 2.4 billion (EUR 2 billion) was imported into the United States in 2019, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission.

The 18 March report, “Seafood Obtained via Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing: U.S. Imports and Economic Impact on U.S. Commercial Fisheries,” suggests the U.S. government does not have effective controls in place to limit IUU-sourced product from entering the country.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Regulatory approaches differ for burgeoning offshore aquaculture sector

April 5, 2021 — As offshore aquaculture becomes a more viable enterprise globally, a variety of regulatory approaches have emerged that reflect conflicting perspectives of the sector as either an economic opportunity or an environmental threat.

The governments of Canada and Denmark have both taken aggressive actions to curtail offshore aquaculture, with Denmark banning any new projects as of December 2020 and Canada adopting increasingly restrictive policies on net-pen aquaculture.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

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

Oceana Issues Statement On Netflix’s ‘Seaspiracy’ Documentary

March 29, 2021 — As compelling as Netflix’s new “Seaspiracy” documentary is, the issues raised in it regarding commercial fishing aren’t quite that cut-and-dried, according to the folks at Oceana.

The ocean advocacy organization issued a statement when the film was released on March 24th. It reads:

“Today, Netflix released a new movie titled Seaspiracy that features passing references to Oceana and a brief excerpt from what was a two-hour interview with a former employee, who was one of Oceana’s key leaders in winning policy victories against illegal fishing.

“To set the record straight, what Oceana campaigns for and focuses on is increasing ocean abundance through policy victories that put in place science-based fisheries management in national waters, where most of the world’s fish are caught. We are already campaigning in countries that account for 28% of the world’s catch. The science is clear: This country-by-country approach can help the oceans rebound dramatically and feed a billion people a healthy seafood meal each day. We can save the oceans and feed the world.

“We believe people have the right to choose what they eat, and we applaud those who make personal choices to improve the health of our planet. However, choosing to abstain from consuming seafood is not a realistic choice for the hundreds of millions of people around the world who depend on coastal fisheries – many of whom are also facing poverty, hunger, and malnutrition. Oceana campaigns to save the oceans for both the people who depend on them and to protect the marine animals (and other forms of life) who live in them.

Read the full story at Deeper Blue

Oceana, NRDC call for expansion of Seafood Import Monitoring Program

March 8, 2021 — Marine sustainability non-governmental organization Oceana public on 3 March calling for the expansion of the U.S. Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP) and for mandatory full-chain traceability requirements for all seafood sold in the United States.

The report, “Transparency and Traceability: Tools to Stop Illegal Fishing,” criticizes the current limitations of SIMP, in that the law currently applies to just 13 types of imported seafood and traces them to the U.S. border, not beyond. Extending SIMP to cover all seafood species sold in the United States, and requiring that all be covered by full-chain traceability from boat to plate, would reduce species mislabeling and help in the fight against illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, Oceana said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Rally urges stakeholders to demand better protections for North Atlantic right whales

February 12, 2021 — Oceana hosted a Save the Whales Rally on Tuesday that aimed to support anyone hoping to speak up in favor of better protections for the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.

The federal government is seeking stakeholder comments about ways to reduce the risks that fishing gear in oceans pose to the whales. During the rally, Oceana staff offered background information, advice and tools to provide input on how and why to better protect the species, which is currently in its calving season off the coast of Georgia and northern Florida.

“North Atlantic right whales come down to the offshore waters of Georgia, north Florida and sometimes even South Carolina — many of them every winter — to have their calves and then they travel in the spring back all the way up into the North Atlantic into the Northeastern U.S. and Canadian waters,” said Paulita Bennett-Martin, Oceana’s field representative for Georgia campaigns. “And so they really come down here for the winter as our return visitor to seek warmer water, safe water, to have their calves. It’s a really exciting time of the year for us that love these whales, as we count the calves that are born every year. And unfortunately sometimes we also count the losses as well.”

The upcoming comment period is a chance to help the whales get on a path of recovery, said Gib Brogan, a senior fisheries manager for Oceana.

Read the full story at The Brunswick News

NOAA Taking Input On New Right Whale Rules

February 11, 2021 — The public can weigh in this month on a federal plan aimed at saving critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.

Researchers estimate that fewer than 375 right whales are still alive. Their leading causes of death are getting hit by ships or tangled in fishing gear, especially long vertical lines such as those used in lobstering. Getting tangled in lines and dragging fishing gear through the ocean exhausts and stresses out the whales, and can cause serious injuries and infections.

So the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has proposed new fishing and lobstering rules to prevent entanglements.

But Gib Brogan with the environmental group Oceana said this week that the plan isn’t good enough.

Read the full story at GPB

Oceana, Earthjustice File Suit Again Over NMFS Anchovy Rules on West Coast

February 4, 2021 — Call it a vicious circle. Maybe a vortex from which it seems there is no escape. Maybe it’s quicksand.

Regardless, Earthjustice and Oceana are, for the third time, suing NMFS over the central subpopulation of northern anchovy on the West Coast. NMFS published new anchovy catch limit regulations on Dec. 31, 2020; the conservation groups said those regulations, again, were insufficient.

Read the full story at Seafood News