The Fishing Industry

Like a lot of people I know, I recently watched the Seaspiracy documentary on Netflix. I suppose when I considered writing a blog about it I was aware that it might be difficult to do without just simply repeating what had been said in the documentary. The facts and statistics that were presented in the film were staggering and also shocking. I had never really considered the ocean in that much depth before. I have always admired the ocean and its life and I suppose I have always been drawn to the unknown aspect of it and the idea that so much of the ocean is undiscovered.

Like the person who made the documentary, I had visited Sea World in Florida when I was younger, growing a particular fondness for the killer whales, with them becoming my favourite animals. I suppose this interest later led to the consideration of the ethics of these parks, which increased rapidly after I watched the Blackfish documentary. That documentary, like most, opened my eyes to things I had never previously considered and in a sense revealed my ignorance. I was disgusted by the documentary, especially when the killer whale was an animal I admired, somewhat ironic when you consider the fact that my interest in these animals was established in the very parks that exploited and abused them. When I returned to Florida after watching this documentary I elected not to go to Sea World. I didn’t want to be a part of their exploitation of animals.

I had originally heard about the Seaspiracy documentary because a lot of people on twitter were claiming it should have been called ‘Conspirasea’; and then one of the charities that I follow – ‘Oceana’ – had posted a statement about their involvement in the documentary and so I decided to watch it. Unfortunately, I decided to watch it with my family after I had salmon for my tea, which wasn’t a good choice in hindsight. As someone who is concerned about the environment, with the environment being the sole reason I chose to be a pescatarian, I was completely staggered by the environmental impact of the exploitation of the ocean. I was aware that in cutting down my own use of plastic I wasn’t going to personally solve the climate crisis, but I was staggered just how much impact the fishing industry is having on the environmental crisis.

It was obviously made clear in the documentary that large-scale industrial fishing was essentially raping the ocean floor. What surprised me most about this was the fact that the ocean floor and its coral takes in more CO2 than the rainforests and that it was being destroyed more significantly than the land. Of course, although farmed fish perhaps seems more of an environmentally conscious way to consume fish, the feed that they give them defeats this idea and the treatment of the animals seems appallingly cruel. Similarly, the human ethics involved in the fishing industry was something I had never considered. When you think of fishing, you think of small ships with a close-knit crew, you do not consider the massive industrial ships that – in some cases – make use of slave labour to carry out their duties. As someone who tries to make a stand for the environment and who is concerned about human rights, I was obviously disgusted by the facts presented in this documentary. As much as the documentary touched me and has ultimately resulted in me making the decision to now cut fish from my diet, I was also acutely aware that there was clearly an agenda that was being pushed in the documentary. It didn’t particularly present any other argument other than the one it believed in. I suppose when exploring issues like the environment and ethics it is hard not to be biased, but I was aware that some of the interviews would have been cut down and edited to fit the agenda of the documentary’s narrative. However, personally I felt enough of it was substantial enough to change my mind and change my consumption of fish.

The documentary suggested that, because the fishing industry was extremely hard to police and there was little ethical/environmental guarantee in any fish sold, the only way to deal with the problem was to stop eating fish to ultimately boycott the industry. As much as this made me change my mind it was perhaps not the right message to focus on completely. Yes it is hard to ensure that your fish consumption is ethical, however it must also be considered that not everyone has the accessibility to cut fish from their diets. This correlates with the comments that ‘Oceana’ made in regard to the documentary. I suppose the people that would be watching the documentary or have access to it are the type of people that have the ability to cut fish [and meat] from their diet; which is perhaps why the documentary focused on this argument. Whereas ‘Oceana’ is a global charity that understands the importance of fish diets for local communities with little accessibility to other foods and so is the argument for why they do not promote a vegetarian diet as much as the documentary makers want them to.

However, if the people had the ability to cut fish from their diet then there would perhaps be a decline in the industrial fish industry and thus allow for the growth of more local fishing for those communities that rely on it to survive. Ultimately, I would suggest considering lowering your fish and meat consumption if you have the opportunity to do so in a healthy way. Although, that is a personal decision you must make on your own and research on your own.