“Seaspiracy,” Documentary directed by Ali Tabrizi, produced by Kip Anderson, 2021
A man worried about the state of the oceans begins to pick up plastic garbage on the beach. Plastic is his main concern. What he doesn’t know is that his anger at plastic will be the red thread that pulls him into a darker truth of what is going on in the oceans. Plastic straws are the least of it.
He also cares about whales and dolphins, which he’s seen as a kid. He makes a trip to “The Cove” in Taiji, southern Japan, where dolphins are clubbed and cut to death. Some are sold to aquarium zoos, helping destroy pods but providing profits for the entertainment industry. Heavy police security tries to keep anyone from filming, but he gets shots. The reason most dolphins are being killed is that they compete with the fisherman for … fish. Over-fishing rears its head ... as there are no longer enough fish in the sea.
He gets shots of sharks being butchered for their fins, then their bodies dumped. Shark fin soup is a tasteless and statusy ‘delicacy’ in places like Hong Kong and China. 30,000 sharks are killed per hour across the world, according to his interviewees. He finds out the blue-fin tuna catch, endangered and most expensive of all, is funded partly by Mitsubishi. But also by criminal gangs like the Yakuza.
The man realizes it is perhaps fishing that is damaging the ocean environment more than plastic, as he learns about ‘by-catch’ – the millions of sea turtles, dolphins, sharks, whales, etc. that get entangled in drag nets and are thrown away. Whole layers of life are being wiped out through industrial fishing.
BLUE-WASHING
He wonders about the ‘do-good’ organizations that claim to protect the oceans. They put their labels on ‘sustainable seafood’ and are paid to do so. One of the biggest is the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). But they won’t talk to him because of his question about sustainability. He gets an interview with the head of the Earth Island Institute which plays a role in promoting ‘sustainable’ fishing practices too. They put ‘Dolphin Safe’ labels on seafood. The head of the EII admits they can’t guarantee dolphins aren’t killed in seafood harvests, because their few investigators can’t be everywhere. They still apply their labels, on the word of the seafood businesses. The MSC and EII are paid for putting their labels on cans. One gets funding from Unilever, a company that profits from industrial fishing.
The man finds out that 46% of the Pacific plastic gyre is actually fishing nets, and a good chunk of the rest of it is more fishing gear – buoys, etc. – not plastic bottles and bags from individuals. He realizes the sole emphasis on individual use of plastic straws and the like by the various ‘environmental’ groups is to protect the massive industrial-level fishing industry. These are not the little boats with a jaunty captain like some Gortons TV ad – these are floating slaughterhouses with trawling nets the size of buildings that rake the seabed floor. A comparison to industrial farming comes to mind - beef feedlots, massive mono-cropping and processed food, but on water.
CARBON
SINK
Wiping out top predators, whales, dolphins, layers of fish, crustaceans, marine plants, etc. damages the health of the ocean. One of the reasons the coral reefs are dying is not just warming oceans due to climate change – it is the missing species that used to live there. The man finds out the oceans are actually the biggest carbon sink on the planet – 93% - bigger than jungles and forests. By removing the fish and crustaceans which mix the waters; wrecking the mangroves with shrimp farms (and tourist hotels); bulldozing the sea-floors with trawling, this reduces the amount of carbon that can be held by the ocean. 1% of the ocean is supposedly under ‘marine protection’ - yet not from oil drilling or industrial fishing but from sea kayaks! No one is actually minding the oceans except countries that patrol their coasts. For instance Japan and Russia repeatedly ignore whaling restrictions.
He begins to wonder if there is really such a thing as ‘sustainable seafood’ as that little wallet card put out by the Monterey Bay Aquarium claims. He realizes there is not. Every expert he talks to has stopped eating fish. The phrase ‘sustainable seafood’ at this point is a misnomer, a ‘feel-good’ fraud. It is blue-washing.
MURDER
The man finds out that observers on fishing boats have been murdered, sometimes in high numbers. He is told that governments subsidize the fishing industry to the tune of $35B each year. Much of the sea catch is now taking place, not off the shore of a developed country, but by illegal or huge trawlers emptying the oceans around Africa and other poor countries, destroying the livelihood of the small fisherman that live along the coasts. This leads locals to resort to killing bushmeat, which led to things like Ebola. The effects of imperialism.
He joins Sea Shepherd and an African coast guard to patrol the waters, trying to catch illegal fishing boats. They catch several, one being a Chinese fishing boat.
But the story gets worse. Thailand has 51K shrimp and fishing boats, many using slaves. He interviews several slaves in Bangkok who were held for 6 and 10 years on boats, but has to end the interviews when he receives word the police are coming. The slaves saw fisherman thrown overboard and shot who complained. Dead bodies were in the storage holds of boats. The same criminal gangs that smuggle drugs or guns or migrants also organize this slavery. They are protected by bribed local authorities.
Fishermen have one of the highest levels of injuries of any job, not just from murder.
Then he wonders about ‘farmed fish,’ which avoids many of the problems of so-called ‘wild caught.’ He finds out that the fish waste generated in ocean pens is huge, bigger than nearby human populations. Many farmed fish are infected by diseases like sea lice, to the point where 50% of the population has to be thrown away as ‘garbage.’ The sea-farmed fish are fed fish meal (and antibiotics), with the meal possibly coming from ocean fish. One interviewee called the scam of farmed fish “bio-nonsense.”
 |
| Thai Shrimp Boat |
NO
MORE FISH
Lastly he goes to the Faroe Islands to watch another whaling hunt, which is quite similar to the Japanese one. The small whales are herded into a fjord by high-powered boats, then clubbed and cut to death and pulled onto the beach. The man finds out that marine life feels pain, fear, has a full set of senses and is collective – though this should not be a secret to him. He is told that the valuable ‘fish oil’ Omega 3 promoted by health authorities actually doesn’t come from the fish, but from the algae they eat – from plants. Instead of eating fish saturated in industrial pollutants like mercury, they suggest cutting out ‘the middleman.’ He interviews a company making plant-based fish substitutes with Omega-3 from algae.
All the experts interviewed say industrial fishing has to be stopped and the oceans allowed to recover, or the oceans will be destroyed. Their main weapon is the consumer who refuses to eat seafood anymore. No one questions the profit motive itself or the capitalist governments that support these methods.
This is another documentary like “What the Health,” “The Cove” and “Cowspiracy.” They all look at an environmental problem and come up against the fact that animal food produced by modern capitalist methods is the real source of the mayhem.
P.S. - biggest butchery of dolphins in Faroe Islands just happened, documented by Sea Shepard, as 'part' of whale hunt and Faroe 'culture': https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/14/outcry-over-killing-of-almost-1500-dolphins-on-faroe-islands
Prior blog reviews on this topic, use blog search box,
upper left: “Vegan Freak,” “Grocery Activism,” “A Foodies
Guide to Capitalism,” “The Jungle,” “The Sixth Extinction,” “Green is the New
Red,” “When the Killing’s Done,” “The Emotional Lives of Animals,” “Archaic
Thanksgiving,” “Foodopoly,” “A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism,” “Consider the
Lobster,” “Blood and Earth,” “Polar Star,” “Bali.”
The Cultural Marxist
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