World Tuna Day 2021 is celebrated under the corona pandemic that creates lots of problems in the fishing industry and in the worldwide sustainable management of tuna stocks. To make things worse, there is the movie Seaspiracy on Netflix that unfortunately does not bring the sustainable management of tuna fishery one step closer.
Anyone who thinks that the key to solving many of our climate, food and ecological problems lies in the oceans (and not on the planet Mars), will be happy to see a film that draws broad attention to a better way of managing our sea, and fishing. The Netflix production Seaspiracy, which denounces overfishing, plastic pollution, endangered dolphins and whales, slavery and other maritime abuses, is ringing alarm bells on all of these issues. But in a completely different way than the makers probably envisioned.
Despite figuring in Netflix's global top 10, Seaspiracy is a mind-bogglingly poor production. Anyone who is at home in the world of ocean management cannot conclude otherwise than the film is a succession of fake news, fundamentally incorrect data about crucial pollution and overfishing, distortions, totally ignoring unwelcome facts, incorrect framing of interviewees, suggestively pasted images and caricatural simplification of complex problems. And all of this ending in surreal conclusions that really don't help anyone.
No more fish on the dinner table
I started to smell a rat when people close to me announced in a firm tone that after seeing the film, they really would stop eating fish altogether. Not even the sustainably caught tuna that I myself sometimes recommend. The reason for this sudden turn to veganism? Sustainable fishing is a worldwide conspiracy of fisheries and NGOs and does not exist, as Seaspiracy concludes. The world population must therefore switch to a diet without animal proteins. No more fish on the dinner table.
Whether to consume animal protein is everyone's own right, of course, it is not an option for most of the world's population. Some 3.3 billion people depend on fishing for healthy protein in their daily diet. That will not change in the foreseeable future. What is more: still 80% of the fish landed at ports comes from biologically healthy fish populations. That does not alter the fact that we need to invest much more in the sustainable fish stocks, actually around two third of all stocks, but in danger of further decline. And contrary to what Seaspiracy would have us believe, managing sustainable fishery can guarantee us a future with fish.
You don't know where to begin in the cascade of 'alternative facts' that Seaspiracy pours on us. No, present day science is not at all claiming that the seas will be depleted by 2048 if we continue like this. This is based on a 2006 article and has been known for 15 years as the best-known case of how media can twist marine biology claims. ‘Each time when the ‘2048 empty oceans myth’ pops up, somewhere in the world a marine biologist dies’. If science proves anything, it is precisely the remarkable resilience of fish populations that suffer from overfishing can recover if managed properly.
You don’t know where to begin in the cascade of alternative facts that Seaspiracy pours on us
A big part of Seaspiracy is devoted to bluefin tuna, subject I have been involved in quite intensively for the past twenty years. Bluefin stock is in very bad shape because of the conspiracy, the film warns. (We see some footage of frozen bluefin suggesting the moviemaker was risking something terrible in filming them). This mainly refers to the population of this beautiful fish population in the Pacific Ocean, which has indeed been a concern for many experts for years. But what the film does not mention at all is that bluefin tuna on the other side of the globe, in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean, has made a spectacular return in the last decade following an imminent population collapse. The fish became a figurehead of sustainable fisheries management and the efforts of united NGOs and consumers that have contributed to recovery.
The dolphin also plays a leading role. Gory images of the massacre of hundreds of dolphins in the bay of the Japanese town of Taijii, famous since the 2009 ‘documentary’ ‘The Cove’, but supposedly discovered by the moviemaker. The slaughter is explained with a vague story that this would have something to do with big tuna fishing interest (hence: part of the conspiracy). Not a word or picture of the sustainable management of tuna fisheries in the Eastern Pacific, which ended dolphin bycatch and the annual slaughter of hundreds of thousands of individuals. What do you mean sustainable management of fisheries does not exist?
Reality is different. Successful sustainable fisheries policy no longer is an exception. Worldwide, it appears that with good policy we can maintain our fish stocks in a responsible manner, thanks to the use of public regulations, sustainable certification, NGOs, scientists and other stakeholders. Such policy requires a lot of effort and often complex international regulations. It often goes wrong and we certainly have to put a lot more resources into it.
Sustianable fishery policies policy require a lot of effort and often complex international regulations. We certainly have to put a lot more resources into it
Instead of explaining how these management policy instruments work with all their pros and cons in all their complexity, the film takes a different course. It starts to attack in an untrue way those NGOs and organizations that have worked to realize a lot of the measures on sustainable fisheries. There is a vicious scene from an interview with representatives of Oceana, a well-respected international NGO, that tries to suggest that even they don’t have the faintest idea of what sustainable fisheries consist of. The Marine Stewardship Council, that refused to collaborate with the movie because they could not preview the material used, is accused unfounded of taking money from the industrial fisheries in exchange for its sustainability certification. The film mentions an example of an Icelandic fishery that got certified despite not meeting the standards of bycatch. Unfortunately for the filmmakers this fishery in reality lost its certification exactly for that reason.
Dolphin Safe
The only exception I’d like to make in the shear endless stream of false data and unsubstantiated suspicions is the rather amazing interview with Mike Palmer from the Earth Island Institute of the Dolphin Safe label. In what appears to be an inexplicable fit of honesty, Palmer admits that in his scheme there is no such thing as effective independent observers on board to check if no dolphin is killed or even hurt during the fishing.
This is not new information, as the readers of Tuna Wars and other publications know. But anyway: now that the associate director himself admits on the record that the Dolphin Safe label is a scam, it would be a good thing that this greenwashing-label finally disappears from the many cans worldwide that carry it. If only to avoid possible prosecution for consumer fraud for canners and retailers, such as in the court case that has been ongoing against the use of the Dolphin Safe label by the big three American tuna brands in the US for some time .
Accountability
Altogether, where Seaspiracy should ring the alarm bells is in the discussion about the control and accountability of the new media for the media products that reach millions of audiences at lightning speed through their platform. Had Seaspiracy appeared in a serious newspaper, there would hardly be room enough for the rectifications the next day. Not to mention possible claims for damages from the organizations that are wrongly accused or maligned.
Netflix does not correct anything, and leaves the film untouched on the platform.
This is the problem of platform media: sensationalist fake news makes its way unfiltered to a large audience that is unable to distinguish it from misinformation. And ecological horror pulp simply is easily digestible.
So, can we continue to eat fish? If you like it you can. It is one of the healthiest sources of protein, with a relatively low ecological footprint, capable of sustaining itself indefinitely. Please note the MSC or ASC certificate or consult one of the seafood guides at your disposal for a sustainable and responsible choice. Spoiler: I give (unpaid) advise as a tuna researcher to the Dutch Good Fish Foundation, one of the organizations that publishes a seafood guide. But unlike The Earth Island Institute, the Good Fish Foundation is not being paid for a label by the industry. It is one of the many NGOs that work hard for sustainable fish, not as a problem of conspiracy, but rather a solution to the major ecological challenges we face.