There’s a new controversial documentary in Netflix – Seaspiracy. I am familiar with our planet’s dwindling resources thanks to human’s own faults but it was a one-sided familiarity with only land’s woes. I was at a lost at sea.
Watching Seaspiracy opened my eyes to new knowledge such as bycatch, trawl fishing and wild fish farming.
Bycatch happens when untargeted species such as turtles, dolphins, sharks and whales are caught up in fishing nets and then discarded back to the sea – often dead. This is largely due to trawl fishing which is simply putting down a big net to the ocean that it can swallow even a whole cathedral. The net is dragged for many miles across the ocean floor gulping up everything in its path and leaving a flattened ocean. You can imagine the marine habitat destroyed – corals washed out – and the number of fishes big and small engulfed.
Fish farming may have been a solution – where instead of catching wild fish, they are harvested instead. But these farmed fish are fed wild fish feed (hence the need to catch more wild fish) and live in very bad farm conditions leading to lice infestations and many other fish problems.
The film went even further to tackle the problems of forced labor in Thailand and the conspiracy of sustainable labels where enforcers and reviewers can be bribed at sea – or shot dead.
Commercial fishing was a multi-billion dollar industry and it’s so interconnected – no one can stop it.
I was appalled at how destructive commercial fishing is and how some cultures are blatantly ignoring the real ecological impacts of their ignorant traditions.
After watching the film, I resonated strongly with the filmmakers conclusion – stop eating fish.
But as I slept it over and had more time to think it through – would this conclusion be the solution?
Watching countless films on how destructive farming has become or cattle raising / pig raising / chicken raising / etc. are – I never really had the incessant desire to shift to veganism. I still loved meat.
But watching how the problem at sea is way, way larger than the problem at land – and how no one seems to be addressing it properly – made me desire to boycott any- and all form – of seafood.
But I love eating fish. It’s abundant in my country. So what do I do?
Reading the review article by Greenpeace resonated with the solution I’ve come to realized on my own.
Stop eating fish is not the solution – especially for a coastal country like the Philippines where a lot of local fishermen depend on the seas for their living. In a country with a lot of other food options, and where fish is not naturally abundant, then yes – stop eating fish is a solution. But for us where fish is a major source of livelihood and where it’s abundant, then this is not the solution.
The film said there is no true sustainable fishing. Base on his research – I tend to agree that those organizations he encountered sounded fishy and reek of capitalism. Ever since sustainability has become a catch phrase, it appears that there are organizations who exploit it for their own personal gains. Various forms of sustainability certifications are awarded to various companies but did we ever researched how these certifying bodies define sustainability. And have we ever thought if true sustainability can really happen in large scale massive operations? Not to mention majority of sustainability certifications are paid for – essentially bought – by the companies seeking to be certified.
Here in the tropics, where people have fished for centuries, I believe true sustainable fishing exists. And we don’t need certifications to prove it.
Sustainable fishing simply means getting enough fish that you can consume and letting the fish have time to breed and recuperate. It’s about employing non destructive means of catching fish. For me who doesn’t live in a coastal town, it simply means buying from my local fishermen who knows what they are doing.
My conclusion: Small-scale fishing is the solution to the ocean problem we now face. Local fishermen – who can only fish within their coastal communities using non-destructive modes of fishing should be the ones only allowed to fish. That means that some variety of fish will not be available to some part of the world where the fish is not endemically found. (Goodbye salmon! Hello galunggong!) As consumers, we should be OK with that. We should learn to consume only those fish that are abundantly available at our locality.
As for large-scale, commercial fishing – while I want a total ban, we can’t really impose it but we can impose stricter measures. We should limit ocean grounds for fishing and limit the number of operating fishing boats. We should have better transparency to what happens at seas and government policies that really have teeth. By limiting large-scale, commercial fishing – there will be limited supply of these non-endemic fish which would lead to higher prices for them and encourage more people to support local endemic fish.
This is just like how I view eating meat. I am not against eating pork or chicken. But I would eat those that have been raised by backyard farms and raised without cruelty or artificial means.
It’s the widespread commercialization of fishing, farming and agriculture that has caused all these problems. If we will only retreat to just eating what is available to us – what has been sustainably harvested (and by sustainably meaning we know exactly where it was caught / bred / raised) then we will have a world which can recuperate on its own.
As citizens, we have the power to change the way our seas are governed. A recent house bill is advocating to allow small and medium commercial fishing vessels to fish within the 10-15 km fishing zone within municipal waters. This means that they will be in direct competition with small-scale fisherfolk who stands to lose their livelihoods as they cannot compete with the machineries of this fishing boats. Further, this would mean overfishing since the already limited supply of fish in our municipal waters would still be harvested by these commercial vessels.
We can help stop this now. Join by signing the petition here calling for Congress to junk this proposal. The more people lobby against it, the better chances that our representatives will hear our call. After all, we elected them to watch out and hear our interests.
While we cannot stop eating fish, we can be more mindful of where they come from. Refuse to eat the fish you know has been imported – ask your local wet market suki (vendor) where they fish they sell came from. If it’s not within the Philippines, refuse to buy it. When buying canned fish like tuna and sardines, research the company who is producing it. Check where and how they caught those fish. By becoming mindful consumers, we are sending a word to the large commercial fishing vessels that we won’t blindly consume fish which has potentially – and most probably – damaged our environment.
Spread the awareness. The more people who know about the plight of the ocean, the more can be engaged to take action. Don’t just watch documentaries and then leave it at that. Be moved to take action. It doesn’t have to be extreme or massive. It can start small scale and within your capabilities. Collectively, these small steps will accumulate towards the greater good.
We only have one planet to live on. It’s about time we seriously take care of it.
