Steps Forward After "Seaspiracy"
Dain Rhotla
Seaspiracy Solutions
Ali Tabrizi’s recent documentary, Seaspiracy, quickly made waves and inspired people to rethink their consumption practices. Tabrizi explores the Japanese dolphin and tuna industry, proposes a pragmatic view on ocean plastic, and provides significant insight into human rights violations in the industry. Despite the time limitations of a documentary, fear-mongering issues were overemphasized and solutions were cursory which induced unnecessary despair towards the industry. I will expound on three seafood solutions I propose:
Mollusks
Mussels and clams are an underutilized seafood commodity. Their delicious meat can be enjoyed solo or in pasta, among other dishes. Like other seafoods they have a food-conversion rate of less than 2:1, making them incredibly efficient. Terrestrial meats like poultry, pork, and beef are commonly recorded ~ 2:1, 4:1, 8:1 respectively. They are grown on ropes offshore, do not require food or chemicals, and even clean the water around them. Studies have found that mussels in the fjords of Norway and the dirty water of the Bronx clean up to 30 gallons per day per mussel and remove nitrogen and other chemicals. Commercial fishing removes low trophic-level fish to convert into fish meal for other food production, thus damning their predators’ populations and ruining fisheries. The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, a leading conservation NGO, is tackling the menhaden problem in the mid-Atlantic. Menhaden is exploited to produce fish meal, fish oil, fertilizer, and other products; but this harms the species which feed on menhaden, like the popular sportfish striped bass, tuna, and tarpon. If mollusks were grown for these auxiliary products, menhaden populations could grow and support other fish and recreational industries. Rather than reducing the total seafood consumption we should shift our, and livestock’s diets, to more sustainable mollusks.
Mauritius Sustainable Tuna Fishing
Commercial fishing is generally undertaken by trawling: dragging nets along the ocean floor; or longlines, sending miles of hooks and lines. Trawling catches fish indiscriminately, which produces bycatch (fish unintentionally caught), and destroys coral and seagrass from the marine floor. Coral serves as important safe havens for fish and is incredibly hard to regrow. Seagrass acts as an estuary, and stores carbon 35 times better than tropical rainforests. Thus, trawling does ot only produce excessive bycatch, but also releases large amounts of carbon.
The most sustainable commercial fishing method is pole-and-line which is largely practiced for tuna in the Maldives. Small boats spray water around the boat to obscure the fishermen while they chum the water. The anglers stand in the back of the ship with large poles and individually catch tuna and heave them onto the deck—with nearly no bycatch nor fishing gear waste. This supports small local fishermen, whereas the mainstream high tech fishing is oligopolistic and has crushed the local competition. More fishing could undertake this method, though it is less efficient and would increase the price of fish. Other fish such as Grouper are already harvested with these techniques.
Economic Value of Recreational Fishing
The health of global marine systems retains cultural and economic importance beyond commercial fishing; thus, it is in our best decision to preserve it.
Cairns, the Azores, and the state of Florida have banned trawling which has directly benefited the recreational fishing industry. The lack of commercial fishing allows bait fish to swell in population and permit large trophy fish like marlin and tarpon to thrive. The biodiversity attracts tourists which boosts local economies. Tourists fly into the area, stay at hotels, eat at restaurants, pay guides, and shop at stores. In 2012 the Great Barrier Reef allowed Cairns, Australia to rake in $244 million, 62 percent of which came directly from fishing and the rest from related maritime recreation. Saltwater fishing alone contributes $9.2 billion annually to the Floridian economy and supports over 110,000 jobs. Protecting areas from trawling to grow fish populations and build a recreational industry that is environmentally sustainable and beneficial to governments.
Conclusion
Seaspiracy showed the rapid decline in fish populations, plastic pollution, and fallibility of certifications, yet it seemed acerbic towards any sort of seafood consumption. A large portion of society’s diet is derived from the sea which is incredibly efficient at converting food to meat that does not produce greenhouse gasses like methane. We should instead focus on the most egregious attacks against fish populations by limiting trawling and longlining in an attempt to rebuild seagrasses and recognizing the utility in eating more mollusks, sustainable pole-and-line fishing, and the value of recreational fishing.