Did Seaspiracy Film showed the thurth?
Probably some of you had the chance to watch the film titled "Seaspiracy", based on Netflix platform. I was curious to see what was the view and the message. After watching the film, just wanted to share my views, since I'm part of the involved players and since the film did not included any comments or views from the other side of the spectrum, here it is one.
1 - Most images shown on the film are part of illegal and not regulated fisheries. This is not the case for many countries, and certainly not the case of Peru, which happens to have the biggest wild catch fishery of the world: anchovy. This is a fully regulated fishery, legal and the most sustainable worldwide according with the experts of FAO, thanks to Imarpe (Peruvian Sea Institute) who guarantees TAC's given to the industrial fleet to be at the right explotaition levels to prevent from the specie to vanish. It seems to me that it's working pretty fine, and not just recently, but for many decades. Again, it wouldn't be like that if Imarpe wouldn't exists.
2 - The highest damage to the oceans is by far plastic contamination. This comes from human based on land but not these sailing. The problem is waste water coming from cities without proper treatment that end on the oceans. Our processing plants in land are fully controlled on maximum levels of both solids and fat contained on waste water sent back to the ocean. But who controls the waste from cities, and these not having any traetment system at all?
3 - The film claims the need of certain wild fish catch to produce farmed fish going to the dish. The way they've presented is laking a clearer explanation and calculation to really understand the impact. Wild industrial catch serves the fishmeal and fish oil industry. These are esential ingredients for feed producers to consider within their formulae for different species, and not just other fish, but crustaceous, pigs, ducks and many other animals. The inclusion of fishmeal and fish oil in diets are currently at levels of 25-35%, and at the same time, fishmeal production had been keept at the same volumes for over a decade or even more, even showing a slight reduction. I'm aware of fish farmers achieving a convertion ratio below 1kg of wild catch to get 1 kg of farmed fish ready to be eaten. But of course, we've not seen that on the film.
4 - Fish oil from different species, have a relevant percentage of Omega-3's. Anchovy is one of the species with a natural range of 28-31% concentration. This oil O3 rich is used for both aquaculture and human consumption world wide. There's a huge industry relaying on the supply of crude O3 rich oil for futher processing, helping and improving human health, due to enourmous benefits of it, which are very relevant and yet to be further discovered (functional foods using EPA and DHA are widely spread all over the world).
5 - The films talks about bycatch, however, intentionaly or not, it doesn't speaks of the endless efforts from the industry to save wild life on the ocean, and when some species that are not part of the intended catch fall into the nets, they're carefully return to the sea to avoid unwanted catch, which by the way, will mean huge fines to be paid. So, sealions, dolphins, turtles and many others, are safe when fishing is done with purse seiners. Different is trowling vessels activities, certainly careless. The local fishing industry in Peru has been awarded by the government the most relevant sustainability price for its program called SALVAMARES (sea savers).
6 - Sustainability certifications. This is probably the only aspect we agree with the film. To avoid falling into this, my guess is that the whole value chain should look at each country regulation to foresee if it complies with sustainability criteria or not. Let FAO decide whether a fishing activity is sustainable or not.
Are we really getting the whole and right picture from the film? We all agree illegal fishing should be punished and vanished from the planet. But someone should show not just the dark side of the moon. There exists the other side, brighter and shining, composed of those responsible industries doing huge efforts to avoid illegal, unregulated and unwanted fishing, caring for the environment, and giving decent jobs to thousands of people around the world.
Finally, I'm living in Peru and am proud of what the industrial fishing is doing here. Peru is a mining dependant country, but fishing have placed Peru in 1st place worldwide as producer and exporter of a great product. And this helped many Peruvians to live better and overcome the poberty level limits.