What originally started out as a look into whaling and dolphin deaths turned into an exposure of how the industrial fishing industry causes huge damage to the sea and to mans future
A very interesting and thoughtful look at how no one is really talking about the damage being done to the seas, how humanity is suffering hugely and will suffer even more in the years ahead as a result of the destruction caused.
Clearly the documentary is controversial but no one seems to really dispute the more basic facts set out below or on the docu web site.
Around 50% of plastic waste in certain parts of the sea comes from fishing nets etc and around 70% of macro (20cm or greater in size) of all plastic in the sea comes fishing sources
It is also of note that much of the money used to fund the sea cleanup plastics campaign comes from the fishing industry via fees paid to charities for certification of fishing activities.
The docu explains the conflicts and sets out evidence including from people who worked for these charities of the conflicts.
It is clearly set out that there is no way to police sustainable fishing and that most fish big fish populations such as cod have fallen below critical levels with 90% or more of these fish stocks having been destroyed by over fishing
Below is a link to the video trailer
View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DCnLWUSaz9o
If some of what is set out is even only partly true its very serious
To show whats covered up or not discussed in the main stream press or wild life charities the doc sets out
1. 46% of all plastic waste in the sea in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch which is about the size of France or 2x Texas is old fishing nets and equipment - total weight about 80,000 tons
Plastic straws make up about 0.03% of all plastic waste in the sea but seem to get much or most of the plastics publicity
The same sort of ratios go for deaths of turtles caused by death from plastics versus turtle deaths from fishing activity
www.seashepherdglobal.org
Looking into this more research indicates about 80% of all plastics in the sea comes from about 10 river sources mostly in asia and about 20% of plastic - around 30 million tons of plastic - comes from fishing nets and other marine sources
ourworldindata.org
2. damage from fishing nets of seaweed and grasses could be much more damaging global warming wise than land based CO2 emissions and rainforest destruction - however that does not mean its ok to destroy forests.
3. $35 billion a year is paid in fishing subsidies - $30 billion a year is needed to eradicate hunger
4. THE OCEANS ABSORB 4x THE AMOUNT OF CO2 THAN THE AMAZON RAINFOREST
5. 70% OF MACRO PLASTIC AT SEA COMES FROM FISHING GEAR. Abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear accounts for 70 percent of macro plastics in the ocean by weight.
6. THERE IS OVER 150 MILLION TONS OF PLASTIC
ALREADY FLOATING IN THE SEA. Every year approximately 8 million tons of plastic enter into the ocean
7. UP TO 85% OF THE WORLDS OXYGEN
COMES FROM PHYTOPLANKTON
8. Coral reefs and phytoplankton are being destroyed by the destruction of sharks, tuna and fish which provide the waste fertilizer both coral and phytoplankton need to live
9. It was suggested that fish etc moving through the water layers have a greater effect in circulating warm water from the seas surface to colder depths and so effecting sea temperatures and global warming than all the waves, currents, tides and other such factors
10. Many fisheries are not well run or have proper records reported and in around 18 known cases fishing inspection agents posted to industrial fishing boats have disappeared while at sea and in one case a agent was assassinated on land after reporting illegal fishing
11. The true scale of industrial fishing danage is unknown but one well run ICELAND FISHERY IN ONE MONTH KILLED APPROX. 269 HARBOR PORPOISES, 900 SEALS OF FOUR DIFFERENT SPECIES
AND 5000 SEABIRDS
THE ICELAND FISHERY WAS AWARDED THE BLUE TICK BY THE MSC which provides consumers with certification that fisheries are assessed by independent scientific teams against the MSC standard and its three core principles: maintaining a sustainable level of fish stocks, minimizing environmental impact and effective fishery management
www.seaspiracy.org
www.seaspiracy.org
What critics of the Netflix docu seem to focus on is to try to indirectly discredit the info by saying its info is misleading - they say for example to suggest people consider giving up sea food is not possible as many low income human populations depend on fish and seafood as a key or main food source so cannot stop eating it.
It was never suggested in the docu that low income populations stop eating seafood what is targeted as causing critical damage is the industrial fishing and sea food farming and so it is high income populations who eat or use this seafood who should consider stopping or reducing seafood consumption .
In fact the docu suggested industrial fishing has resulted in low income populations up to 1000 miles inland suffering and that industrial fishing may have caused people in Africa to seek bush meat to replace fish and so been partly responsible for greater human contact with sources of ebola infection and retro viruses etc
Harvard health official Bernstein said
industrial overfishing has led rural coastal communities to more aggressively harvest potentially virus-laden animals in jungle interiors.
“We have evidence that people who have had their fish stocks depleted, through industrial fishing of the oceans, they are being exposed to retroviruses like HIV on an ongoing basis as they eat bush meat,” he said.
www.latimes.com
Conversely, sustainable fishing practices that pay attention to local food security needs will reduce the risk of contact to zoonosis (i.e. hotspots for infectious disease) such as Ebola virus.
link.springer.com
What is suggested is that ocean damage done by industrial fishing could be one of if not the biggest issue humanity faces in ensuring we can continue to live on earth.
The founder of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society states in the documentary: "If you want to address climate change, the first thing you do is protect the ocean, and the solution to that is very simple, leave it alone."
The amount of CO2 captured by sea plant life far outweighs anything by trees on land yet nothing is said of the destruction
Heavy fishing nets crawling along the bottom of the ocean floor capable of holding 13 jumbo jets .......are said .... to kill 3.9 billion acres of the seabed every year, the equivalent to 4,316 football pitches a minute.
www.mirror.co.uk
In 2019, the tropics lost close to 30 soccerfields' worth of trees every single minute.
m.dw.com
While seagrasses occupy only 0.1 percent of the total ocean floor, they are estimated to be responsible for up to 11 percent of the organic carbon buried in the ocean.
Kelp and sea grasses grow at depths up to about 50 meters below the sea surface but some may grow at greater depths of up to 90 meters
Seagrasses play a large role in regulating ocean environments, storing more than twice as much carbon from planet-warming carbon dioxide (CO2) per square mile as forests do on land, according to a 2012 study in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Saltwater plants like mangroves and seagrasses have been well-known dynamos when it comes to storing carbon. Per acre, these “blue carbon” ecosystems can take up to 20 times more CO2 from the atmosphere than land-based forests. The secret to their carbon-storing success lies not in the plants, but in the rich muck they grow in. As marine plants grow and die, their leaves, roots, stems and branches wind up buried in underwater sediments. These low-oxygen sediments can store carbon for decades or longer.
oceana.org
Around 7% of seagrass meadows were being destroyed annually a 2009 report set out. So all this has been known for a long time
Billed as the first comprehensive global assessment of seagrass losses, the study found 58 percent of seagrass meadows are declining and the rate of annual loss has accelerated from about 1 percent per year before 1940 to 7 percent per year since 1990.
Published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study, based on more than 200 surveys and 1,800 observations dating back to 1879, found that seagrasses are disappearing at rates similar to coral reefs and tropical rainforests.
www.reuters.com
Environmentalist George Monbiot said in the documentary: "It’s a fishing industry that is destroying the fish and the rest of the lives of the sea".
With less than 1% of the ocean being protected from fishing, researchers say it should actually be at around 30% protected.
www.theguardian.com
A very interesting and thoughtful look at how no one is really talking about the damage being done to the seas, how humanity is suffering hugely and will suffer even more in the years ahead as a result of the destruction caused.
Clearly the documentary is controversial but no one seems to really dispute the more basic facts set out below or on the docu web site.
Around 50% of plastic waste in certain parts of the sea comes from fishing nets etc and around 70% of macro (20cm or greater in size) of all plastic in the sea comes fishing sources
It is also of note that much of the money used to fund the sea cleanup plastics campaign comes from the fishing industry via fees paid to charities for certification of fishing activities.
The docu explains the conflicts and sets out evidence including from people who worked for these charities of the conflicts.
It is clearly set out that there is no way to police sustainable fishing and that most fish big fish populations such as cod have fallen below critical levels with 90% or more of these fish stocks having been destroyed by over fishing
Below is a link to the video trailer
If some of what is set out is even only partly true its very serious
To show whats covered up or not discussed in the main stream press or wild life charities the doc sets out
1. 46% of all plastic waste in the sea in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch which is about the size of France or 2x Texas is old fishing nets and equipment - total weight about 80,000 tons
Plastic straws make up about 0.03% of all plastic waste in the sea but seem to get much or most of the plastics publicity
The same sort of ratios go for deaths of turtles caused by death from plastics versus turtle deaths from fishing activity

The Most Dangerous Single Source of Ocean Plastic No One Wants to Talk About
Despite what most people think, common consumer plastics like cotton ear buds, throwaway cutlery, and shampoo bottles aren’t actually the biggest culprits. The single biggest single source of plastic choking out the life in our oceans is made up of purposefully or accidentally lost, discarded...

Looking into this more research indicates about 80% of all plastics in the sea comes from about 10 river sources mostly in asia and about 20% of plastic - around 30 million tons of plastic - comes from fishing nets and other marine sources

Where does the plastic in our oceans come from?
Which countries and rivers emit the most plastic to the ocean? What does this mean for solutions to tackle plastic pollution?

2. damage from fishing nets of seaweed and grasses could be much more damaging global warming wise than land based CO2 emissions and rainforest destruction - however that does not mean its ok to destroy forests.
3. $35 billion a year is paid in fishing subsidies - $30 billion a year is needed to eradicate hunger
4. THE OCEANS ABSORB 4x THE AMOUNT OF CO2 THAN THE AMAZON RAINFOREST
5. 70% OF MACRO PLASTIC AT SEA COMES FROM FISHING GEAR. Abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear accounts for 70 percent of macro plastics in the ocean by weight.
6. THERE IS OVER 150 MILLION TONS OF PLASTIC
ALREADY FLOATING IN THE SEA. Every year approximately 8 million tons of plastic enter into the ocean
7. UP TO 85% OF THE WORLDS OXYGEN
COMES FROM PHYTOPLANKTON
8. Coral reefs and phytoplankton are being destroyed by the destruction of sharks, tuna and fish which provide the waste fertilizer both coral and phytoplankton need to live
9. It was suggested that fish etc moving through the water layers have a greater effect in circulating warm water from the seas surface to colder depths and so effecting sea temperatures and global warming than all the waves, currents, tides and other such factors
10. Many fisheries are not well run or have proper records reported and in around 18 known cases fishing inspection agents posted to industrial fishing boats have disappeared while at sea and in one case a agent was assassinated on land after reporting illegal fishing
11. The true scale of industrial fishing danage is unknown but one well run ICELAND FISHERY IN ONE MONTH KILLED APPROX. 269 HARBOR PORPOISES, 900 SEALS OF FOUR DIFFERENT SPECIES
AND 5000 SEABIRDS
THE ICELAND FISHERY WAS AWARDED THE BLUE TICK BY THE MSC which provides consumers with certification that fisheries are assessed by independent scientific teams against the MSC standard and its three core principles: maintaining a sustainable level of fish stocks, minimizing environmental impact and effective fishery management
Facts | Seaspiracy Website
Check out all the facts from Netflix's Seaspiracy, with time codes to give you all the information you need to save the seas.

SEASPIRACY DOCUMENTARY
SEASPIRACY is the groundbreaking Netflix Original documentary which highlights the fishing industries plunder of our oceans, and challeneges the notions of sustainable fishing.
What critics of the Netflix docu seem to focus on is to try to indirectly discredit the info by saying its info is misleading - they say for example to suggest people consider giving up sea food is not possible as many low income human populations depend on fish and seafood as a key or main food source so cannot stop eating it.
It was never suggested in the docu that low income populations stop eating seafood what is targeted as causing critical damage is the industrial fishing and sea food farming and so it is high income populations who eat or use this seafood who should consider stopping or reducing seafood consumption .
In fact the docu suggested industrial fishing has resulted in low income populations up to 1000 miles inland suffering and that industrial fishing may have caused people in Africa to seek bush meat to replace fish and so been partly responsible for greater human contact with sources of ebola infection and retro viruses etc
Harvard health official Bernstein said
industrial overfishing has led rural coastal communities to more aggressively harvest potentially virus-laden animals in jungle interiors.
“We have evidence that people who have had their fish stocks depleted, through industrial fishing of the oceans, they are being exposed to retroviruses like HIV on an ongoing basis as they eat bush meat,” he said.

HIV, Ebola, SARS and now COVID-19: Why some scientists fear deadly outbreaks are on the rise
Many experts believe that this surge in new infectious diseases is being driven in part by some of humanity’s most environmentally destructive practices.

Conversely, sustainable fishing practices that pay attention to local food security needs will reduce the risk of contact to zoonosis (i.e. hotspots for infectious disease) such as Ebola virus.

Seafood insecurity, bush meat consumption, and public health emergency in West Africa: Did we miss the early warning signs of an Ebola epidemic? - Maritime Studies
In this article, we frame issues around food security and the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and discuss the potential contribution of interrelated factors like seafood access, bush meat consumption, and public health concerns with the recent outbreak. Since seafood is a major dietary constituent...

What is suggested is that ocean damage done by industrial fishing could be one of if not the biggest issue humanity faces in ensuring we can continue to live on earth.
The founder of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society states in the documentary: "If you want to address climate change, the first thing you do is protect the ocean, and the solution to that is very simple, leave it alone."
The amount of CO2 captured by sea plant life far outweighs anything by trees on land yet nothing is said of the destruction
Heavy fishing nets crawling along the bottom of the ocean floor capable of holding 13 jumbo jets .......are said .... to kill 3.9 billion acres of the seabed every year, the equivalent to 4,316 football pitches a minute.

7 claims made by Seaspiracy on Netflix – including 'truth' about fishing slavery
Netflix documentary Seaspiracy takes a close look at the fishing industry and its effect on the planet

In 2019, the tropics lost close to 30 soccerfields' worth of trees every single minute.

World destroyed swathes of tropical forest in 2018 – DW – 04/25/2019
A study found that the world lost an area of tropical forest roughly the size of England in 2018, equal to about 30 soccer fields every minute. The implications for efforts to fight global climate change are dire.

While seagrasses occupy only 0.1 percent of the total ocean floor, they are estimated to be responsible for up to 11 percent of the organic carbon buried in the ocean.
Kelp and sea grasses grow at depths up to about 50 meters below the sea surface but some may grow at greater depths of up to 90 meters
Seagrasses play a large role in regulating ocean environments, storing more than twice as much carbon from planet-warming carbon dioxide (CO2) per square mile as forests do on land, according to a 2012 study in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Saltwater plants like mangroves and seagrasses have been well-known dynamos when it comes to storing carbon. Per acre, these “blue carbon” ecosystems can take up to 20 times more CO2 from the atmosphere than land-based forests. The secret to their carbon-storing success lies not in the plants, but in the rich muck they grow in. As marine plants grow and die, their leaves, roots, stems and branches wind up buried in underwater sediments. These low-oxygen sediments can store carbon for decades or longer.
Seaweed could be scrubbing more carbon from the atmosphere than we expected - Oceana
If you’ve ever eaten sushi, you know that seaweed goes great with rice and fish. But recent research suggests that seaweed is more than just a culinary partner — it could be an overlooked ally in the fight against climate change. By dying and drifting down to the deep sea, marine algae (or...

Around 7% of seagrass meadows were being destroyed annually a 2009 report set out. So all this has been known for a long time
Billed as the first comprehensive global assessment of seagrass losses, the study found 58 percent of seagrass meadows are declining and the rate of annual loss has accelerated from about 1 percent per year before 1940 to 7 percent per year since 1990.
Published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study, based on more than 200 surveys and 1,800 observations dating back to 1879, found that seagrasses are disappearing at rates similar to coral reefs and tropical rainforests.

Loss of world's seagrass beds seen accelerating
The world's seagrass meadows, a critical habitat for marine life and profit-maker for the fishing industry, are in decline due to coastal development and the losses are accelerating, according to a new study.
Environmentalist George Monbiot said in the documentary: "It’s a fishing industry that is destroying the fish and the rest of the lives of the sea".
With less than 1% of the ocean being protected from fishing, researchers say it should actually be at around 30% protected.

Seaspiracy: Netflix documentary accused of misrepresentation by participants
NGOs and experts quoted in film say it contains ‘misleading’ claims, erroneous statistics and out-of-context interviews
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