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Statement Over Documentary Seaspiracy
Dear readers,
You may already have seen Seaspiracy, a new and shocking documentary about commercial fishing and about plastic pollution. We can imagine that the film raises a lot of questions, and perhaps questions about us. I would like to make it clear that we are just as shocked as you are. I will try to answer a few immediate questions.
1. Has your organisation seen Seaspiracy? If so, what is your reaction?
Yes. This shocking documentary is and will be watched by large numbers of people given Netflix’s wide reach. It shows how ocean life is radically affected by overfishing. This in turn affects all life on earth.
2. Ok, but what you think? Do you support Seaspiracy’s story?
We are extremely concerned about the health of the ocean, the planet and all life on earth. We express our concern by concentrating specifically on plastic. Plastic is everywhere, even in the most remote places on earth. We eat, drink and breathe plastic. In the last three years, our campaigns have been guided by the slogan ‘Save the Oceans, Save yourself’. Without a healthy ocean, there will be no life on earth anymore.
3. The makers of the documentary say that some environmental organisations focus on relatively small problems such as plastic straws and microplastics, while the elephant in the room, plastic from fisheries – responsible for almost half the plastic in the sea – is hardly addressed. Why not?
It is true that relatively speaking, we and other NGOs, do indeed pay a lot of attention to items such as plastic straws. Plastic straws are a perfect example of a type of single-use plastic that is unnecessary and for which there are good alternatives. Single-use plastic is a huge source of plastic pollution on land and in the sea. Since its founding, PSF has focused on radically reducing the use of plastic. Much of that plastic ends up in the sea.
Plastic from fisheries, in particular from fishing lines and fishing nets, is also a huge problem. They not only catch fish for consumption, they also catch a lot of by-catch. Abandoned fishing nets continue to catch fish. Bottom trawling nets disturb the life on the seabed and destroy the seabed and coral. The documentary suggests that NGOs are doing little about the problem of fishing nets, but that is not true. We in any case regularly address this issue. Take, for example, our plea for a ban on the use of dolly rope in bottom trawling.
The documentary brings one important hidden problem to the fore. That is that the ocean does not belong to anybody and that it is not subject to any laws. Large industrial fishing trawlers can do whatever they like and they are destroying the underwater world for future generations.
4. But the problem of plastic in the sea can be halved, can’t it? Why does the Plastic Soup Foundation call for people to stop using single-use plastics, but does not call for stopping eating fish?
No, it is not true that the problem of plastic in the sea can be halved if we stop fishing. If only it were that simple! The documentary asserts that the proportion of plastic fishing gear in the plastic soup is more than 46%. This constitutes the weight of the plastic. This figure comes from a study in which the proportion of floating plastic in one gyre is estimated. If you included all the plastic that has sunk to the depths and take the entire ocean, which contains several gyres, into account, that proportion would probably be a lot lower. But nobody knows that for certain.
Many people are dependent on fish, so we cannot criticise anyone for eating fish. What we do do is regularly point out that there is now plastic throughout our food chain, from plankton in the deep sea to birds high in the sky. Consumers can look at this and at other information and make up their own minds. We do believe, though, that overfishing – just like plastic pollution – is a form of ecocide and needs to be made an international criminal offence as soon as possible. Let international judges decide.
5. Is this documentary a reason for you to give fisheries a more prominent role in your campaigns?
We already do this and we will continue doing so where and when we can. Our mission is to tackle the plastic soup at source. Fisheries plastic is also a source.
6. The documentary points to financial links between some NGOs and the so-called sustainable fishing sector. Is this the reason that the fisheries, in contrast to multinationals for example, are never really examined closely by you?
We ourselves have no links, financial or otherwise, with fisheries or sustainable fisheries and do address the fishing industry regularly. The NGOs that were mentioned in the documentary deny these connections in a statement.
Finally, we believe that this documentary painfully exposes how we humans are destroying all the life in the ocean in more ways than one. But it is not too late. Let us all do everything we can do to save the ocean and thus, save ourselves. Every single person can do something in their own way.
Maria Westerbos, Director and Founder Plastic Soup Foundation
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