WEBVTT

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Downloaded from
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..:: Presented By ZarFilm Website ::..
‏.::  www.bolboljan.net ::.

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When ships are
in the middle of the ocean…

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…where problems occur…

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they can throw you overboard

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into the sea.

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It is dangerous for you
to make this documentary.

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There are many risks.

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If you're scared of dying, go home.

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My name is Ali.

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That's me.

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And for as long as I can remember,

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I've been fascinated
with dolphins and whales.

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My obsession with the ocean, though,

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was really born
out of watching documentaries

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from people like Jacques Cousteau,

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David Attenborough, and Sylvia Earle.

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Watching their films opened up
a whole new world for me,

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filled with an abundance of beauty,

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color, and life.

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I would dream of one day exploring
our thriving seas

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just like they did.

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Capturing images
of all the extraordinary wildlife

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that lived beneath the waves.

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After finishing college,
I'd been working on other documentaries,

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but at 22, I was ready
to embark on making my own film

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on just how incredible the oceans were.

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It's home for up to 80%
of all life on Earth.

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And with the vast majority of our seas
still unexplored till this day,

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for me, the oceans were
an indestructible source of inspiration.

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But not long into starting the project,

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this romantic vision that I always had
of the ocean completely changed.

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…beached whale found
off the country's coast earlier this week

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had more than 30 plastic bags
inside its stomach.

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It's the 29th whale of this
species to become stranded across Europe

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in the last two weeks.

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This represents the largest
stranding episode in the last 100 years.

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- …washed up on a beach…
- In the UK, 4 others died

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in a number of beachings nearby
in recent days…

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When news started coming in
of whales washing up on beaches,

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even along the Southeast coast
of England where I lived,

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I was forced to confront
a side of the story I never knew.

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A story of just how huge our impact
on the seas had become.

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These animals washing up
with their stomachs filled with plastic

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was devastating not only
because of their incredible intelligence,

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but because they even help
keep the entire ocean alive.

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When dolphins and whales
return to the surface to breathe,

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they fertilize tiny marine plants
in the ocean called phytoplankton,

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which every year absorb four times
the amount of carbon dioxide

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than the Amazon rain forest does,

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and generates up to 85%
of the oxygen we breathe.

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So in a world concerned with carbon
and climate change,

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protecting these animals
meant protecting the entire planet.

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The way I saw it was
if dolphins and whales die,

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the ocean dies.

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And if the ocean dies, so do we.

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But with so many whales washing up dead,
the future looked bleak.

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Plastic was invading every last corner
of the world's seas,

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with huge floating garbage patches
accumulating in the middle of the ocean,

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like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

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In fact, today,

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the equivalent
of a garbage truckload of plastic

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is dumped in the sea every single minute,

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joining the over 150 million tons
already floating there.

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But this plastic breaks down into smaller
and smaller pieces known as microplastics,

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which now outnumber the stars
in the Milky Way galaxy

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by at least 500 times,

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and is seeping into every living creature
in the ocean.

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Essentially, our oceans
have turned into a toxic plastic soup.

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And worst of all,
I was a massive part of the problem.

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Although I signed petitions
and subscribed to ocean newsletters,

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I did nothing to actually protect
what I loved.

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So from then on,

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I did what any self-respecting
Jacques Cousteau wannabe would do.

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I became the plastic police.

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I donated to every ocean charity I could.

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Attended beach cleanups,

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and carried reusable cutlery
and a drink bottle wherever I went.

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My mission was simple.

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Stop the world from using
plastic toothbrushes,

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straws, cutlery, bottles, bags,

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or anything single-use plastic.

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And I was gonna stop at nothing
until my message was heard.

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Seaside Fish and Chips.

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Yeah, hi. My name's Ali.

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I'm just wondering
if you'd swap out your plastic straws

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'cause it's killing whales
and baby sea turtles.

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Hello?

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But that didn't stop me
from tackling this plague of plastic.

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So, this is my first beach.
In just one hour,

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I've been able to collect
three whole bags full of plastic trash.

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There's takeaway food packaging,

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there's cutlery, there's straws,
there's everything.

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I even found Nemo.

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Onto the next beach.

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But no matter what beach I went to

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or how much I collected,

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there was always more plastic,
and more animals washing up.

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After months of this,

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and as I began to wonder if this really
was the best way to save marine life,

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I came across this.

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Japan has confirmed it will resume
commercial whale hunting,

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and is withdrawing from
the International Whaling Commission.

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The country's whaling fleet
set sail for the Antarctic last Tuesday.

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Tokyo says it plans to kill
despite a worldwide ban.

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So, this is the news
I woke up to today.

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The Japanese government want to
resume whaling in the Antarctic again.

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I knew that dolphins and whales
were dying accidentally from plastic,

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but I never dreamed
that they'd be targeted on purpose

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by an industry I thought
only existed in the history books.

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I did some research and found there's been
an international whaling ban since 1986.

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However, several countries have operated
under the radar for years,

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most notoriously, though, is Japan.

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Logistically, it was extremely challenging
to film or do anything

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about the whaling in Antarctica.

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But I found there was one place
in the south of Japan

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where this industry could still be seen
operating from the coast,

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in a place called Taiji,

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where each year over 700 dolphins
and small whales are herded into a cove

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for slaughter.

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I wanted to find out

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just how big of a threat
Japan's whaling practices were

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compared to plastic.

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So I set up a meeting
with one of the few activists

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who'd been involved in this issue
for years, a guy named Ric O'Barry.

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The Japanese government
go through a lot of trouble

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to make sure
that people don't know about this.

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If you went there,
and you didn't know what you were doing,

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you could get arrested,
and you could be in jail a very long time.

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Because they're trying
to get rid of people

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who are opposed to their war on dolphins.

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When you first show up in Taiji,

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immediately, the police are on you.

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They're at your hotel.
They're following you everywhere you go.

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You got the Yakuza,
you got the right wing,

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you got the government, the fishermen,
you got everybody against you.

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The room is bugged,
the telephone is bugged.

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The television
is actually photographing you

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while you're in your room.

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So you ask what, how...
What happens when you go to Taiji?

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Just know that all of those people
are watching you,

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and they are trying to figure out,

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"How do we take these people out?"

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But if it's so risky to go,

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and there are other issues
affecting the entire ocean,

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like plastic washing up everywhere,
then why go to Taiji?

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Showing up in Taiji with a camera
is extremely important.

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If we can't fix this,

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what are you talking about,
saving the ocean?

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How can you do that?
You can't even fix this.

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This is the size of a football field.

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My head was still
filled with questions,

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but with the dolphin hunt just starting,

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I knew that figuring out
what was going on in Taiji

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would give me a better understanding
of the bigger picture

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of how to save the ocean.

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Either I stayed home picking up trash
on beaches all day,

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or take a risk and find out
if there was a bigger threat to the sea.

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So I dropped all my other projects,

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packed my camera bags,
convinced my partner Lucy to join me,

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and with the mission to expose
what was truly happening to our oceans,

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got the next flight out to Japan.

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Where are you going today?

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Oh, we just arrived.
We're just visiting the area.

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- Holiday?
- Holiday. Yeah.

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Drive safe.

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Thank you.

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What the hell?

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From that point on,
we had an entourage of police,

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secret service, undercover cops,

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and the coast guard
following us everywhere.

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Is it the police?

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Yeah, they're out there.
Let's go out the back.

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So, arrived in Taiji,

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and first thing in the morning,
decided to head to the harbor.

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Pretty quickly,
boats start heading out to sea.

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There was about 13 of them in total,
and they were gone for several hours.

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When they returned,
they returned in formation

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and were billowing black smoke
from their exhaust pipes.

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And banging on poles in the water

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to try and scare a huge pod of dolphins
closer to land,

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and then maneuver them into a cove
where I'm standing above right now.

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It's impossible to see exactly
what's going on.

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There's a lot of splashing.

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There's people down there
wrestling these dolphins.

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Whatever is going on,
they don't want us filming.

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Police are trying to search for us.

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It's really tough conditions
to try and film this stuff.

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The Taiji dolphin drives
continue to be supported,

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underwritten, funded by
the marine park entertainment industry.

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A live dolphin really is very expensive.

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And so,

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the big ticket is catching
young dolphins and whales,

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and selling them to marine parks.

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What captivity in concrete tanks does

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is it takes away everything
that makes life worth living for them.

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Everything they need to do, they can't do.

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And everything they don't want to do,
they're forced to do.

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I had enjoyed going to these
marine parks my whole life,

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but never even questioned how the animals
got there in the first place.

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But now, knowing it was connected
to industries like whaling

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made me pledge
to never go to these parks again.

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But every day in Taiji
was like Groundhog Day,

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witnessing boats go out,
dolphins driven in,

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and the inevitable capture
and mass slaughter of the pod

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again, and again, and again.

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Before we knew it,
we'd been in Taiji for over a week,

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but still couldn't figure out
why on Earth they were killing them,

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since dead dolphins don't perform tricks.

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Lucy, show me again
what you just found out.

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I've just been doing the maths
from the data online,

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and from 2000 to 2015,
for every one dolphin captured,

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at least 12 more were killed.
It doesn't make any sense.

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I don't know why they're killing
all these dolphins.

00:13:12.416 --> 00:13:16.796
So, if the annual Taiji dolphin drive
is fueled by the captivity industry,

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it begs the question,

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"Why kill the dolphins
that aren't selected for captivity?"

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There's very little reason
to slaughter them.

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There's no market for dolphin meat.

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Why not just release them
back into the sea?

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And the answer to that question
is pest control.

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The fishermen view the dolphins
as competition.

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They feel that they eat too many fish,

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and if they get rid of the dolphins,

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there will be more fish available
for them to catch.

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Essentially, the slaughter
of these dolphins is a reaction

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to the overfishing
that's happening here in Taiji.

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If this was true, that dolphins were
being blamed for the overfishing,

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then boycotting marine parks
wasn't gonna stop this.

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So to find out more,
we decided to visit a local fishing port

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just a stone's throw from Taiji.

00:14:04.552 --> 00:14:07.388
However, upon arrival, we quickly learned

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this wasn't just any fishing port.

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Ali. Ali, what is it?

00:14:17.147 --> 00:14:18.357
This is just tuna.

00:14:19.108 --> 00:14:20.526
This is the tuna industry.

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We had just stumbled across one
of the largest tuna ports in the world,

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which landed bluefin tuna,

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the most expensive fish on the planet.

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Just one of these fish sold
in Tokyo's fish market

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for over three million dollars.

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I had read about these fish.

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They were like the cheetahs of the ocean,

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warm-blooded,
and can accelerate faster than a Ferrari.

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But due to high prices, the only direction
they were accelerating in

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was into extinction.

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Today, less than 3%
of the species remain.

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They were once thriving just decades ago.

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It's not just bluefin though,
it's all tuna.

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There's everything here.
This is sold around the world.

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This is a $42-billion-a-year industry.
And it's at threat from overfishing.

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Of course they're gonna
blame the dolphins.

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The excuse of killing dolphins

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for the crime of eating too many fish
was a lie.

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In reality,
what they were doing was killing dolphins

00:15:19.501 --> 00:15:21.170
as a scapegoat for the overfishing.

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That way,
they can continue participating

00:15:23.923 --> 00:15:26.091
in the multi-billion-dollar tuna industry,

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and wash off
any ecological responsibility.

00:15:29.219 --> 00:15:31.764
I learned one of
the world's largest tuna companies

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belonged to Mitsubishi,

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who control 40%
of the world's endangered bluefin.

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Since they were based in Japan,

00:15:38.771 --> 00:15:41.398
we surprised them
by showing up at their head office.

00:15:42.441 --> 00:15:44.401
I was wondering
if we could do a quick interview.

00:15:44.485 --> 00:15:47.988
We have questions about why your company
is wiping out an endangered species,

00:15:48.072 --> 00:15:50.157
and how that's connected
to killing dolphins.

00:15:50.240 --> 00:15:53.786
- Our company refused, so…
- Yeah.

00:15:53.869 --> 00:15:55.663
Your company refuses all interviews?

00:15:55.746 --> 00:15:57.039
Yes, all interviews.

00:15:57.581 --> 00:16:00.834
We're asked to turn our cameras off,
and leave immediately.

00:16:02.127 --> 00:16:03.420
Back at the fishing port,

00:16:03.504 --> 00:16:07.716
I noticed that tuna weren't the only
highly-prized species they were landing.

00:16:11.595 --> 00:16:13.847
Sharks were everywhere,

00:16:14.556 --> 00:16:16.850
and they were all having their fins
sliced off.

00:16:20.229 --> 00:16:21.855
Turn off the video!

00:16:22.690 --> 00:16:25.067
Shut!

00:16:25.859 --> 00:16:28.445
- Camera shut!
- Why don't you want me filming?

00:16:30.155 --> 00:16:34.159
The shark-finning industry
is a multi-billion dollar industry

00:16:34.243 --> 00:16:37.955
and is oftentimes
heavily criminally involved

00:16:38.038 --> 00:16:40.082
and Mafia-esque run.

00:16:40.165 --> 00:16:42.793
They don't want people
with cameras sniffing around

00:16:42.876 --> 00:16:44.628
because they don't wanna get exposed

00:16:44.712 --> 00:16:47.214
for all of the shady things that they do.

00:16:47.297 --> 00:16:50.217
So sharks around the world
are being killed for their fins.

00:16:50.300 --> 00:16:53.554
These fins are being shipped to Asia,
and predominantly China,

00:16:53.637 --> 00:16:54.680
for shark fin soup,

00:16:54.763 --> 00:16:56.390
which is held as a status symbol.

00:16:56.473 --> 00:17:00.019
It has no nutritional benefits,
it really doesn't taste like much,

00:17:00.102 --> 00:17:02.855
and it can cost anywhere upwards
of $100 a bowl.

00:17:03.480 --> 00:17:05.190
Seeing so many sharks finned,

00:17:05.274 --> 00:17:07.901
and being kicked out of the port
just for filming,

00:17:07.985 --> 00:17:09.403
only made me want to learn more.

00:17:09.486 --> 00:17:12.948
Since we had discovered all we could
about dolphin hunting in Taiji,

00:17:13.032 --> 00:17:16.702
we decided to follow the shark story
to try and understand what impact

00:17:16.785 --> 00:17:19.121
this industry was having
on the world's oceans.

00:17:22.666 --> 00:17:25.836
Just a hop over the ocean from Japan
is Hong Kong,

00:17:25.919 --> 00:17:28.130
otherwise known as Shark Fin City.

00:17:28.213 --> 00:17:31.091
We arrived to find streets
filled with shark fins,

00:17:31.175 --> 00:17:34.386
and huge quantities being offloaded
from trucks on every corner.

00:17:36.221 --> 00:17:38.557
We tried to film the fins up close,

00:17:38.640 --> 00:17:40.934
but were met
with the same response as before.

00:17:41.852 --> 00:17:42.978
Go, go! No, no!

00:17:44.229 --> 00:17:47.733
We can't film?

00:17:49.276 --> 00:17:50.903
Are you gonna hit me with a chair?

00:17:51.904 --> 00:17:53.155
All right, we're going.

00:17:55.074 --> 00:17:56.241
- No photography?
- No.

00:17:56.325 --> 00:17:58.368
- Why? Why you are filming?
- Huh?

00:17:58.452 --> 00:17:59.953
Why you are taking the photo?

00:18:00.037 --> 00:18:01.663
You didn't get any permission.

00:18:01.747 --> 00:18:02.664
Delete the photo.

00:18:02.748 --> 00:18:03.582
Delete first.

00:18:03.957 --> 00:18:05.125
Hey, hey, hey!

00:18:06.794 --> 00:18:10.047
Filming in Shark Fin City
was proving harder than we thought.

00:18:10.130 --> 00:18:14.551
So in order to see these fins up close,
we got ourselves some spy cameras.

00:18:21.850 --> 00:18:23.560
Wow.

00:18:28.398 --> 00:18:30.359
I used to be scared of sharks as a kid.

00:18:31.110 --> 00:18:35.155
People should not be afraid
of having sharks in the ocean.

00:18:35.239 --> 00:18:37.991
They should be afraid
of not having sharks in the ocean.

00:18:38.075 --> 00:18:40.202
The sharks keep the oceans healthy.

00:18:40.285 --> 00:18:43.247
They keep the fish stocks healthy.
They keep the ecosystems alive.

00:18:43.330 --> 00:18:44.957
They keep the coral reefs alive.

00:18:45.040 --> 00:18:46.542
If we don't have these sharks,

00:18:46.625 --> 00:18:49.128
if these sharks
get finned into extinction,

00:18:49.211 --> 00:18:50.796
the ocean's gonna turn into a swamp.

00:18:50.879 --> 00:18:52.506
And guess who's gonna die next?

00:18:52.589 --> 00:18:53.423
Us.

00:18:53.507 --> 00:18:57.010
And a lot of people would think I'd
be the last person to stand up for sharks.

00:18:57.094 --> 00:19:00.722
I was attacked by a shark
after serving 12 years in the military.

00:19:00.806 --> 00:19:02.891
I was on a counter-terrorism exercise

00:19:02.975 --> 00:19:05.269
in Sydney Harbor,
and a bull shark attacked me.

00:19:05.352 --> 00:19:07.187
But knowledge dispels fear.

00:19:07.271 --> 00:19:09.982
And through necessity,
I learned about the plight of sharks

00:19:10.065 --> 00:19:13.068
through working
within the shark filming industry

00:19:13.152 --> 00:19:14.236
over the last decade.

00:19:14.778 --> 00:19:17.656
It turned out sharks
were just as important

00:19:17.739 --> 00:19:18.907
as dolphins and whales

00:19:18.991 --> 00:19:20.659
in keeping the ocean alive.

00:19:22.494 --> 00:19:24.246
But for the first time ever,

00:19:24.329 --> 00:19:27.541
sharks were in danger of going extinct
because of us.

00:19:28.417 --> 00:19:32.171
Like bluefin tuna,
shark populations were crashing,

00:19:32.254 --> 00:19:35.257
with species like thresher, bull,
and hammerhead sharks

00:19:35.340 --> 00:19:39.011
losing up to 80 to 99%
of their populations

00:19:39.094 --> 00:19:40.721
in just the last few decades.

00:19:40.804 --> 00:19:44.474
And it was causing other unlikely species
to die out with them.

00:19:44.975 --> 00:19:47.853
Over the period
that we've been monitoring seabirds,

00:19:47.936 --> 00:19:49.938
since about 1950,

00:19:50.022 --> 00:19:53.692
the abundance of seabirds
has declined by about 70%.

00:19:53.775 --> 00:19:56.653
And if you look at how they feed,
you can understand why.

00:19:56.737 --> 00:19:59.948
And what they do is
they kind of lightly dip down to the sea,

00:20:00.032 --> 00:20:02.534
and they pick little fish off the surface.

00:20:02.618 --> 00:20:04.536
And where seabirds are doing their best

00:20:04.620 --> 00:20:07.122
is where predatory fish are driving shoals

00:20:07.206 --> 00:20:10.167
of tiny bait fish to the surface,
where the terns can get them.

00:20:10.250 --> 00:20:12.127
When you overfish the predators,

00:20:12.211 --> 00:20:14.504
they no longer drive the shoals

00:20:14.588 --> 00:20:16.965
to the surface,
so there's not enough food for the birds.

00:20:17.049 --> 00:20:20.385
So the loss of fish
across the world's oceans is bringing us

00:20:20.969 --> 00:20:25.682
into direct competition with whales,
dolphins, seabirds, for prey,

00:20:25.766 --> 00:20:29.019
and that's causing their populations
to decline even further.

00:20:29.686 --> 00:20:31.396
Sharks are apex predators.

00:20:31.480 --> 00:20:33.815
So they're at the very, very top
of the food chain.

00:20:33.899 --> 00:20:35.734
They are what I call level one.

00:20:36.401 --> 00:20:37.819
They eat level two.

00:20:37.903 --> 00:20:40.239
They eat the poor,
the sick, the weak of level two.

00:20:40.322 --> 00:20:42.032
But when you take away level one,

00:20:42.616 --> 00:20:44.701
level two then overpopulates.

00:20:44.785 --> 00:20:46.703
And level two eats level three.

00:20:46.787 --> 00:20:48.580
So they'll actually overpopulate.

00:20:48.664 --> 00:20:51.959
They'll wipe out their food supply,
which is level three.

00:20:52.042 --> 00:20:53.752
And then, level two's got nothing to eat.

00:20:53.835 --> 00:20:56.213
So level two then disappears,
and they go extinct.

00:20:56.296 --> 00:20:58.632
And it carries on down the food chain,

00:20:58.715 --> 00:21:00.550
down to the smallest organisms.

00:21:00.634 --> 00:21:03.804
So when we talk about saving sharks
and how important they are,

00:21:03.887 --> 00:21:06.223
even though people
don't necessarily like them,

00:21:06.306 --> 00:21:08.642
they are that key
to the survival of our oceans.

00:21:08.725 --> 00:21:10.560
Around the world, on average,

00:21:10.644 --> 00:21:13.355
sharks kill about ten people per year.

00:21:13.438 --> 00:21:15.232
Now, comparatively speaking,

00:21:15.315 --> 00:21:20.487
we kill 11,000 to 30,000 sharks per hour.

00:21:21.071 --> 00:21:24.533
The crazy thing is,
almost half of those sharks killed

00:21:24.616 --> 00:21:27.494
are killed as bycatch
from commercial fishing fleets.

00:21:27.577 --> 00:21:30.789
And they're discarded as waste
back into the ocean.

00:21:30.872 --> 00:21:33.166
Bycatch was
all the other marine life

00:21:33.250 --> 00:21:35.585
caught while trying to catch
a target species.

00:21:35.669 --> 00:21:38.171
And I was shocked to learn
that every year,

00:21:38.255 --> 00:21:41.341
at least 50 million sharks
are caught in nets this way,

00:21:41.425 --> 00:21:44.177
side by side with our favorite seafood.

00:21:45.721 --> 00:21:48.932
Studies estimate that up to 40%
of all marine life caught

00:21:49.016 --> 00:21:51.727
gets thrown right back overboard
as bycatch,

00:21:51.810 --> 00:21:54.855
and most of them die
before they even hit the water.

00:21:56.815 --> 00:21:59.776
So stopping shark fin soup
is only half the picture.

00:21:59.860 --> 00:22:03.447
The problem is
that eating fish is just as bad,

00:22:03.530 --> 00:22:06.158
if not worse
than the shark finning industry,

00:22:06.241 --> 00:22:09.995
because the shark finning industry
is strictly held in Asia,

00:22:10.078 --> 00:22:13.373
whereas everyone around the world
is eating fish.

00:22:13.457 --> 00:22:17.085
I refer to bycatch
as the invisible victims

00:22:17.169 --> 00:22:18.670
of the fishing industry.

00:22:18.754 --> 00:22:21.381
The industry will call bycatch
"accidental take,"

00:22:21.465 --> 00:22:24.259
but there's nothing accidental
about bycatch.

00:22:24.343 --> 00:22:27.637
It's factored into the economics
of fishing.

00:22:27.721 --> 00:22:31.350
In those fisheries where we have
a better understanding of bycatch,

00:22:31.433 --> 00:22:33.727
the numbers can be alarming.

00:22:33.810 --> 00:22:35.771
And so to give you one example,

00:22:35.854 --> 00:22:38.690
in Iceland, in a one-month fishery,

00:22:38.774 --> 00:22:42.319
that fishery caught
269 harbor porpoises,

00:22:42.402 --> 00:22:45.572
something like 900 seals
of four different species,

00:22:45.655 --> 00:22:47.949
and 5,000 seabirds.

00:22:48.033 --> 00:22:51.953
And that's just one little fishery
in one little part of Iceland.

00:22:52.037 --> 00:22:53.789
Taken across the world's oceans,

00:22:53.872 --> 00:22:56.958
the amount of bycatch is huge.

00:22:57.918 --> 00:23:01.546
What made matters worse
was that this destructive fishery

00:23:01.630 --> 00:23:05.509
had been awarded for its
sustainable fishing practices for years

00:23:05.592 --> 00:23:08.762
by the very label I had trusted
whenever I bought seafood,

00:23:08.845 --> 00:23:10.472
the MSC blue tick.

00:23:11.139 --> 00:23:14.768
I contacted the charity who hand out
the labels about doing an interview,

00:23:14.851 --> 00:23:16.478
but I received no reply.

00:23:17.104 --> 00:23:18.021
In the meantime,

00:23:18.105 --> 00:23:21.525
I discovered there were already over
a hundred different fishing regulations

00:23:21.608 --> 00:23:24.027
on paper
for reducing this kind of bycatch.

00:23:24.111 --> 00:23:25.570
The problem was,

00:23:25.654 --> 00:23:29.199
with over four and a half million
commercial fishing vessels at sea,

00:23:29.282 --> 00:23:32.411
it was a problem governments
had practically given up on enforcing.

00:23:33.120 --> 00:23:34.246
Apparently, though,

00:23:34.329 --> 00:23:36.415
there was one vigilante organization

00:23:36.498 --> 00:23:38.417
who are filling this law enforcement void.

00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:41.586
A volunteer-run group
who sail around the world

00:23:41.670 --> 00:23:42.671
and into harm's way

00:23:42.754 --> 00:23:46.466
in order to protect marine life
and bring ocean criminals to justice.

00:23:47.050 --> 00:23:49.177
The marine conservation group
Sea Shepherd,

00:23:49.261 --> 00:23:52.806
who have even sunk 13 whaling
and illegal fishing ships,

00:23:52.889 --> 00:23:56.643
and rammed a further five,
all without harming a single person.

00:23:58.353 --> 00:24:00.063
And by getting up close and personal

00:24:00.147 --> 00:24:02.065
with the industries that are
destroying the ocean,

00:24:02.149 --> 00:24:04.943
they have made some shocking discoveries.

00:24:05.026 --> 00:24:08.071
One of the recent discoveries
that Sea Shepherd has made

00:24:08.155 --> 00:24:09.656
is that on the Atlantic French coast

00:24:09.739 --> 00:24:13.994
up to 10,000 dolphins
are being killed every year by bycatch.

00:24:14.077 --> 00:24:17.706
So this is ten times more
than dolphins being killed in Taiji,

00:24:17.789 --> 00:24:18.999
and no one knew about it.

00:24:19.082 --> 00:24:22.085
This has been going on
for at least 30 years

00:24:22.169 --> 00:24:26.423
because the French government has been
very effective in hiding the problem.

00:24:26.506 --> 00:24:27.966
People love dolphins,

00:24:28.049 --> 00:24:31.219
and most of them have no idea
that when they eat fish,

00:24:31.303 --> 00:24:35.223
they're actually putting a death sentence
on the dolphin population in France.

00:24:41.271 --> 00:24:43.815
One of the most shocking things
that most people don't realize

00:24:43.899 --> 00:24:48.320
is that the greatest threat to whales
and dolphins is commercial fishing.

00:24:48.403 --> 00:24:51.615
Over 300,000 whales and dolphins
are killed every single year

00:24:51.698 --> 00:24:54.159
as bycatch of industrial fishing.

00:24:54.743 --> 00:24:58.497
Well, what about sustainable labels,
things like Dolphin Safe tuna?

00:24:58.580 --> 00:25:02.375
For those of us who spend as much time
at sea as I do,

00:25:02.459 --> 00:25:07.047
uh, we realized that labels often obscure
what's really happening at sea.

00:25:07.130 --> 00:25:11.551
We caught tuna fishing vessels
who had slaughtered 45 dolphins

00:25:11.635 --> 00:25:13.094
to catch eight tunas.

00:25:13.178 --> 00:25:18.642
And that fishing vessel was
working for Dolphin Safe canned tuna.

00:25:20.393 --> 00:25:22.938
I had learned
some shocking things so far,

00:25:23.021 --> 00:25:25.315
but this was just unbelievable.

00:25:25.398 --> 00:25:27.192
I couldn't verify these numbers online,

00:25:27.275 --> 00:25:29.194
and I was skeptical
to Sea Shepherd's claim

00:25:29.277 --> 00:25:30.612
against the organization.

00:25:30.695 --> 00:25:34.533
To find out for sure, I decided to meet
with the organization behind the label,

00:25:34.616 --> 00:25:36.326
the Earth Island Institute.

00:25:36.409 --> 00:25:39.371
What's the maximum number of dolphins
that can be killed in a net

00:25:39.454 --> 00:25:41.957
before the tuna is no longer Dolphin Safe?

00:25:42.040 --> 00:25:44.167
Zero. One.

00:25:45.085 --> 00:25:48.380
So, one dolphin and, you know, you're out.

00:25:48.964 --> 00:25:52.175
So can you guarantee
that every can is dolphin-safe?

00:25:52.259 --> 00:25:53.343
Nope. Hm-mm.

00:25:53.426 --> 00:25:54.344
Nobody can.

00:25:54.427 --> 00:25:57.847
Once you're out there in the ocean,
how do you know what they're doing?

00:25:57.931 --> 00:26:00.684
Uh, we have observers on board.

00:26:00.767 --> 00:26:02.644
Uh, the observers can be bribed.

00:26:02.727 --> 00:26:06.356
Wait, um...
Are your observers out at sea often?

00:26:06.439 --> 00:26:08.817
On a regular basis, no. Mm-mm.

00:26:08.900 --> 00:26:12.654
There's nobody out there witnessing
whether they kill dolphins or not.

00:26:12.737 --> 00:26:14.739
So how do you know it's dolphin-safe,

00:26:14.823 --> 00:26:19.202
especially when they're paying you
to license your Dolphin Safe label?

00:26:19.286 --> 00:26:22.163
What they're doing
is taking the captain's word for it.

00:26:22.247 --> 00:26:25.166
They look at the captain's log.
He says, "I didn't kill any dolphins."

00:26:25.250 --> 00:26:26.835
"Oh, okay. Here's your label."

00:26:26.918 --> 00:26:28.545
"That'll cost you blah-blah-blah."

00:26:28.628 --> 00:26:31.006
So just...
Just so I get my head around this,

00:26:31.089 --> 00:26:33.592
um, you have observers,
but they're rarely there,

00:26:33.675 --> 00:26:34.843
and they can be bribed.

00:26:34.926 --> 00:26:37.887
And so you can't guarantee
that Dolphin Safe tuna is dolphin-safe?

00:26:37.971 --> 00:26:42.142
That's certainly true
in terms of, uh, how the system works.

00:26:42.225 --> 00:26:45.437
So, what are people meant to do now
if they want to protect dolphins?

00:26:45.520 --> 00:26:47.772
What we tell them is
to buy Dolphin Safe tuna,

00:26:47.856 --> 00:26:50.191
tuna that's verified
by Earth Island Institute

00:26:50.275 --> 00:26:51.526
to be dolphin-safe.

00:26:51.610 --> 00:26:53.862
But it's not guaranteed
to be dolphin-safe.

00:26:53.945 --> 00:26:55.989
Uh, nothing can guarantee
it's dolphin-safe.

00:26:56.072 --> 00:26:58.950
Um, but if it's not guaranteed
to be dolphin-safe,

00:26:59.034 --> 00:27:00.702
why is it called Dolphin Safe?

00:27:00.785 --> 00:27:03.371
We can pretty well guarantee
it's dolphin-safe, yeah.

00:27:03.455 --> 00:27:05.707
But you just told me
it's not guaranteed.

00:27:05.790 --> 00:27:08.418
It's not guaranteed
in the same way that, uh…

00:27:09.419 --> 00:27:13.173
The world is a difficult place sometimes.

00:27:15.425 --> 00:27:16.801
Conflict of interest?

00:27:16.885 --> 00:27:20.180
Yeah, I think it's a conflict of interest.
I also think it's fraud.

00:27:20.263 --> 00:27:23.642
So, I was working for them,
and I walked away from that.

00:27:23.725 --> 00:27:25.810
I was making more than $100,000 a year.

00:27:25.894 --> 00:27:28.772
Free life insurance.
Something I can't even buy.

00:27:28.855 --> 00:27:31.483
I left that because of their phony…

00:27:32.609 --> 00:27:35.820
Dolphin Safe tuna label.
I don't wanna be associated with that.

00:27:35.904 --> 00:27:38.114
I couldn't believe
what I was hearing.

00:27:38.198 --> 00:27:40.617
The internationally recognized
seafood label

00:27:40.700 --> 00:27:44.287
was a complete fabrication
since it guaranteed nothing.

00:27:44.371 --> 00:27:47.999
At this point, I began to wonder
what else was being covered up.

00:27:48.583 --> 00:27:51.711
Even the groups
that are talking about marine plastic

00:27:51.795 --> 00:27:55.173
are highly reluctant to talk about
what a lot of that plastic is,

00:27:55.256 --> 00:27:58.259
which is fishing nets and fishing gear.

00:27:58.343 --> 00:28:00.762
We hear a lot
about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch,

00:28:00.845 --> 00:28:04.599
and say, "Oh, isn't it terrible?
All our cotton buds and plastic bags

00:28:04.683 --> 00:28:07.644
are swirling around
in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch."

00:28:07.727 --> 00:28:10.063
Forty-six percent of it is fishing nets,

00:28:10.146 --> 00:28:13.149
discarded fishing nets,
which are far more dangerous

00:28:13.233 --> 00:28:15.944
for marine life than our plastic straws.

00:28:16.027 --> 00:28:18.446
Because, of course,
they're designed to kill.

00:28:18.530 --> 00:28:23.368
Now, this is so crashingly obvious,
why aren't we talking about it?

00:28:23.451 --> 00:28:28.081
Why aren't even the plastics campaigns
talking about fishing?

00:28:30.208 --> 00:28:32.168
How had I not
heard about this before?

00:28:32.252 --> 00:28:35.213
Fishing vessels discard
a massive amount of ropes and lines,

00:28:35.296 --> 00:28:36.798
and this was a major problem.

00:28:37.382 --> 00:28:41.428
Today, even some of the most remote places
on Earth were awash with fishing gear.

00:28:42.512 --> 00:28:45.014
Like Henderson Island
in the Pacific Ocean,

00:28:46.474 --> 00:28:48.935
and Svalbard in the Arctic Circle.

00:28:49.894 --> 00:28:53.231
In fact, looking closer at some of
the whales that washed up in the UK

00:28:53.314 --> 00:28:54.482
when my journey began,

00:28:54.566 --> 00:28:57.694
I discovered fishing gear
was the main trash in their stomachs.

00:28:59.112 --> 00:29:02.657
This was the whale in the room
that no one was talking about.

00:29:03.867 --> 00:29:05.744
I even found that longline fishing

00:29:05.827 --> 00:29:09.080
sets enough fishing lines
to wrap around the entire planet

00:29:09.164 --> 00:29:12.333
500 times every single day.

00:29:14.419 --> 00:29:16.379
Although there isn't
a single fishery in the world

00:29:16.463 --> 00:29:18.506
that deliberately targets sea turtles,

00:29:18.590 --> 00:29:23.219
six out of seven species of sea turtle
are either threatened or endangered.

00:29:23.303 --> 00:29:26.598
Not because of climate change,
not because of ocean pollution,

00:29:26.681 --> 00:29:29.684
not because of plastics in the ocean,
but because of fishing.

00:29:29.768 --> 00:29:32.187
But this is an issue
that nobody wants to talk about.

00:29:32.979 --> 00:29:35.982
Again, if this was true,
how come I'd never heard about it?

00:29:36.065 --> 00:29:39.402
All the headlines I'd ever seen
focused on plastic straws.

00:29:39.486 --> 00:29:41.696
So I decided to look into the research.

00:29:41.780 --> 00:29:45.533
A global study estimated
a conservative 1,000 sea turtle deaths

00:29:45.617 --> 00:29:47.243
from plastic per year.

00:29:47.327 --> 00:29:50.121
However, in the United States alone,

00:29:50.205 --> 00:29:54.334
250,000 sea turtles are captured, injured,

00:29:54.417 --> 00:29:57.712
or killed every year by fishing vessels.

00:29:57.796 --> 00:30:00.965
If a single sea turtle
with a straw in its nose went viral,

00:30:01.049 --> 00:30:03.301
then why wasn't this front page news?

00:30:03.968 --> 00:30:06.930
When I went on the websites
of leading marine organizations

00:30:07.013 --> 00:30:08.640
who tackle plastic pollution,

00:30:08.723 --> 00:30:11.601
I found pages and pages encouraging people

00:30:11.684 --> 00:30:14.020
to stop using everything from tea bags

00:30:14.103 --> 00:30:15.146
to chewing gum.

00:30:15.230 --> 00:30:16.940
But no mention whatsoever

00:30:17.023 --> 00:30:18.775
of what to do about fishing gear,

00:30:18.858 --> 00:30:20.860
that is if they even mentioned it.

00:30:20.944 --> 00:30:24.322
Instead, plastic straws
seemed to take up 99%

00:30:24.405 --> 00:30:27.742
of what these groups were talking about,
which became even more shocking

00:30:27.826 --> 00:30:32.914
when I found out plastic straws
only accounted for 0.03%

00:30:32.997 --> 00:30:35.083
of plastic entering the ocean.

00:30:35.667 --> 00:30:39.295
This was like trying to save
the Amazon rain forest and stop logging

00:30:39.379 --> 00:30:41.422
by boycotting toothpicks.

00:30:41.506 --> 00:30:43.258
It was barely a drop in the ocean.

00:30:43.341 --> 00:30:45.343
If fishing gear was such a huge problem,

00:30:45.426 --> 00:30:48.179
I wanted to know why
my favorite plastic organization

00:30:48.263 --> 00:30:49.389
wasn't talking about it.

00:30:49.472 --> 00:30:52.350
So, according to
the Plastic Pollution Coalition,

00:30:52.433 --> 00:30:55.645
what is the main source of plastic
in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?

00:30:55.728 --> 00:30:56.813
Microplastics.

00:30:57.564 --> 00:31:00.733
Uh, for the Great Pacific Garbage Patch,
I'm mostly finding microplastics.

00:31:00.817 --> 00:31:02.610
Well, the latest study
actually showed

00:31:02.694 --> 00:31:04.988
that 46%
of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

00:31:05.071 --> 00:31:06.739
is fishing nets alone,

00:31:06.823 --> 00:31:10.159
and the majority of the other garbage
were other types of fishing gear.

00:31:10.243 --> 00:31:12.579
So wouldn't that be the majority?

00:31:12.662 --> 00:31:14.914
No, I wouldn't say…
I won't say the majority

00:31:14.998 --> 00:31:17.458
of the plastic in the jar is fishing nets.

00:31:17.542 --> 00:31:19.919
Um, it's... it's a lot.
It's a... it's a mix of things.

00:31:20.003 --> 00:31:22.046
But a majority means over 50%,

00:31:22.130 --> 00:31:23.673
and fishing-related garbage

00:31:23.756 --> 00:31:25.717
in the patch is over 50%.

00:31:25.800 --> 00:31:27.969
So wouldn't that make it the majority?

00:31:28.052 --> 00:31:29.512
Yeah. So if the... if the...

00:31:29.596 --> 00:31:32.390
If it's close to 50%, that's, um, uh…

00:31:33.224 --> 00:31:34.559
Yes, plastic fishing nets.

00:31:34.642 --> 00:31:37.854
There is nothing that would compare
to that ratio as far as one item,

00:31:37.937 --> 00:31:38.771
you know.

00:31:38.855 --> 00:31:41.816
Uh, but the overwhelming, uh, thing is

00:31:41.900 --> 00:31:44.861
that it's... it's plastic fishing nets.

00:31:44.944 --> 00:31:48.656
Is there something that people
can do to stop this fishing net trash?

00:31:49.699 --> 00:31:53.578
Uh, one thing that you could do
is… is, uh, eliminate,

00:31:53.661 --> 00:31:57.582
or really, really reduce
your intake of... of fish,

00:31:57.665 --> 00:32:00.627
and to really let those...
those populations rebound.

00:32:00.710 --> 00:32:04.339
But also, that will eliminate
as much materials being used

00:32:04.422 --> 00:32:05.506
to... to get those fish.

00:32:05.590 --> 00:32:06.841
Well, do you know why

00:32:06.925 --> 00:32:09.385
this important message
isn't on your website?

00:32:09.469 --> 00:32:12.138
I... I don't... I don't know.
I don't make the website.

00:32:12.221 --> 00:32:14.474
I mean, it'd be great for you
to talk to Dianna about it.

00:32:14.557 --> 00:32:16.893
She's the founder,
she's been in it, she's got the...

00:32:16.976 --> 00:32:18.770
She could probably
give you better answers.

00:32:20.521 --> 00:32:22.398
So, Jackie was saying
that one of the ways

00:32:22.482 --> 00:32:25.443
to tackle the massive problem
of fishing nets in the ocean

00:32:25.526 --> 00:32:27.445
is to say no to eating fish.

00:32:27.528 --> 00:32:31.282
I was wondering why you haven't put
that important message on your website.

00:32:32.116 --> 00:32:34.535
A consumer message to eat less fish?

00:32:35.286 --> 00:32:36.663
Yeah, it's not my area.

00:32:36.746 --> 00:32:39.207
- It's not my area of focus. I hear you.
- Yeah.

00:32:39.290 --> 00:32:41.084
I don't have time. We have an event.

00:32:41.167 --> 00:32:43.252
Can you turn off the cameras? Thanks.

00:32:44.337 --> 00:32:46.089
I'm not interested
in focusing there.

00:32:46.172 --> 00:32:48.466
I don't have an opinion about that.

00:32:49.175 --> 00:32:51.844
I was talking about
what people can do to make a difference

00:32:51.928 --> 00:32:53.638
about fishing net trash in the ocean,

00:32:53.721 --> 00:32:56.224
and Jackie said to eliminate
or reduce fish consumption.

00:32:56.307 --> 00:32:58.977
- I asked if that was...
- She didn't say eliminate fish.

00:32:59.060 --> 00:33:00.728
- She did.
- I know she didn't.

00:33:00.812 --> 00:33:05.608
…is, uh, eliminate or really,
really reduce your intake of... of fish.

00:33:05.692 --> 00:33:08.695
- She did. She...
- She didn't say eliminate fish.

00:33:08.778 --> 00:33:10.738
I had no idea what was going on.

00:33:10.822 --> 00:33:12.615
Why was such a simple question

00:33:12.699 --> 00:33:14.575
receiving such backlash?

00:33:14.659 --> 00:33:16.828
My only option was to follow the money.

00:33:17.370 --> 00:33:18.371
So I did.

00:33:19.205 --> 00:33:21.541
And sure enough, there it was.

00:33:23.543 --> 00:33:26.045
Of course they're not gonna
talk about fishing nets.

00:33:26.129 --> 00:33:28.006
The Plastic Pollution Coalition

00:33:28.089 --> 00:33:31.467
is the same organization
as the Earth Island Institute.

00:33:31.551 --> 00:33:34.595
These are the same ones who are
behind the Dolphin Safe tuna label,

00:33:34.679 --> 00:33:37.432
who work with the fishing industry
to sell more seafood.

00:33:37.515 --> 00:33:40.601
No wonder why they don't talk about
the leading cause of plastic pollution

00:33:40.685 --> 00:33:42.061
in many parts of the world.

00:33:43.396 --> 00:33:45.398
Now, it's entirely right to say

00:33:45.481 --> 00:33:47.525
that we must use far less plastic.

00:33:47.608 --> 00:33:53.072
But even if not a single gram of plastic
entered the oceans

00:33:53.156 --> 00:33:54.949
from today onwards,

00:33:55.033 --> 00:33:58.244
we would still be ripping
those ecosystems apart

00:33:58.327 --> 00:34:01.831
because the biggest issue by far
is commercial fishing.

00:34:01.914 --> 00:34:04.208
It's not just far more damaging

00:34:04.292 --> 00:34:05.835
than plastic pollution,

00:34:05.918 --> 00:34:09.130
it's far more damaging than oil pollution
from oil spills.

00:34:09.714 --> 00:34:12.633
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill
in the Gulf of Mexico

00:34:12.717 --> 00:34:14.177
was the biggest in history.

00:34:14.260 --> 00:34:16.679
It gushed huge quantities of oil

00:34:16.763 --> 00:34:19.307
into the deep sea for a period of months.

00:34:19.390 --> 00:34:23.102
And everyone was appalled
at the death of wildlife on the beaches

00:34:23.186 --> 00:34:24.771
as the oil slopped ashore.

00:34:24.854 --> 00:34:27.857
But in fact,
the fishing industry in the Gulf of Mexico

00:34:27.940 --> 00:34:31.319
destroyed more animals in a day

00:34:31.402 --> 00:34:34.322
than that oil spill did in months.

00:34:34.405 --> 00:34:37.533
Because large areas were closed to fishing

00:34:37.617 --> 00:34:40.411
because of the possibility
of being tainted by oil,

00:34:40.495 --> 00:34:42.288
marine life actually benefited

00:34:42.371 --> 00:34:44.665
from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill

00:34:44.749 --> 00:34:47.001
because it got a respite from fishing.

00:34:48.002 --> 00:34:51.297
I have a hard time accepting that
a fisherman on his little fishing boat

00:34:51.380 --> 00:34:53.216
- could be causing all this damage.
- Yeah.

00:34:53.299 --> 00:34:54.884
So, what's the deal?

00:34:54.967 --> 00:34:57.386
There's this image
of the fishing industry,

00:34:57.470 --> 00:35:00.473
which is deeply implanted in our minds
from childhood.

00:35:00.556 --> 00:35:01.891
It's a little red boat

00:35:01.974 --> 00:35:04.102
chugging across a sparkling sea

00:35:04.185 --> 00:35:06.229
with Captain Birdseye at the wheel,

00:35:06.312 --> 00:35:08.648
with his white beard,
and his twinkly blue eyes,

00:35:08.731 --> 00:35:10.024
and his fisherman's cap.

00:35:10.108 --> 00:35:14.070
And of course, what it really is,
is a death machine.

00:35:14.153 --> 00:35:19.242
This is a highly effective,
technological machine.

00:35:19.325 --> 00:35:23.830
You've got these massively powerful boats,
huge fishing ships,

00:35:23.913 --> 00:35:27.166
whose purpose is to mop up the animals

00:35:27.250 --> 00:35:31.045
which are at the basis
of the whole marine food chain,

00:35:31.129 --> 00:35:32.088
the fish.

00:35:33.131 --> 00:35:36.425
Although I finally felt like I was
on the right track,

00:35:36.509 --> 00:35:38.302
I couldn't help but feel frustrated

00:35:38.386 --> 00:35:40.346
that the constant media
and global attention

00:35:40.429 --> 00:35:42.098
on plastics and fossil fuels

00:35:42.181 --> 00:35:45.309
were distracting from an industry
we hear almost nothing about,

00:35:45.393 --> 00:35:47.812
with a much, much greater impact
on the sea.

00:35:47.895 --> 00:35:48.980
Digging deeper,

00:35:49.063 --> 00:35:52.441
I discovered this was also true
when it came to coral reefs.

00:35:52.525 --> 00:35:56.529
With scientists predicting the loss
of 90% of reefs by the year 2050,

00:35:56.612 --> 00:35:59.949
the only mainstream narrative on why
reefs were dying was climate change.

00:36:00.449 --> 00:36:03.619
But hardly anyone was talking about
the fact fish were vital

00:36:03.703 --> 00:36:05.204
to keep corals alive.

00:36:06.873 --> 00:36:11.043
The ecosystem on coral reefs
is heavily based on recycling.

00:36:11.127 --> 00:36:14.463
When these animals excrete,
that is food for the corals.

00:36:14.547 --> 00:36:18.926
As fishermen come in and catch the fish,
not only is the fish suffering,

00:36:19.010 --> 00:36:23.306
but the products that the fish release
into the water is food for the corals,

00:36:23.389 --> 00:36:27.435
and the nutrients to replace them
and grow them up again will be lost.

00:36:27.518 --> 00:36:31.772
Fishing has become the major threat
on many reefs around the world.

00:36:31.856 --> 00:36:33.941
From the Middle East to the Caribbean,

00:36:34.025 --> 00:36:37.778
where 90% of the large fish
which prospered there for millennia

00:36:37.862 --> 00:36:39.238
have now disappeared.

00:36:40.281 --> 00:36:42.909
So our oceans were clearly
at a turning point,

00:36:42.992 --> 00:36:45.369
and I needed definitive answers.

00:36:45.453 --> 00:36:47.246
I wanted to speak to conservationists

00:36:47.330 --> 00:36:49.332
who had spent their lives
trying to protect the sea,

00:36:49.415 --> 00:36:51.417
starting with meeting a living legend,

00:36:51.500 --> 00:36:54.295
and one of my all-time favorite heroes,
to tell me more.

00:36:54.378 --> 00:36:56.339
I'm Sylvia Earle, an oceanographer,

00:36:56.422 --> 00:36:59.008
explorer-in-residence
at the National Geographic,

00:36:59.091 --> 00:37:00.218
founder of Mission Blue,

00:37:00.301 --> 00:37:03.971
founder of Deep Ocean Exploration
and Research.

00:37:04.055 --> 00:37:06.390
So over the years, I've seen changes.

00:37:06.474 --> 00:37:07.475
I've been a witness

00:37:07.558 --> 00:37:11.896
to perhaps the greatest era
of discovery about the ocean.

00:37:11.979 --> 00:37:14.941
But at the same time,
the greatest era of loss.

00:37:15.024 --> 00:37:17.151
Since the middle of the 20th century,

00:37:17.235 --> 00:37:20.738
humans have succeeded
in extracting from the ocean,

00:37:20.821 --> 00:37:22.949
immense quantities of wildlife.

00:37:23.032 --> 00:37:25.993
The estimate is by the middle
of the 21st century,

00:37:26.077 --> 00:37:29.330
if we keep taking wild fish at the level
that we are today,

00:37:29.413 --> 00:37:30.998
there'll be no commercial fishing,

00:37:31.082 --> 00:37:33.834
because there won't be
enough fish to catch.

00:37:33.918 --> 00:37:36.504
In the middle of the North Sea
in the 1830s,

00:37:36.587 --> 00:37:38.923
a typical fishing boat
would be able to catch

00:37:39.006 --> 00:37:41.759
one or two tons of halibut every day.

00:37:41.842 --> 00:37:44.387
But today, the entire fishing fleet there

00:37:44.470 --> 00:37:47.765
catches about two tons of halibut
across the entire year,

00:37:47.848 --> 00:37:50.559
which means that halibut
is more than a thousand times

00:37:50.643 --> 00:37:52.645
less abundant today than it was then.

00:37:52.728 --> 00:37:55.064
We are at war with the oceans.

00:37:55.147 --> 00:37:58.109
And if we win this war,
we're going to lose it all,

00:37:58.192 --> 00:38:01.737
because mankind is not able
to live on this planet with a dead sea.

00:38:01.821 --> 00:38:06.701
It's the total industrialization
of fishing that is the problem here.

00:38:06.784 --> 00:38:09.328
We are pretty much destroying everything
at rapid speed.

00:38:10.329 --> 00:38:12.540
Commercial fishing was essentially

00:38:12.623 --> 00:38:15.167
wildlife poaching on a mass scale,

00:38:15.251 --> 00:38:19.422
catching up to 2.7 trillion fish
every year,

00:38:19.505 --> 00:38:23.134
or up to five million
killed every single minute.

00:38:24.802 --> 00:38:26.429
No other industry on Earth

00:38:26.512 --> 00:38:29.098
killed anywhere near
as many animals as this trade,

00:38:29.181 --> 00:38:32.226
let alone wild species
that we barely understand.

00:38:32.310 --> 00:38:34.437
This has led to global fish populations,

00:38:34.520 --> 00:38:37.189
in some cases,
plummeting to near extinction.

00:38:37.273 --> 00:38:39.191
But perhaps one of the
most shocking facts of all

00:38:39.275 --> 00:38:42.194
came from one of the world's
leading fisheries experts

00:38:42.278 --> 00:38:45.323
estimating that if
current fishing trends continue,

00:38:45.406 --> 00:38:47.867
we will see virtually empty oceans

00:38:47.950 --> 00:38:50.119
by the year 2048.

00:38:54.040 --> 00:38:57.501
The more I learned,
the more devastating this fact became,

00:38:57.585 --> 00:38:59.837
as I began to understand
just how interconnected

00:38:59.920 --> 00:39:01.839
each species were with each other,

00:39:01.922 --> 00:39:04.967
and even the role they play
in maintaining the chemistry of the ocean

00:39:05.051 --> 00:39:07.428
and our planet's atmosphere.

00:39:07.511 --> 00:39:10.222
It sounds just mind-blowing,

00:39:10.306 --> 00:39:13.517
but the power
of animals moving up and down

00:39:13.601 --> 00:39:17.021
through the water column,
in terms of mixing,

00:39:17.104 --> 00:39:21.025
is as great as all the wind, waves,

00:39:21.108 --> 00:39:24.403
tides, and currents in the seas combined.

00:39:24.487 --> 00:39:27.656
And this has a huge impact

00:39:27.740 --> 00:39:32.244
on the, the physics, the chemistry,
and the biology of the seas.

00:39:32.828 --> 00:39:34.288
All this churning of the sea

00:39:34.372 --> 00:39:37.875
may be one of the ways the oceans
help absorb heat from the atmosphere.

00:39:37.958 --> 00:39:40.169
As animals swim through the water column,

00:39:40.252 --> 00:39:43.339
it creates a powerful down-welling
of the warmer surface waters

00:39:43.422 --> 00:39:45.216
to mix with the colder waters below.

00:39:45.299 --> 00:39:47.301
And although more research
needs to be done,

00:39:47.385 --> 00:39:50.888
the decimation of marine life
may be interfering with this process,

00:39:50.971 --> 00:39:53.349
and contributing
to warmer sea temperatures.

00:39:53.432 --> 00:39:56.060
The bottom line,
the oceans and the life within it

00:39:56.143 --> 00:39:59.146
play a much bigger role
in climate than we ever expected.

00:39:59.772 --> 00:40:02.650
And it turns out
that the life in the oceans

00:40:02.733 --> 00:40:06.237
is absolutely crucial
for holding on to carbon

00:40:06.320 --> 00:40:09.990
and preventing it
from being released to the atmosphere.

00:40:10.074 --> 00:40:13.494
We understand that leaving trees
or planting trees

00:40:13.577 --> 00:40:15.746
really helps the carbon equation,

00:40:15.830 --> 00:40:17.248
but nothing matters more

00:40:17.331 --> 00:40:20.960
than maintaining the integrity
of ocean systems.

00:40:21.043 --> 00:40:22.670
I mean, these big animals,

00:40:22.753 --> 00:40:24.088
even the little ones,

00:40:24.588 --> 00:40:25.798
they take up carbon.

00:40:25.881 --> 00:40:29.176
They sequester carbon
when they sink to the bottom of the ocean.

00:40:29.260 --> 00:40:31.887
The ocean is the biggest carbon sink
on the planet.

00:40:34.098 --> 00:40:37.351
If you want to address climate change,
the first thing you do

00:40:37.435 --> 00:40:39.103
is protect the ocean.

00:40:39.186 --> 00:40:42.022
And the solution to that is very simple:
leave it alone.

00:40:42.106 --> 00:40:44.442
I always equate it to
this being a spaceship.

00:40:44.525 --> 00:40:47.236
The Earth is a spaceship.
It's on a trip around the galaxy.

00:40:47.319 --> 00:40:49.572
It takes 250 million years
just to make one orbit.

00:40:49.655 --> 00:40:52.491
And every spaceship
has a life-support system,

00:40:52.575 --> 00:40:54.702
provides us with the food we eat,
the air we breathe,

00:40:54.785 --> 00:40:56.745
and regulates the climate,
the temperatures.

00:40:56.829 --> 00:41:00.374
That life support system is run by a crew
of earthlings,

00:41:00.458 --> 00:41:02.501
and there's only so many crew members
you can kill

00:41:02.585 --> 00:41:05.629
before the machinery begins to break down,
you run out of engineers.

00:41:05.713 --> 00:41:08.215
And that's what's happening,
we're killing off the crew.

00:41:15.556 --> 00:41:18.517
I discovered that one of
the most important crew members

00:41:18.601 --> 00:41:20.019
on this spaceship Earth

00:41:20.102 --> 00:41:22.146
were actually marine plants.

00:41:22.229 --> 00:41:24.523
Per acre, these coastal plants can store

00:41:24.607 --> 00:41:28.194
up to 20 times more carbon
than forests on land.

00:41:28.277 --> 00:41:32.781
In fact, 93% of all the world's CO2
is stored in the ocean

00:41:32.865 --> 00:41:35.910
with the help of marine vegetation,
algae, and coral.

00:41:35.993 --> 00:41:38.579
And losing just 1% of this ecosystem

00:41:38.662 --> 00:41:42.875
was equivalent to releasing
the emissions of 97 million cars.

00:41:43.417 --> 00:41:46.962
By, uh, continued extraction
of fish out of our oceans,

00:41:47.046 --> 00:41:48.964
you're essentially deforesting our oceans

00:41:49.048 --> 00:41:51.133
by not only removing the fish,

00:41:51.217 --> 00:41:52.593
but the act of removal,

00:41:52.676 --> 00:41:56.472
the methods of removal
are devastating to habitat, to ecosystems.

00:41:56.555 --> 00:41:59.975
And it's even more so there
because it's out of sight, out of mind.

00:42:00.059 --> 00:42:03.854
Trawling was by far
the most destructive form of fishing.

00:42:03.938 --> 00:42:05.981
The largest trawl nets are so big

00:42:06.065 --> 00:42:07.691
they could swallow whole cathedrals

00:42:07.775 --> 00:42:10.236
or up to 13 jumbo jet planes.

00:42:10.319 --> 00:42:12.321
The nets drag heavy weights at the bottom,

00:42:12.404 --> 00:42:15.199
scarring the sea floor
that were once abundant with life,

00:42:15.282 --> 00:42:17.952
leaving nothing
but a barren wasteland behind.

00:42:18.035 --> 00:42:21.830
This was just like bulldozing
pristine Amazonian rain forest,

00:42:21.914 --> 00:42:24.291
except it was much, much worse.

00:42:24.375 --> 00:42:28.796
Every year, approximately 25 million
acres of forest are lost.

00:42:28.879 --> 00:42:32.633
This was equivalent to losing
about 27 soccer fields per minute.

00:42:32.716 --> 00:42:34.760
However, bottom trawling wipes out

00:42:34.843 --> 00:42:39.223
an estimated 3.9 billion acres every year.

00:42:39.807 --> 00:42:46.355
This was equivalent to losing
4,316 soccer fields every single minute.

00:42:46.438 --> 00:42:48.107
Tallied up across the year,

00:42:48.190 --> 00:42:50.651
this was equivalent
to wiping out the land area

00:42:50.734 --> 00:42:53.571
of Greenland, Norway, Sweden, Finland,

00:42:53.654 --> 00:42:57.157
Denmark, the UK, Germany, France, Spain,

00:42:57.241 --> 00:43:00.995
Portugal, Italy, Turkey, Iran, Thailand,

00:43:01.078 --> 00:43:03.539
and Australia combined.

00:43:04.456 --> 00:43:06.208
Where are the big environment groups?

00:43:06.292 --> 00:43:08.586
Why aren't they all over this like a rash?

00:43:08.669 --> 00:43:09.920
It's so obvious.

00:43:10.004 --> 00:43:11.672
It's just shouting in our faces.

00:43:11.755 --> 00:43:15.175
It is the fishing industry
that is destroying the fish

00:43:15.259 --> 00:43:17.303
and the rest of the life of the seas.

00:43:17.386 --> 00:43:20.306
How much more obvious does it need to be?

00:43:20.389 --> 00:43:23.100
And yet, for the most part,
they are silent.

00:43:23.183 --> 00:43:25.477
They're not speaking out against it.

00:43:25.561 --> 00:43:29.023
They are deliberately not engaging

00:43:29.106 --> 00:43:31.650
with the most important issue of all.

00:43:31.734 --> 00:43:33.444
Many, uh, researchers feel

00:43:33.527 --> 00:43:36.488
that we should be at about 30%
of our oceans being protected.

00:43:36.572 --> 00:43:41.160
But, in reality, we're at 5% now
of marine protected areas.

00:43:41.243 --> 00:43:43.412
But that's misleading because over 90%

00:43:43.495 --> 00:43:45.998
of those marine protected areas
still allow fishing.

00:43:46.081 --> 00:43:47.249
So in reality,

00:43:47.333 --> 00:43:49.877
less than 1% of all of our oceans
are being regulated.

00:43:49.960 --> 00:43:51.462
We hear a lot from governments

00:43:51.545 --> 00:43:53.297
about these marine protected areas.

00:43:53.380 --> 00:43:56.425
And one of the government ministers
was interviewed and asked,

00:43:56.508 --> 00:43:58.260
"In this particular protected area,

00:43:58.344 --> 00:44:01.096
what is the additional protection
you're actually giving it?"

00:44:01.180 --> 00:44:03.265
"Are you gonna protect it
against industrial fishing?"

00:44:03.349 --> 00:44:04.266
"No."

00:44:04.350 --> 00:44:06.185
"Are you gonna protect it
against oil drilling?"

00:44:06.268 --> 00:44:07.102
"No."

00:44:07.186 --> 00:44:09.271
"So, what are you actually
protecting it against?"

00:44:09.355 --> 00:44:11.774
"Well, we're going
to put some more restrictions

00:44:11.857 --> 00:44:12.983
on sea kayaking."

00:44:13.067 --> 00:44:14.068
Seriously?

00:44:14.151 --> 00:44:15.027
Kayaking?

00:44:15.110 --> 00:44:17.821
This was the only thing
she could come up with?

00:44:17.905 --> 00:44:19.823
It's an utter disgrace.

00:44:20.407 --> 00:44:23.911
With virtually no marine protected
areas that didn't allow fishing,

00:44:23.994 --> 00:44:26.830
and global fish populations
on the brink of collapse,

00:44:26.914 --> 00:44:28.290
I began to question

00:44:28.374 --> 00:44:31.085
whether sustainable seafood
could even exist.

00:44:31.960 --> 00:44:34.004
I have looked long and hard,

00:44:34.088 --> 00:44:36.548
seriously, at trying to find an example

00:44:36.632 --> 00:44:41.512
of where a large-scale extraction
of wildlife is sustainable.

00:44:43.931 --> 00:44:47.267
It just doesn't exist.

00:44:47.810 --> 00:44:49.144
It's hard to say,

00:44:49.228 --> 00:44:51.355
"In some areas, fishing is okay,

00:44:51.438 --> 00:44:52.648
and in others, it's not."

00:44:52.731 --> 00:44:55.192
Because who will draw the line?

00:44:55.275 --> 00:44:59.488
How would you know if a fish is,
like, caught illegal,

00:44:59.571 --> 00:45:04.159
or is coming out of
a sustainable fishing method?

00:45:04.243 --> 00:45:06.662
Well, first of all, there's no such thing.
It's impossible.

00:45:06.745 --> 00:45:08.831
There's no such thing
as a sustainable fishery.

00:45:08.914 --> 00:45:10.749
There's not enough fish to justify that.

00:45:10.833 --> 00:45:12.459
Everything is now sustainable.

00:45:12.543 --> 00:45:14.878
It's not sustainable.
Just a marketing phrase, that's all.

00:45:15.462 --> 00:45:17.464
So don't you agree
with organizations

00:45:17.548 --> 00:45:19.842
that recommend people
eat more sustainable seafood

00:45:19.925 --> 00:45:21.343
as a way to protect the ocean?

00:45:21.427 --> 00:45:23.303
No, I disagree with it completely.

00:45:23.387 --> 00:45:25.472
You know,
basically what they're trying to do

00:45:25.556 --> 00:45:27.891
is to appeal to the big tent.

00:45:27.975 --> 00:45:30.018
They want the people who eat fish
to support them.

00:45:30.102 --> 00:45:33.272
And this was a problem when I was
National Director for the Sierra Club,

00:45:33.355 --> 00:45:34.523
that was their problem.

00:45:34.606 --> 00:45:37.025
They didn't wanna come out
against hunting, against fishing,

00:45:37.109 --> 00:45:38.360
or against meat-eating.

00:45:38.444 --> 00:45:42.281
Because they thought they would
lose membership support if they did.

00:45:42.364 --> 00:45:45.075
A lot of these groups aren't interested
in solving the problem,

00:45:45.159 --> 00:45:47.453
they're interested
in exploiting the problem.

00:45:47.536 --> 00:45:50.873
There's a lot of groups out there,
climate change, conservation, whatever.

00:45:50.956 --> 00:45:53.917
It's a business.
It's a feel-good business.

00:45:54.001 --> 00:45:55.753
I looked on Oceana's website.

00:45:55.836 --> 00:45:58.380
They were the world's largest
marine conservation group,

00:45:58.464 --> 00:46:00.174
but there wasn't a single mention

00:46:00.257 --> 00:46:02.634
of reducing or eliminating
seafood consumption.

00:46:02.718 --> 00:46:04.970
Instead, the organization recommends

00:46:05.053 --> 00:46:07.139
one of the best ways to save fish

00:46:07.222 --> 00:46:08.557
was to eat fish.

00:46:08.640 --> 00:46:11.351
Oceana were advocating
for sustainable fishing,

00:46:11.435 --> 00:46:14.396
so I decided to meet with the group
so they could explain what that meant.

00:46:14.480 --> 00:46:17.733
What does sustainable fishing
actually mean? Who defines it?

00:46:17.816 --> 00:46:20.027
That's a really thoughtful question.

00:46:20.110 --> 00:46:21.361
Uh, sustainable...

00:46:21.445 --> 00:46:23.739
Sustainability is not defined as such.

00:46:23.822 --> 00:46:27.034
There is not a definition
of sustainability,

00:46:27.117 --> 00:46:29.077
as a whole, for fisheries.

00:46:29.161 --> 00:46:31.288
Isn't it confusing, then, to say,

00:46:31.371 --> 00:46:32.790
"Eat sustainable fish,"

00:46:32.873 --> 00:46:34.792
if there's no universal definition for it?

00:46:34.875 --> 00:46:36.293
Uh, absolutely.

00:46:36.376 --> 00:46:39.254
No, the consumer can't
assess right now, uh, properly

00:46:39.338 --> 00:46:41.173
what fish is sustainable, what is not.

00:46:41.799 --> 00:46:43.342
Uh, there is full of advices,

00:46:43.425 --> 00:46:47.095
but it's true that the consumer can't
make an informed decision right now.

00:46:47.179 --> 00:46:49.056
So if no one really knows
what it means,

00:46:49.139 --> 00:46:51.141
wouldn't a more effective strategy be

00:46:51.225 --> 00:46:54.102
to, say, reduce or eliminate
seafood consumption?

00:46:54.186 --> 00:46:56.355
Wouldn't that be the best for the ocean?

00:46:58.065 --> 00:46:59.066
That's…

00:46:59.608 --> 00:47:01.568
I mean, it's difficult
to answer a question

00:47:01.652 --> 00:47:04.571
with such a deep reflection

00:47:04.655 --> 00:47:06.907
with, uh, so little time
to think about, right?

00:47:06.990 --> 00:47:10.118
Um, because we don't have a position
in that respect.

00:47:10.202 --> 00:47:11.954
We're never asked that question.

00:47:12.037 --> 00:47:13.789
Oh, it would just be on the website.

00:47:13.872 --> 00:47:17.876
You know, "Number one thing you can do
for the ocean, reduce fish consumption."

00:47:17.960 --> 00:47:19.795
- Something like that.
- Um…

00:47:20.379 --> 00:47:24.174
I left the Oceana office with less
faith in the group than when I walked in.

00:47:24.258 --> 00:47:27.302
Disappointed that they were unable
to answer such a simple question

00:47:27.386 --> 00:47:28.720
about sustainable fishing.

00:47:28.804 --> 00:47:30.848
Perhaps contacting
governmental authorities

00:47:30.931 --> 00:47:32.182
would better answer my question.

00:47:32.266 --> 00:47:36.144
After all, it was the second-best
thing to do on Oceana's website.

00:47:36.228 --> 00:47:37.855
So I went straight to the top

00:47:37.938 --> 00:47:39.606
and managed to secure a rare meeting

00:47:39.690 --> 00:47:42.150
with the European Commissioner
of Fisheries and the Environment,

00:47:42.234 --> 00:47:45.237
who was recently passing laws
to ban single-use plastic.

00:47:45.320 --> 00:47:48.323
What is the definition
of sustainable fishing?

00:47:48.407 --> 00:47:51.285
Imagine that you have money in a bank,

00:47:51.368 --> 00:47:55.706
you have capital, you put, I don't know,
100€ in the bank.

00:47:55.789 --> 00:47:58.292
That 100€, which is the capital,

00:47:58.375 --> 00:48:00.252
is giving you interest.

00:48:00.335 --> 00:48:04.214
As long as you are taking the interest,
and spending the interest

00:48:04.298 --> 00:48:06.633
without touching the capital,

00:48:06.717 --> 00:48:09.261
then that is sustainability.

00:48:09.344 --> 00:48:12.681
As soon as you start taking away
the capital as well,

00:48:12.764 --> 00:48:15.976
then you've entered
the unsustainable cycle.

00:48:16.059 --> 00:48:18.437
Well, using your economic analogy,

00:48:18.520 --> 00:48:21.940
today's oceans aren't only in debt,
but they're in a major depression.

00:48:22.024 --> 00:48:24.651
Shouldn't we just stop spending
what we can't afford?

00:48:24.735 --> 00:48:28.363
Obviously, we cannot go
to the other extreme, and say,

00:48:28.447 --> 00:48:31.700
"The only solution is not to fish at all."

00:48:31.783 --> 00:48:33.952
We cannot... I don't think we can do that.

00:48:34.036 --> 00:48:36.663
But your government
are taking extreme measures

00:48:36.747 --> 00:48:38.582
to ban single-use plastic,

00:48:38.665 --> 00:48:41.376
when fishing causes far more destruction.

00:48:41.460 --> 00:48:44.546
So why is the fishing industry
getting special treatment from this?

00:48:44.630 --> 00:48:47.966
Yes. For me,
the idea is not to stop fishing.

00:48:48.050 --> 00:48:52.512
For me, the idea is
to do more sustainable fishing.

00:48:52.596 --> 00:48:54.806
To do more sustainable fishing.

00:48:54.890 --> 00:48:56.433
More sustainable fishing

00:48:56.516 --> 00:48:58.727
meant doing more of something
that isn't working,

00:48:58.810 --> 00:49:00.520
and can't even be defined.

00:49:00.604 --> 00:49:03.065
I wondered though,
with no clear definition,

00:49:03.148 --> 00:49:06.944
where did that leave sustainable
certification groups, like the MSC,

00:49:07.027 --> 00:49:09.029
who still haven't got back to me?

00:49:09.112 --> 00:49:11.198
Oh, you mean
the Marine Stewardship Council?

00:49:11.281 --> 00:49:13.075
- Yeah.
- Oh, God.

00:49:13.158 --> 00:49:15.953
Getting me onto the subject of the
Marine Stewardship Council, you know.

00:49:16.036 --> 00:49:16.870
Uh…

00:49:19.998 --> 00:49:21.625
How much do I want to say?

00:49:21.708 --> 00:49:23.627
Well, they have certified fisheries

00:49:23.710 --> 00:49:26.630
that produce astonishing levels
of bycatch.

00:49:26.713 --> 00:49:29.007
And those are ignored
because the level of kill

00:49:29.091 --> 00:49:31.802
is considered to be "sustainable"
in itself.

00:49:31.885 --> 00:49:34.179
But that's not what a consumer
is looking for.

00:49:34.262 --> 00:49:36.974
They want to know that
no marine mammals are being killed,

00:49:37.057 --> 00:49:38.600
no seabirds are being slaughtered,

00:49:38.684 --> 00:49:41.061
in order to put that fish on their plate.

00:49:41.144 --> 00:49:45.190
The label on the tin
isn't worth a damn in some cases.

00:49:45.273 --> 00:49:48.819
They make it appear on paper
as if, uh, eating,

00:49:48.902 --> 00:49:51.780
on one hand, uh,
sustainably-produced salmon

00:49:51.863 --> 00:49:54.199
is, uh, better than killing
a bluefin tuna,

00:49:54.282 --> 00:49:57.077
and therefore creates a justification
in the eyes of the consumer.

00:49:57.160 --> 00:50:00.080
But that's like essentially saying
that it's more sustainable

00:50:00.163 --> 00:50:02.249
to shoot a polar bear
than shooting a panda.

00:50:02.332 --> 00:50:03.375
When in reality,

00:50:03.458 --> 00:50:06.086
uh, neither one is sustainable,
and neither one is right to do.

00:50:06.169 --> 00:50:07.921
So, do you think it's gonna be possible

00:50:08.005 --> 00:50:10.465
to do an interview with the MSC
at any point?

00:50:10.549 --> 00:50:12.718
Um, I don't think that's gonna work out.

00:50:12.801 --> 00:50:15.053
Um, there's nobody in the office
at the moment.

00:50:15.137 --> 00:50:16.596
There's loads of conferences on.

00:50:16.680 --> 00:50:20.267
After having our interview request
turned down countless times over phone,

00:50:20.350 --> 00:50:22.686
we decided to visit
their head office instead.

00:50:22.769 --> 00:50:24.312
Hi, my name's Ali.

00:50:24.396 --> 00:50:27.524
I've been trying to organize an interview
with someone at MSC for months now,

00:50:27.607 --> 00:50:30.110
and I just had some questions
about sustainable fishing.

00:50:30.193 --> 00:50:33.071
Would there be anyone around
I could speak to really quickly?

00:50:33.155 --> 00:50:36.783
We were told to wait in the waiting room
while they found someone to speak to us.

00:50:36.867 --> 00:50:39.911
But after half an hour of panicked looks
between the members of staff,

00:50:39.995 --> 00:50:41.204
we were asked to leave.

00:50:43.081 --> 00:50:46.251
Just got palmed off again by the MSC.

00:50:46.334 --> 00:50:49.004
The world's largest
sustainable seafood organization

00:50:49.087 --> 00:50:51.798
doesn't wanna talk to me
about sustainable seafood.

00:50:53.633 --> 00:50:56.970
The only thing left to do
was to try and follow the money.

00:50:57.054 --> 00:51:00.474
And it didn't take long
to find the massive conflict of interest.

00:51:00.557 --> 00:51:02.142
One of the founders of the MSC

00:51:02.225 --> 00:51:03.894
was the Unilever corporation,

00:51:03.977 --> 00:51:06.188
who at the time
were a major seafood retailer.

00:51:06.271 --> 00:51:10.317
And despite countless fisheries
clearly being depleted and destructive,

00:51:10.400 --> 00:51:11.735
I could only find a couple

00:51:11.818 --> 00:51:14.780
that had ever been denied certification
in over 20 years.

00:51:14.863 --> 00:51:16.531
But most shocking of all

00:51:16.615 --> 00:51:21.536
was learning that over 80%
of the almost £30-million-a-year income

00:51:21.620 --> 00:51:24.081
was from licensing their logo on seafood.

00:51:24.164 --> 00:51:27.542
Basically, the more blue ticks they
handed out, the more money they made.

00:51:27.626 --> 00:51:29.294
So as far as I was concerned,

00:51:29.377 --> 00:51:31.963
there was no way I was gonna
trust these labels again.

00:51:32.047 --> 00:51:36.426
In fact, other attempts to
regulate the industry were also failing,

00:51:36.510 --> 00:51:37.844
with government observers

00:51:37.928 --> 00:51:40.889
who are given the task
of monitoring fishing activity on ships

00:51:40.972 --> 00:51:44.267
being murdered at sea,
thrown overboard,

00:51:44.351 --> 00:51:48.021
like Keith Davis,
a 41-year-old American observer,

00:51:48.105 --> 00:51:50.982
who in recent years
went missing off the coast of Peru,

00:51:51.066 --> 00:51:52.526
never to be seen again.

00:51:52.609 --> 00:51:54.027
In Papua New Guinea,

00:51:54.111 --> 00:51:57.197
18 observers went missing
in the space of just five years.

00:51:57.280 --> 00:51:59.991
And in the Philippines, in 2015,

00:52:00.075 --> 00:52:02.702
an observer by the name
of Ms. Gerlie Alpajora

00:52:02.786 --> 00:52:05.247
received death threats
from the family of a tuna fisherman

00:52:05.330 --> 00:52:06.957
who was arrested for illegal fishing.

00:52:07.541 --> 00:52:10.502
Soon after, armed men entered her home,

00:52:10.585 --> 00:52:14.047
and she was assassinated in cold blood
with a gunshot to the head

00:52:14.131 --> 00:52:16.633
in front of her two young boys.

00:52:17.884 --> 00:52:19.386
When we look at fisheries crime,

00:52:19.469 --> 00:52:23.932
we have to look at it within the context
of transnational organized crime.

00:52:24.015 --> 00:52:27.018
And the same syndicates
that are behind illegal fishing

00:52:27.102 --> 00:52:30.897
are the same criminal groups
that are behind drug trafficking,

00:52:30.981 --> 00:52:33.191
human trafficking, and other crimes.

00:52:33.275 --> 00:52:37.571
If you get in the way of their business,
you are risking your own life.

00:52:37.654 --> 00:52:41.158
But also don't be surprised at the extent
at which governments will go

00:52:41.241 --> 00:52:43.160
to prevent you from exposing

00:52:43.243 --> 00:52:46.913
the economic activities
that they subsidize at sea.

00:52:47.664 --> 00:52:50.750
A subsidy is taxpayer money
given to an industry

00:52:50.834 --> 00:52:53.920
to keep the price of a product or service
artificially low.

00:52:54.004 --> 00:52:55.881
And in an increasing number of countries,

00:52:55.964 --> 00:52:59.426
more money was going out
than the value of fish coming back in.

00:53:00.010 --> 00:53:01.761
So if you don't eat fish,

00:53:01.845 --> 00:53:04.014
you're still sustaining fisheries

00:53:04.097 --> 00:53:06.433
because you're paying for it
in your taxes.

00:53:06.516 --> 00:53:09.186
So if you think about it,
it's really shocking

00:53:09.269 --> 00:53:11.646
that we subsidize the fishing industry

00:53:11.730 --> 00:53:15.525
somewhere in the region of $35 billion,

00:53:15.609 --> 00:53:18.612
which is the same amount that,
according to United Nations,

00:53:18.695 --> 00:53:20.947
we'd need to combat world hunger.

00:53:22.449 --> 00:53:26.453
Subsidies were originally started
as a means to ensure food security.

00:53:26.536 --> 00:53:27.621
But ironically,

00:53:27.704 --> 00:53:30.207
they are now the cause of food insecurity

00:53:30.290 --> 00:53:31.917
in many developing regions.

00:53:32.542 --> 00:53:35.545
Fishing by the
European Union in places like West Africa

00:53:35.629 --> 00:53:38.924
is driven by European Union subsidies.

00:53:39.007 --> 00:53:41.885
And that means
that local businesses can't compete

00:53:41.968 --> 00:53:45.347
with the economic might
of the European Union.

00:53:45.430 --> 00:53:47.599
Really it's just a continuation

00:53:47.682 --> 00:53:51.186
of a history
of plundering the African continent.

00:53:52.520 --> 00:53:56.191
These intensive fishing operations
weren't only wiping out the fish,

00:53:56.274 --> 00:53:58.818
they were also destroying economies.

00:53:58.902 --> 00:54:00.362
In the United States,

00:54:00.445 --> 00:54:03.782
up to one in every three
wild-caught fish imported

00:54:03.865 --> 00:54:07.285
had been caught illegally,
and therefore sold illegally.

00:54:07.369 --> 00:54:10.247
Stolen, often from countries in most need,

00:54:10.330 --> 00:54:12.207
where there are now wars over the fish.

00:54:12.290 --> 00:54:15.252
One of the causes
for the infamous pirates of Somalia,

00:54:15.335 --> 00:54:17.254
now feared across the world,

00:54:17.337 --> 00:54:19.214
was actually illegal fishing.

00:54:19.798 --> 00:54:23.093
They were once humble fisherman
working to feed their families.

00:54:23.176 --> 00:54:25.220
But when Somalia fell to civil war,

00:54:25.303 --> 00:54:29.557
foreign illegal fishing vessels,
the real pirates of today's oceans,

00:54:29.641 --> 00:54:32.143
invaded their waters
and began taking the fish,

00:54:32.227 --> 00:54:35.146
effectively pulling food
from their mouths,

00:54:35.230 --> 00:54:39.276
giving Somali fishermen no choice
but to move into another line of work.

00:54:39.359 --> 00:54:41.778
This plundering
of the African Coast, though,

00:54:41.861 --> 00:54:43.530
was happening across the continent.

00:54:44.114 --> 00:54:46.783
And Sea Shepherd was on
a daring mission to end this,

00:54:46.866 --> 00:54:48.159
working with governments

00:54:48.243 --> 00:54:50.829
to track down and arrest
illegal fishing vessels

00:54:50.912 --> 00:54:52.747
in places like Liberia.

00:54:57.627 --> 00:55:00.255
Despite the warnings of traveling
to this region of the world,

00:55:00.338 --> 00:55:02.090
we decided to join Sea Shepherd

00:55:02.173 --> 00:55:04.509
to get up close to the front line
of this problem.

00:55:05.969 --> 00:55:09.973
We have mostly international fleets
coming from countries

00:55:10.056 --> 00:55:12.767
where they've already depleted
their own local stocks,

00:55:12.851 --> 00:55:16.646
and they're pushing further and further
away to try and make up for that.

00:55:16.730 --> 00:55:19.774
And using more and more
sophisticated technology

00:55:19.858 --> 00:55:21.443
to increase their catch numbers.

00:55:21.526 --> 00:55:23.028
When we look at international fleets,

00:55:23.111 --> 00:55:25.322
they come here,
and they either fish illegally…

00:55:25.405 --> 00:55:27.782
And what they're catching
is worth huge, huge amounts,

00:55:27.866 --> 00:55:29.576
so it's like a gold rush.

00:55:29.659 --> 00:55:32.787
Our coastal waters had now become
a free-for-all,

00:55:32.871 --> 00:55:36.291
until, quite recently,
when we decided to pay attention to that,

00:55:36.374 --> 00:55:37.876
and try to police it.

00:55:37.959 --> 00:55:40.587
For us, with the military,
when we go on these operations,

00:55:40.670 --> 00:55:42.630
we assume the highest alert.

00:55:42.714 --> 00:55:44.716
We know that it's piracy going on.

00:55:44.799 --> 00:55:47.093
So indeed, it's a dangerous operation.

00:55:54.184 --> 00:55:55.185
Upon arrival,

00:55:55.268 --> 00:55:58.355
it became clear
why the ocean around West Africa

00:55:58.438 --> 00:55:59.814
was so worth protecting.

00:56:03.651 --> 00:56:06.863
It was home to one of the last strongholds
of life in our oceans.

00:56:09.032 --> 00:56:12.619
Teeming with rare and wonderful wildlife
of all kinds.

00:56:16.164 --> 00:56:18.917
Countless species journeyed across
the Atlantic Ocean

00:56:19.000 --> 00:56:21.211
to find themselves in these waters.

00:56:21.920 --> 00:56:23.963
A refuge for mating and feeding.

00:56:24.047 --> 00:56:27.592
Living in as close to harmony and balance
as I'd ever seen.

00:56:28.676 --> 00:56:30.553
But there was another species,

00:56:30.637 --> 00:56:34.140
journeying to these waters
for a very different purpose.

00:56:36.601 --> 00:56:38.812
It didn't take long to witness
how Sea Shepherd

00:56:38.895 --> 00:56:41.856
and the Liberian Coast Guard
tracked down and boarded fishing vessels.

00:56:56.079 --> 00:56:58.998
Species I had never seen
in my entire life

00:56:59.082 --> 00:57:01.960
were dying in the nets
before I could even appreciate them.

00:57:02.669 --> 00:57:04.254
But the scenes continued below deck,

00:57:04.337 --> 00:57:08.967
where it became clear that these vessels
were more like floating slaughterhouses.

00:57:10.385 --> 00:57:13.012
This is the hold
of just one purse seiner ship.

00:57:13.555 --> 00:57:17.183
And this is just the tip of the iceberg,
it goes down the whole size of the ship.

00:57:17.267 --> 00:57:19.060
There could be
hundreds of thousands of fish.

00:57:19.144 --> 00:57:23.106
Seeing how hard it is to get on this ship,
you need pretty much a military operation.

00:57:23.189 --> 00:57:25.942
Plus, they could be fishing unsustainably,
and no one would ever know.

00:57:26.025 --> 00:57:28.194
They could sell this
as sustainably certified.

00:57:28.278 --> 00:57:32.365
So I just don't see how you could possibly
enforce sustainable fishing laws

00:57:32.449 --> 00:57:34.576
with all these boats this far out at sea.

00:57:36.077 --> 00:57:37.954
I just don't see how it's possible.

00:57:45.044 --> 00:57:46.129
It's at nighttime

00:57:46.212 --> 00:57:49.048
that illegal fishing thrives
under the cloak of darkness.

00:57:49.132 --> 00:57:52.218
Vessels entering the waters
of other countries without detection

00:57:52.302 --> 00:57:53.928
and stealing the fish.

00:57:54.012 --> 00:57:57.891
But that was also prime time
for Sea Shepherd to do their work.

00:57:57.974 --> 00:58:01.269
Yeah, we gonna board the vessel,
we have to do it as soon as possible.

00:58:01.352 --> 00:58:02.479
Copy that.

00:58:02.562 --> 00:58:05.982
So, Sea Shepherd have just spotted
a boat on the horizon.

00:58:06.065 --> 00:58:07.233
It's on the radars.

00:58:07.317 --> 00:58:08.902
Could be an illegal fishing vessel.

00:58:08.985 --> 00:58:10.528
We're about to go and find out.

00:58:54.405 --> 00:58:56.991
The ship was a Chinese trawler.

00:58:57.116 --> 00:59:00.828
In its hold were huge quantities
of illegally-caught fish.

00:59:00.912 --> 00:59:03.623
The vessel was detained and fined.

00:59:03.706 --> 00:59:05.250
It was only one victory,

00:59:05.333 --> 00:59:08.294
but it sent a clear message
to the other ships in the area,

00:59:08.378 --> 00:59:11.339
that there were now real consequences
to their illegal actions.

00:59:12.131 --> 00:59:14.551
Still on the illegal fishing vessel
after sunrise,

00:59:14.634 --> 00:59:16.928
as the ship was getting ready
to be taken back to port,

00:59:17.512 --> 00:59:19.305
I saw some men rowing up to the ship.

00:59:20.265 --> 00:59:23.101
I remembered the piracy warning
from the Minister of Defense,

00:59:23.184 --> 00:59:25.311
but these men didn't look like pirates.

00:59:25.853 --> 00:59:29.232
Why were they risking their lives
in open waters on a small canoe?

00:59:30.066 --> 00:59:32.151
Suddenly, I saw this.

00:59:34.112 --> 00:59:35.280
They were hungry.

00:59:38.491 --> 00:59:40.994
If you look along the coast,
these are people who've lived here

00:59:41.077 --> 00:59:42.829
from time immemorial.

00:59:42.912 --> 00:59:45.290
That's their livelihood,
that's their way of life.

00:59:45.373 --> 00:59:49.085
But when we allow the industrial fishing
to come so close into their zone,

00:59:49.168 --> 00:59:51.963
it doesn't give them a chance
to get a good catch out of there.

00:59:52.046 --> 00:59:54.632
'Cause if he cannot catch
what he's supposed to catch

00:59:54.716 --> 00:59:58.261
because a commercial vessel has come up
and scoop up everything from here,

00:59:58.344 --> 00:59:59.846
he's destined to go further out.

00:59:59.929 --> 01:00:01.806
These guys are out here
without life vests.

01:00:01.889 --> 01:00:03.516
It's dangerous. Anything can happen.

01:00:03.600 --> 01:00:06.436
You get kicked out of your boat,
or your canoe, that's it.

01:00:06.519 --> 01:00:08.980
Fisheries workers at sea

01:00:09.063 --> 01:00:11.357
have some of the most dangerous jobs
on Earth.

01:00:11.441 --> 01:00:12.317
In context,

01:00:12.400 --> 01:00:15.820
over 4,500 US soldiers were killed

01:00:15.903 --> 01:00:18.698
in the Iraq War
over the course of 15 years.

01:00:18.781 --> 01:00:20.366
But during that same time,

01:00:20.450 --> 01:00:24.787
360,000 fisheries workers died
doing their job,

01:00:24.871 --> 01:00:29.042
as an estimated 24,000 workers
die every year.

01:00:29.125 --> 01:00:31.127
And West African canoe fishermen

01:00:31.210 --> 01:00:33.338
happened to have
the highest mortality rates

01:00:33.421 --> 01:00:35.590
of any fisheries job on the planet.

01:00:36.591 --> 01:00:39.218
Huge numbers of people
depended on the fish,

01:00:39.302 --> 01:00:40.887
which is now mostly gone.

01:00:40.970 --> 01:00:42.805
That's caused a great deal of hunger,

01:00:42.889 --> 01:00:47.101
not just on the coast,
but up to a thousand miles inland.

01:00:47.185 --> 01:00:49.270
So, what do people do
for fishing instead?

01:00:49.854 --> 01:00:51.773
They'll hunt wild animals on land.

01:00:51.856 --> 01:00:55.276
And that has not only had
devastating impacts

01:00:55.360 --> 01:00:57.362
on animal life on land,

01:00:57.445 --> 01:01:00.823
it also seems to have had
a very major impact on human life,

01:01:00.907 --> 01:01:02.867
because it's the bushmeat trade

01:01:02.950 --> 01:01:06.454
which is responsible
for the Ebola epidemics.

01:01:06.537 --> 01:01:09.666
You can actually stand this up,
it's in the scientific literature.

01:01:09.749 --> 01:01:13.002
The theft of fish stocks is enhancing

01:01:13.086 --> 01:01:16.923
or causing Ebola outbreaks of West Africa.

01:01:19.217 --> 01:01:21.427
As our trip in Liberia
drew to a close,

01:01:21.511 --> 01:01:24.472
I questioned whether there was
any alternative fishing method

01:01:24.555 --> 01:01:26.432
that could provide some kind of solution

01:01:26.516 --> 01:01:27.850
to both the environmental

01:01:27.934 --> 01:01:30.687
and humanitarian ramifications
of this industry.

01:01:30.770 --> 01:01:34.857
And a glimmer of hope presented itself
in the form of fish farming,

01:01:34.941 --> 01:01:36.567
an industry with the reputation

01:01:36.651 --> 01:01:39.070
of being an eco-friendly way
to feed the world

01:01:39.153 --> 01:01:41.572
without all the problems
of wild-caught fish.

01:01:42.448 --> 01:01:44.867
With no bycatch, no illegal fishing,

01:01:44.951 --> 01:01:46.285
no sea-floor damage,

01:01:46.369 --> 01:01:48.329
no killing of endangered species,

01:01:48.413 --> 01:01:50.081
and no dangerous working conditions,

01:01:50.164 --> 01:01:51.958
it was exactly what I was looking for.

01:01:52.041 --> 01:01:54.168
Yeah, so a lot of people
jump to the conclusion

01:01:54.252 --> 01:01:56.796
that sustainable seafood
comes from farming fish

01:01:56.879 --> 01:01:58.339
and not high seas fishing,

01:01:58.423 --> 01:02:00.425
but it's really not the case.

01:02:00.508 --> 01:02:04.011
Uh, there's so many issues involved
with farming fish,

01:02:04.095 --> 01:02:07.098
uh, being pollution, disease,
and we have to ask the question,

01:02:07.181 --> 01:02:08.891
"What are these fish being fed?"

01:02:08.975 --> 01:02:10.184
What were they being fed?

01:02:10.268 --> 01:02:13.604
The industry claim that to produce
one kilogram of farmed salmon,

01:02:13.688 --> 01:02:16.441
only 1.2 kilograms of feed is needed.

01:02:16.524 --> 01:02:20.403
But when I looked further,
I found the feed is heavily processed,

01:02:20.486 --> 01:02:22.238
and is made of dried fish meal

01:02:22.321 --> 01:02:23.865
and extracted fish oil,

01:02:23.948 --> 01:02:26.993
which requires a massive amount
of fish to produce.

01:02:27.076 --> 01:02:29.620
So in reality,
you need many times more fish

01:02:29.704 --> 01:02:31.372
going into the farmer's feed

01:02:31.456 --> 01:02:32.790
than will ever come out.

01:02:33.374 --> 01:02:34.459
So fish farming

01:02:34.542 --> 01:02:36.461
was just wild fishing in disguise.

01:02:37.086 --> 01:02:39.213
And what made this even more shocking

01:02:39.297 --> 01:02:42.467
was the scale fish farming
already operates at.

01:02:42.550 --> 01:02:45.595
Today, around 50% of the world's seafood

01:02:45.678 --> 01:02:47.805
is coming from farms like these.

01:02:48.389 --> 01:02:53.060
Huge cages in the ocean
containing tens of thousands of fish.

01:02:55.104 --> 01:02:56.773
So we decided to leave Liberia

01:02:56.856 --> 01:02:59.358
and journey back to the UK, for Scotland,

01:02:59.442 --> 01:03:02.195
one of the world's leading producers
of farmed salmon.

01:03:02.278 --> 01:03:04.947
Since none of the major companies
wanted to speak to us,

01:03:05.031 --> 01:03:08.242
we decided to meet with some of
the industry's whistleblowers instead.

01:03:08.743 --> 01:03:11.329
The salmon farming industry
in Scotland is extremely powerful.

01:03:11.412 --> 01:03:14.332
And we're talking about
billion-dollar multinationals,

01:03:14.415 --> 01:03:17.668
which have the resources and the skills
to dominate the narrative,

01:03:17.752 --> 01:03:20.922
and ensure that the only information
that gets out

01:03:21.005 --> 01:03:22.715
is the information
they're comfortable with.

01:03:22.799 --> 01:03:24.550
So when I went to document the issues,

01:03:24.634 --> 01:03:27.261
ended up making my way out
to one of the farms.

01:03:27.345 --> 01:03:31.390
And there, I filmed some of
the most severe sea lice infestations

01:03:31.474 --> 01:03:32.809
that's ever been recorded.

01:03:34.060 --> 01:03:37.772
Corin was able to capture footage
of salmon being eaten alive

01:03:37.855 --> 01:03:40.358
by an infestation of sea lice parasites.

01:03:40.441 --> 01:03:43.611
A common reality of fish farming
across the world.

01:03:44.195 --> 01:03:46.656
It was sad to think
that this incredible species,

01:03:46.739 --> 01:03:48.866
which had evolved for millions of years

01:03:48.950 --> 01:03:51.744
to migrate across entire oceans
and navigate up rivers

01:03:51.828 --> 01:03:54.247
to reach the exact same spawning grounds
they were born in,

01:03:54.330 --> 01:03:57.959
were now confined to swim in circles
in their own filth.

01:03:58.960 --> 01:04:01.671
So, it's estimated
that each salmon farm in Scotland

01:04:01.754 --> 01:04:06.425
produces organic waste equivalent
to a town of 10 to 20,000 people.

01:04:06.509 --> 01:04:08.928
And taken together,
it's estimated that

01:04:09.011 --> 01:04:11.889
the Scottish salmon farming industry
produces organic waste

01:04:11.973 --> 01:04:14.851
equivalent to the entire population
of Scotland each year.

01:04:19.730 --> 01:04:23.109
The next activist I wanted to meet
was Don Staniford,

01:04:23.192 --> 01:04:27.905
who'd been going undercover to expose
the reality of fish farms for years.

01:04:27.989 --> 01:04:30.032
And we agreed to go undercover with him.

01:04:32.243 --> 01:04:34.495
So, we're here
at Marine Harvest Salmon Farm,

01:04:34.579 --> 01:04:35.705
and it's disgusting.

01:04:35.788 --> 01:04:38.374
This is the...
This is the stench of Scottish salmon.

01:04:38.457 --> 01:04:41.544
This is where salmon go to die
from the farms.

01:04:41.627 --> 01:04:45.965
Maybe 50% of the salmon are dying
from egg to plate, from hatch to catch.

01:04:46.048 --> 01:04:48.050
And this is the Mortality Mountain.

01:04:48.134 --> 01:04:51.262
This is a symptom
of factory battery salmon farming.

01:04:51.345 --> 01:04:53.431
These fish are dying from anemia,

01:04:53.514 --> 01:04:54.849
lice infestation,

01:04:54.932 --> 01:04:56.350
infectious diseases,

01:04:56.434 --> 01:04:58.019
chlamydia, heart disease.

01:04:58.102 --> 01:04:59.270
This is welfare abuse.

01:04:59.353 --> 01:05:02.315
So, far from being a panacea
for the world food problem,

01:05:02.398 --> 01:05:04.609
salmon farming is a waste of resources.

01:05:04.692 --> 01:05:06.527
It's biological nonsense.

01:05:07.528 --> 01:05:09.155
The stench was horrifying.

01:05:09.238 --> 01:05:11.365
These weren't the bright orange
and pink salmon

01:05:11.449 --> 01:05:13.117
I'd seen in the commercials.

01:05:13.743 --> 01:05:15.286
So, farmed salmon,

01:05:15.369 --> 01:05:18.706
without colorants being added to its feed,
would be completely gray,

01:05:18.789 --> 01:05:23.044
to the extent that salmon farmers
can actually select from a color chart,

01:05:23.127 --> 01:05:24.879
much like you get
when painting your house.

01:05:24.962 --> 01:05:28.382
You can select the pinkness of the salmon
that you're gonna produce.

01:05:28.466 --> 01:05:30.426
So it wouldn't be for me to say,

01:05:30.509 --> 01:05:33.846
but it does seem like people are eating
gray fish that's painted pink.

01:05:35.806 --> 01:05:38.517
This was the real monster
in the lochs of Scotland.

01:05:38.601 --> 01:05:41.062
But the environmental impact
of farming marine life

01:05:41.145 --> 01:05:42.438
didn't end with fish.

01:05:43.022 --> 01:05:46.817
One of the world's most important habitats
is mangroves.

01:05:46.901 --> 01:05:50.780
Now, mangrove forests
are absolutely crucial storm barriers.

01:05:50.863 --> 01:05:55.368
They protect communities
from storm surges, even from tsunamis.

01:05:55.451 --> 01:05:59.664
And yet, 38% of the world's mangroves
have been destroyed

01:05:59.747 --> 01:06:01.999
by shrimp and prawn farming.

01:06:02.083 --> 01:06:06.253
However, it's the shrimp feed which is
having the greatest humanitarian impact,

01:06:06.337 --> 01:06:08.756
because it depends on slavery.

01:06:08.839 --> 01:06:11.258
We hear a lot about blood diamonds.

01:06:11.842 --> 01:06:13.094
This is blood shrimp.

01:06:15.054 --> 01:06:18.349
This recent aerial footage
shows a fisherman in Southeast Asia

01:06:18.432 --> 01:06:20.726
writing a secret message to the drone,

01:06:20.810 --> 01:06:22.478
out of sight of the captain.

01:06:26.607 --> 01:06:30.152
Slavery at sea is a massive problem.

01:06:30.236 --> 01:06:33.739
I think it's very hard
to give precise figures,

01:06:33.823 --> 01:06:36.867
precisely because it operates
under the radar.

01:06:36.951 --> 01:06:40.162
Those people
who are driving these abuses,

01:06:40.246 --> 01:06:42.373
for obvious reasons,
don't want to get found out.

01:06:42.456 --> 01:06:44.834
In that regard, I would point to Thailand.

01:06:44.917 --> 01:06:49.046
So there are now somewhere in the region
of about 51,000 boats fishing

01:06:49.130 --> 01:06:51.048
in Thai waters under the Thai flag.

01:06:51.132 --> 01:06:56.804
They had to find a way of fishing
ever more cheaply to catch fewer fish.

01:06:56.887 --> 01:07:00.349
And that's where
the inherent vulnerability begins.

01:07:00.433 --> 01:07:05.730
Most of those boats would not be economic
without this free, cheap labor.

01:07:08.315 --> 01:07:11.360
I had no idea when I started
my journey that it would lead me here,

01:07:11.444 --> 01:07:14.405
but it was hard to believe the
fishing industry could be this corrupt.

01:07:14.488 --> 01:07:17.158
The information I was finding online
was conflicting,

01:07:17.241 --> 01:07:21.370
so I wanted to ask the industry myself,
at an international seafood expo

01:07:21.454 --> 01:07:23.664
open only to industry insiders.

01:07:23.748 --> 01:07:25.499
We created fake business cards

01:07:25.583 --> 01:07:27.710
for a fake seafood company to sneak in,

01:07:27.793 --> 01:07:29.795
which actually worked,

01:07:29.879 --> 01:07:32.089
and secretly filmed my interaction

01:07:32.173 --> 01:07:34.341
with a representative from Thai seafood.

01:07:34.425 --> 01:07:35.843
I was doing some research…

01:07:35.926 --> 01:07:36.761
Research?

01:07:36.844 --> 01:07:41.057
Research. And I found out
that a lot of, uh, Thai shrimp and prawns

01:07:41.140 --> 01:07:43.434
are coming from slave labor.
People kidnapped...

01:07:43.517 --> 01:07:45.186
- Oh, no, no!
- It's not true?

01:07:45.269 --> 01:07:46.270
No, not true!

01:07:46.353 --> 01:07:48.522
- Whoa! So they're lying?
- Lying.

01:07:49.106 --> 01:07:51.734
- So there's no slavery going on?
- No, no.

01:07:51.859 --> 01:07:53.152
So why would they say that?

01:07:53.652 --> 01:07:56.530
I don't know. You ask them that.

01:07:56.614 --> 01:07:59.200
- Yeah. So it's...
- Business, huh? It's business.

01:07:59.283 --> 01:08:01.118
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, it's business.

01:08:01.702 --> 01:08:06.415
I was so fed up by all these
companies and NGOs bluewashing the truth,

01:08:06.499 --> 01:08:08.834
but honestly, I didn't know what to think.

01:08:08.918 --> 01:08:10.878
The only way I could find out for sure

01:08:10.961 --> 01:08:13.380
if fishing slavery
was still going on today

01:08:13.464 --> 01:08:16.300
was by actually speaking
to these fishing slaves ourselves.

01:08:16.383 --> 01:08:20.471
Would you say there's any
safety concerns for me making this film?

01:08:21.222 --> 01:08:22.765
The safety concerns are serious.

01:08:22.848 --> 01:08:27.061
And I think,
ignore them at your risk.

01:08:27.144 --> 01:08:29.688
You can see people are being murdered.

01:08:29.772 --> 01:08:32.650
So some of those involved are murderers.

01:08:32.733 --> 01:08:35.111
Somebody might kill you,
and that is possible

01:08:35.194 --> 01:08:38.405
if you're foolish, and if you're
in the wrong place at the wrong time.

01:08:38.489 --> 01:08:43.119
You can be victim of unfair
or unreasonable actions by the law

01:08:43.202 --> 01:08:45.788
who have been paid,
i.e. a victim of corruption.

01:08:45.871 --> 01:08:47.873
So you have to be extremely careful,

01:08:47.957 --> 01:08:51.377
and the security protocols that you apply

01:08:51.460 --> 01:08:54.755
may well mean the difference
between life and death.

01:09:02.471 --> 01:09:03.889
We arrived in Bangkok

01:09:03.973 --> 01:09:07.101
with the details of a halfway home
for escaped slaves.

01:09:07.184 --> 01:09:09.603
We knew that
just by filming these interviews

01:09:09.687 --> 01:09:12.648
and shining a light on the
criminal activities in the country,

01:09:12.731 --> 01:09:15.192
we were putting ourselves
and those around us at risk.

01:09:16.443 --> 01:09:18.279
Don't film my face.

01:09:18.362 --> 01:09:20.364
I can be hunted down for helping you.

01:09:21.115 --> 01:09:23.367
All we could do
was cross our fingers,

01:09:23.450 --> 01:09:25.327
and hope we got the answers
we were looking for.

01:09:31.375 --> 01:09:35.212
Could you start off by telling me
how long you were on these ships for?

01:09:35.921 --> 01:09:38.465
I was at sea
for 10 years, 2 months, and 2 days.

01:09:40.968 --> 01:09:45.806
I was scared, let me be straight with you.

01:09:45.890 --> 01:09:51.729
Nobody could get off the ship,
there were guards that kept eyes on us.

01:09:52.354 --> 01:09:56.400
I was at sea for six years.

01:09:57.234 --> 01:10:02.406
I was so depressed
I tried to take my own life three times.

01:10:02.990 --> 01:10:06.452
When I first met the captain on land,
we drank and had a good time.

01:10:06.535 --> 01:10:09.330
But once I was on the ship
and the ship left the shore,

01:10:09.413 --> 01:10:11.874
the captain changed from white to red.

01:10:11.957 --> 01:10:14.752
He changed,
like we didn't know each other.

01:10:14.835 --> 01:10:17.838
He bullied and abused me
like we didn't know each other.

01:10:17.922 --> 01:10:21.675
He splashed us with boiling water
when we were sick and tired,

01:10:21.759 --> 01:10:25.930
hit us whenever he wasn't happy
by using an iron bar,

01:10:26.013 --> 01:10:29.350
and threatened us with a gun.

01:10:31.101 --> 01:10:34.355
On the ship I was on,

01:10:34.438 --> 01:10:38.776
sometimes they kept dead human bodies
in the freezers after killing them.

01:10:39.860 --> 01:10:42.988
On my ship, boys dropped
into the sea and drowned.

01:10:46.992 --> 01:10:50.788
I saw their dead bodies floating
on the water surface days later.

01:10:51.622 --> 01:10:53.791
I felt sorry for their parents,

01:10:53.874 --> 01:10:55.918
they would never know
of their son's death.

01:10:56.460 --> 01:11:01.048
When ships are in the
middle of the ocean, where problems occur,

01:11:02.091 --> 01:11:05.886
they can throw you overboard
into the sea.

01:11:05.970 --> 01:11:09.932
They can just say to the authorities

01:11:10.015 --> 01:11:13.560
that you were sick and fell into the sea.

01:11:14.770 --> 01:11:18.315
People don't see how we catch seafood,

01:11:18.399 --> 01:11:20.859
they only care for consumption.

01:11:20.943 --> 01:11:26.740
A lot of the seafood we're consuming today
is from slavery,

01:11:26.824 --> 01:11:29.410
from forced labor.

01:11:29.493 --> 01:11:33.497
I would like to see everyone
stop supporting them

01:11:33.580 --> 01:11:35.708
if that's possible.

01:11:36.792 --> 01:11:39.336
Would you be able
to take us to the slave ships,

01:11:39.420 --> 01:11:41.422
or is it too dangerous to film?

01:11:41.505 --> 01:11:43.007
Oh…

01:11:43.090 --> 01:11:50.055
It's dangerous for you to make
this documentary, and film these ships.

01:11:50.848 --> 01:11:53.517
If you're scared of dying,
go home.

01:11:56.687 --> 01:11:58.439
At this point, off-camera,

01:11:58.522 --> 01:12:01.358
we were notified that we had to end
the interview right then and there

01:12:01.442 --> 01:12:02.943
as police were on their way.

01:12:03.027 --> 01:12:06.030
Someone had reported us
for filming without permits,

01:12:06.113 --> 01:12:08.240
and we needed to get out of there
immediately.

01:12:24.840 --> 01:12:26.925
I was sad to be leaving Thailand
so suddenly,

01:12:27.009 --> 01:12:30.012
knowing there were young men just like me
trapped on fishing boats

01:12:30.095 --> 01:12:31.638
who'd never be able to go home.

01:12:31.722 --> 01:12:35.351
But after risking our safety,
I felt powerless to do anything about it.

01:12:35.434 --> 01:12:38.812
Especially knowing the authorities
were involved in covering it up.

01:12:47.571 --> 01:12:50.115
Back home, it'd been weeks
since I picked up a camera.

01:12:50.949 --> 01:12:53.160
The gravity of everything
had caught up with me,

01:12:53.243 --> 01:12:54.912
and frankly, I was overwhelmed.

01:12:55.621 --> 01:12:56.914
However, months earlier,

01:12:56.997 --> 01:12:59.124
we had booked a trip to the Faroe Islands,

01:12:59.208 --> 01:13:03.045
a small archipelago in the North Atlantic
that practiced an old form of whaling.

01:13:03.128 --> 01:13:05.422
We'd booked the trip
back when I thought whaling

01:13:05.506 --> 01:13:07.758
was one of the biggest threats
facing the ocean.

01:13:07.841 --> 01:13:11.637
But after witnessing much greater impacts
and the human rights abuses that followed,

01:13:11.720 --> 01:13:13.847
it seemed like a step backwards.

01:13:13.931 --> 01:13:17.059
However, this particular form of whaling,
called a "Grind,"

01:13:17.142 --> 01:13:21.105
had recently received attention in the
media as a sustainable form of whaling,

01:13:21.188 --> 01:13:24.525
claiming the species of whale aren't
endangered and that hunting them

01:13:24.608 --> 01:13:26.819
caused no environmental damage.

01:13:26.902 --> 01:13:30.322
Whales were the whole reason I set out
on this journey in the first place,

01:13:30.406 --> 01:13:33.409
and I was skeptical about how sustainable
it could possibly be.

01:13:33.492 --> 01:13:37.287
So we decided to make one final trip
to the Faroe Islands,

01:13:37.371 --> 01:13:39.498
in the hopes of
witnessing one of these hunts

01:13:39.581 --> 01:13:41.125
and speaking to a whaler.

01:13:41.750 --> 01:13:43.502
Some years on the islands,

01:13:43.585 --> 01:13:46.088
a whale hunt may only occur
a handful of times.

01:13:46.672 --> 01:13:48.674
Other years, none at all.

01:13:49.466 --> 01:13:52.344
We patiently awaited
news of a hunt for ten days,

01:13:52.428 --> 01:13:54.972
until finally, we received the call.

01:14:00.185 --> 01:14:01.687
There's a Grind? How far?

01:14:03.689 --> 01:14:04.523
Okay.

01:14:05.816 --> 01:14:06.733
Hvannasund?

01:14:06.817 --> 01:14:07.985
How do you spell that?

01:14:08.068 --> 01:14:10.571
H-V… yeah.

01:14:10.654 --> 01:14:11.947
S-U-N-D.

01:14:12.906 --> 01:14:15.742
Yeah, I know where it is. Okay, okay.
See you later.

01:17:47.162 --> 01:17:49.873
In the chaos
of everything that happened,

01:17:49.956 --> 01:17:52.376
I finally understood sustainability.

01:17:52.876 --> 01:17:56.588
It just meant that something
could continue on and on forever

01:17:57.339 --> 01:18:00.175
regardless of how much
suffering it caused.

01:18:00.258 --> 01:18:01.176
In reality,

01:18:01.259 --> 01:18:03.970
the Grind was about as sustainable
as you could get.

01:18:04.054 --> 01:18:06.473
But I began to wonder
whether sustainability

01:18:06.556 --> 01:18:09.601
was truly the right goal
for how we took care of the ocean.

01:18:13.146 --> 01:18:15.857
So, I don't feel like I'm a bad person.

01:18:15.941 --> 01:18:20.237
If somebody want to say, "Yeah,
you're a bad person for killing a whale."

01:18:20.779 --> 01:18:24.449
Uh, I would rather kill one whale
than 2,000 chickens.

01:18:24.533 --> 01:18:26.952
That's about the same amount of meat.

01:18:27.536 --> 01:18:30.372
Uh, so if the world
wants to take 2,000 lives,

01:18:30.455 --> 01:18:32.708
and we are taking one, you're welcome.

01:18:33.208 --> 01:18:34.626
And at that point,

01:18:34.710 --> 01:18:39.047
I feel like I'm a better person
than many other people

01:18:39.131 --> 01:18:41.466
that are thinking about,

01:18:42.050 --> 01:18:44.594
"Yeah, we had salmon
for dinner last night."

01:18:44.678 --> 01:18:45.512
Yeah?

01:18:46.012 --> 01:18:47.723
Four people, salmon,

01:18:47.806 --> 01:18:51.017
that means two, three salmons killed.

01:18:51.601 --> 01:18:55.689
Do you really feel good about yourself
killing two salmons

01:18:56.231 --> 01:18:57.357
for eating dinner?

01:18:58.150 --> 01:19:00.861
Uh, I can follow the thoughts
that people are saying,

01:19:01.737 --> 01:19:04.197
"If you want to eat, don't kill anything."

01:19:04.281 --> 01:19:07.951
Like, just eating vegetables, and fruits,
and stuff like that.

01:19:08.034 --> 01:19:09.202
I can go along with that,

01:19:09.286 --> 01:19:13.081
but I really can't go along with people
that are saying,

01:19:13.707 --> 01:19:15.000
Uh, "You must not kill Grind."

01:19:16.001 --> 01:19:19.129
And then, they are killing
or eating other animals.

01:19:19.212 --> 01:19:22.340
For me, a fish, a chicken, a whale,

01:19:22.424 --> 01:19:24.801
exactly the same value.

01:19:24.885 --> 01:19:26.261
It has one life.

01:19:27.095 --> 01:19:27.971
And…

01:19:28.889 --> 01:19:31.433
some say it doesn't need to be taken
for getting food,

01:19:31.516 --> 01:19:33.310
but that's what we are doing.

01:19:40.358 --> 01:19:42.652
Although I didn't agree
with everything he said,

01:19:42.736 --> 01:19:44.196
the whaler had a point.

01:19:44.279 --> 01:19:46.239
All this time, I had only looked at fish

01:19:46.323 --> 01:19:49.576
and other marine life in terms
of sustainability and ecological impact,

01:19:49.659 --> 01:19:52.704
but I never considered the lives
of these animals in their own right,

01:19:52.788 --> 01:19:54.039
or whether they could feel.

01:19:55.499 --> 01:19:59.669
To me, it's remarkable
that the question is even asked that,

01:19:59.753 --> 01:20:02.255
"Do fish feel pain?"

01:20:03.256 --> 01:20:07.052
As a scientist, it's common sense.

01:20:07.135 --> 01:20:09.137
They have a nervous system, fish do.

01:20:09.221 --> 01:20:13.266
They have the basic elements
that all vertebrates have.

01:20:13.350 --> 01:20:17.646
They have the capacity to feel on a level

01:20:17.729 --> 01:20:19.856
that I almost can't imagine we can.

01:20:19.940 --> 01:20:22.400
We feel pain, we feel touch.

01:20:22.484 --> 01:20:25.862
But fish have a lateral line
down their sides

01:20:25.946 --> 01:20:29.699
that senses the most exquisite
little movements in the water.

01:20:29.783 --> 01:20:32.285
So you see a thousand fish
moving like one fish.

01:20:32.369 --> 01:20:36.039
Those who say, "Doesn't matter what you
do to a fish, they can't feel anything."

01:20:36.122 --> 01:20:40.043
Or that they... Their consciousness,
they can't relate to pain,

01:20:40.126 --> 01:20:42.254
or they can't sense danger in the future.

01:20:42.337 --> 01:20:45.465
Well, they haven't really observed fish.

01:20:45.549 --> 01:20:47.926
I think it's a justification

01:20:48.009 --> 01:20:51.721
for doing dastardly things
to innocent creatures.

01:20:52.681 --> 01:20:56.810
It's the only explanation I can think of
for treating fish

01:20:56.893 --> 01:20:59.187
with such a barbaric attitude.

01:20:59.771 --> 01:21:01.356
So you don't eat fish?

01:21:01.439 --> 01:21:04.526
Oh, I don't eat fish now, or any animal.

01:21:05.652 --> 01:21:07.737
A scientific panel
for the European Union

01:21:07.821 --> 01:21:11.491
concluded that fish do in fact feel pain
and experience fear.

01:21:11.992 --> 01:21:14.077
Just like dolphins and whales,

01:21:14.160 --> 01:21:16.329
fish can also have complex social lives,

01:21:16.413 --> 01:21:19.791
even teaming up with other species
to find food.

01:21:19.875 --> 01:21:23.587
With research proving, once and for all,
the intelligence, memory capabilities,

01:21:23.670 --> 01:21:25.213
and sentience of these animals,

01:21:25.297 --> 01:21:28.258
fish, and even crustaceans,
were more like us

01:21:28.341 --> 01:21:29.843
than we ever expected.

01:21:29.926 --> 01:21:33.305
Fishes probably invented all
of the familiar senses to us.

01:21:33.388 --> 01:21:35.265
Uh, they've been around a long time.

01:21:35.348 --> 01:21:38.018
So they have excellent vision, hearing,

01:21:38.101 --> 01:21:40.395
sense of touch, sense of smell and taste.

01:21:40.478 --> 01:21:42.606
They have the right kind of pain receptors

01:21:42.689 --> 01:21:45.901
for physical, chemical,
and heat types of pain,

01:21:45.984 --> 01:21:47.736
the same three kinds that we have.

01:21:48.528 --> 01:21:51.698
And also, there's evidence
that fishes show, uh, curiosity,

01:21:51.781 --> 01:21:53.742
perhaps concern, perhaps, uh, fear,

01:21:53.825 --> 01:21:56.536
when they can see other fishes
being taken out of their tanks,

01:21:56.620 --> 01:21:59.164
and chopped up on a block
right outside the tank.

01:21:59.247 --> 01:22:01.124
It could be family members,
or relatives,

01:22:01.207 --> 01:22:04.502
or just individuals
who they've gotten to like over time.

01:22:04.586 --> 01:22:08.798
There's emerging science on how animals
do use democratic decision-making.

01:22:08.882 --> 01:22:12.552
One example is herrings, they have
a very curious way of communicating.

01:22:12.636 --> 01:22:14.387
They actually fart to communicate.

01:22:14.471 --> 01:22:17.641
So, if 60% of the herrings
in the school are farting,

01:22:17.724 --> 01:22:20.602
then that means it's time to leave,
maybe not surprisingly.

01:22:20.685 --> 01:22:23.813
But they actually use that
as a communication tool.

01:22:25.565 --> 01:22:27.651
I can't keep a straight face.

01:22:29.277 --> 01:22:30.528
As hilarious as that was,

01:22:30.612 --> 01:22:34.032
I'd always been taught that seafood
was an important part of a healthy diet,

01:22:34.115 --> 01:22:35.450
and I still had some questions.

01:22:35.533 --> 01:22:38.745
What am I going to miss out on
if I stopped eating seafood?

01:22:39.537 --> 01:22:41.456
Well, what you're gonna miss out on,

01:22:41.539 --> 01:22:43.124
if you stopped eating seafood,

01:22:43.208 --> 01:22:45.710
is you're gonna miss out on
all that toxic heavy metal.

01:22:45.794 --> 01:22:46.795
Mercury, right?

01:22:46.878 --> 01:22:50.340
You're gonna decrease your intake
of dioxins and PCBs,

01:22:50.423 --> 01:22:52.801
these other, you know,
persistent organic pollutants.

01:22:52.884 --> 01:22:54.844
The aquatic food chain

01:22:54.928 --> 01:22:59.099
is the most concentrated source
of industrial pollutants.

01:22:59.182 --> 01:23:00.725
The thought of clean fish?

01:23:00.809 --> 01:23:03.770
There's just dirty fish
and then dirtier fish.

01:23:03.853 --> 01:23:06.690
And so if you look at the number one
source of dioxin exposure,

01:23:06.773 --> 01:23:09.234
of toxic heavy metal exposure,
PCB exposure,

01:23:09.317 --> 01:23:10.860
of hexachlorobenzene,

01:23:10.944 --> 01:23:13.655
plastics compounds,
flame-retardant chemicals…

01:23:13.738 --> 01:23:15.532
I mean,
you name your industrial pollutant,

01:23:15.615 --> 01:23:17.325
it's found most concentrated in fish.

01:23:17.409 --> 01:23:22.122
Again, because that's just where
the pollutants eventually end up.

01:23:22.205 --> 01:23:25.250
Mercury is totally a toxicant
to the body.

01:23:25.333 --> 01:23:28.795
Let's say mercury from some industry
pollutes the air or the water.

01:23:28.878 --> 01:23:32.549
Small bacteria, plankton,
they start picking up on the mercury.

01:23:32.632 --> 01:23:34.968
And then, small creatures eat those.

01:23:35.051 --> 01:23:38.388
Then you've got the smaller fish
eaten by the bigger fish, and so on.

01:23:38.471 --> 01:23:41.516
In essence,
this is called bioaccumulation.

01:23:41.599 --> 01:23:45.103
So there's other things in fish,
it's not just omega-3 fatty acids.

01:23:45.186 --> 01:23:50.025
Those contaminants oftentimes
outweigh the benefits of the nutrients.

01:23:50.108 --> 01:23:52.902
A common belief is
that fish are the best source

01:23:52.986 --> 01:23:55.530
of these essential omega-3 fatty acids,

01:23:56.114 --> 01:23:59.909
but people don't realize
that fish don't make omega-3 fatty acids.

01:23:59.993 --> 01:24:03.288
It's the algae cells
that are making the omega-3 fats,

01:24:03.371 --> 01:24:05.999
and the fish swallow the algae cells.

01:24:06.082 --> 01:24:10.045
And the algal DHA is what winds up
in the fish's flesh,

01:24:10.128 --> 01:24:12.714
that when we kill the fish,
and crush its flesh,

01:24:12.797 --> 01:24:15.842
and squeeze out the "fish oil"
for the omega-3s,

01:24:15.925 --> 01:24:18.470
it was really algae oil
in there all the time.

01:24:18.553 --> 01:24:22.515
So why not just eat the algae that has
those great benefits we're looking for?

01:24:22.599 --> 01:24:24.726
Why even mess with the middleman,

01:24:24.809 --> 01:24:26.436
and just eat the direct source.

01:24:26.519 --> 01:24:29.606
We started New Wave Foods
with the mission to disrupt seafood,

01:24:29.689 --> 01:24:32.901
not oceans,
by creating seafood from sea plants.

01:24:32.984 --> 01:24:36.112
So you're not gonna miss out on taste,
it's there for you. It's delicious.

01:24:36.196 --> 01:24:39.449
But you will miss the cholesterol,
there's no PCBs,

01:24:39.532 --> 01:24:42.535
no mercury, no heavy antibiotics.

01:24:42.619 --> 01:24:45.955
You get the things you want from seafood,
but none of the negative things.

01:24:46.039 --> 01:24:47.499
Plant-based solutions, I think,

01:24:47.582 --> 01:24:50.794
is definitely one of the best options
that we have to go forward.

01:24:50.877 --> 01:24:55.006
Traditional animal agriculture,
raising cows and chickens on land,

01:24:55.090 --> 01:24:56.382
have huge impacts in the ocean.

01:24:56.466 --> 01:24:59.677
The runoff from those procedures
create dead zones in the environment.

01:24:59.761 --> 01:25:02.388
And fishing and fish farming, too.
So if we can find alternatives

01:25:02.472 --> 01:25:05.016
that are just as delicious,
just as healthy for you,

01:25:05.100 --> 01:25:08.061
but better for the environment,
why wouldn't we do it?

01:25:08.645 --> 01:25:10.647
My journey had taken me far.

01:25:10.730 --> 01:25:13.525
And despite witnessing
catastrophic destruction,

01:25:13.608 --> 01:25:16.528
I had more admiration for the ocean
than ever before.

01:25:17.028 --> 01:25:19.197
I felt empowered by what I'd learned,

01:25:19.280 --> 01:25:21.908
and couldn't wait to put it into practice.

01:25:21.991 --> 01:25:24.410
Although I still pick up trash on beaches,

01:25:24.494 --> 01:25:27.580
and have embarked on a project
to continue investigating

01:25:27.664 --> 01:25:30.041
and reporting on environmental issues,

01:25:30.125 --> 01:25:32.293
with so many plant-based alternatives

01:25:32.377 --> 01:25:35.630
emerging for almost every seafood product
I could imagine…

01:25:37.173 --> 01:25:41.302
I realized the single best thing
I could do every single day

01:25:41.386 --> 01:25:44.556
to protect the ocean
and the marine life I loved,

01:25:44.639 --> 01:25:45.557
was to simply...

01:25:46.182 --> 01:25:47.308
not eat them.

01:25:48.518 --> 01:25:50.895
If we protect more
and fish less,

01:25:50.979 --> 01:25:52.939
and restore that kind of balance

01:25:53.022 --> 01:25:54.649
and healthy ecosystem,

01:25:54.732 --> 01:25:57.986
they've got a good chance of making it
through the tough times ahead.

01:25:58.069 --> 01:25:59.320
There is real hope here

01:25:59.404 --> 01:26:03.491
because marine ecosystems
bounce back so quickly

01:26:03.575 --> 01:26:04.534
if they're allowed to.

01:26:05.118 --> 01:26:07.287
You would see the reefs coming back,

01:26:07.370 --> 01:26:11.624
you would see
these incredible shoals of fish returning,

01:26:11.708 --> 01:26:14.586
you would see the whales
returning to our coast.

01:26:14.669 --> 01:26:17.046
This is within our grasp.

01:26:17.130 --> 01:26:18.506
We can do this.

01:26:18.590 --> 01:26:21.176
The prospects for marine recovery,

01:26:21.259 --> 01:26:23.928
for rewilding, are incredibly exciting,

01:26:24.012 --> 01:26:27.765
but it can only happen
if very large areas of sea

01:26:28.349 --> 01:26:30.935
are closed to commercial fishing.

01:26:31.019 --> 01:26:34.147
And while governments
are not prepared to take action,

01:26:34.230 --> 01:26:37.442
and while the industry
is basically unregulated,

01:26:37.525 --> 01:26:39.485
the only ethical thing to do

01:26:40.195 --> 01:26:41.696
is to stop eating fish.

01:26:41.779 --> 01:26:47.785
It isn't too late to take the best hope
we will ever have

01:26:47.869 --> 01:26:49.913
of having a home in this universe.

01:26:49.996 --> 01:26:53.333
To respect what we've got,
to protect what remains,

01:26:53.416 --> 01:26:55.335
don't let any of the pieces escape.

01:26:55.919 --> 01:26:58.338
Most of the positive and negative things

01:26:58.421 --> 01:27:01.257
that bring about change
in human civilization

01:27:01.341 --> 01:27:02.800
start with someone.

01:27:03.509 --> 01:27:04.677
Some "one."

01:27:05.511 --> 01:27:08.097
And no one can do everything,

01:27:08.181 --> 01:27:11.893
but every one can do something.

01:27:12.435 --> 01:27:13.770
And sometimes,

01:27:14.270 --> 01:27:16.773
big ideas make a big difference.

01:27:16.856 --> 01:27:18.816
That's what we can do.

01:27:18.900 --> 01:27:21.569
That's what you can do right now.

01:27:22.028 --> 01:27:24.489
Look in the mirror, figure it out.

01:27:24.572 --> 01:27:25.531
Go for it.

01:27:42.548 --> 01:27:45.134
♪ You see the truth ♪

01:27:46.052 --> 01:27:47.845
♪ Always finds a way ♪

01:27:49.013 --> 01:27:53.476
♪ To rise above the waves
And I'm scared ♪

01:27:53.559 --> 01:27:55.895
♪ To see what I've become ♪

01:27:56.521 --> 01:27:57.981
♪ All I was ♪

01:27:58.481 --> 01:28:01.359
♪ Like a whale ♪

01:28:02.151 --> 01:28:05.488
♪ Gasping for air ♪

01:28:06.197 --> 01:28:10.118
♪ I'm diving deep ♪

01:28:10.201 --> 01:28:12.078
♪ I'm diving deep ♪

01:28:12.161 --> 01:28:15.081
♪ Motions of emotions
Motions of emotions ♪

01:28:15.164 --> 01:28:19.127
♪ Motions of emotions
Motions of emotions ♪

01:28:19.210 --> 01:28:23.089
♪ Motions of emotions
Motions of emotions ♪

01:28:23.172 --> 01:28:27.135
♪ Motions of emotions
Motions of emotions ♪

01:28:27.218 --> 01:28:29.846
♪ Take me over the oceans ♪

01:28:29.929 --> 01:28:32.140
♪ That I believe ♪

01:28:34.684 --> 01:28:40.982
♪ It's the only thing
That's been honest to me ♪

01:28:43.109 --> 01:28:45.820
♪ Take me over the oceans ♪

01:28:45.903 --> 01:28:49.532
♪ That I believe ♪

01:28:50.700 --> 01:28:54.620
♪ It's the only thing
That's been honest ♪

01:28:54.644 --> 01:29:05.644
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