Netflix’s catalogue does not impress me much nowadays, but if there is one thing they are good at, it is original documentaries. Seaspiracy was released in March and shows a broad overview of just how fucked our oceans are. The filmmaker, Ali Tabrizi, plays hopscotch all over the globe in a journey to discover the shocking truths about the fate of ocean life.Â
Tabrizi starts in Taiji, Japan to expose the slaughter of dolphins; from there they move on to Kii-Katsuura, Japan’s blue-fish tuna fishing grounds; to Hong Kong’s shark-fin market; to Belgium’s parliament to talk to the Commissioner of Fisheries and Environment; to invading illegal fishing vessels on the Liberian coastline; to get the low-down on salmon feedlots in Scotland; to interview escaped slaves from illegal fishing vessels in Thailand; and finally to the Faroe Islands in the United Kingdom to check out their sustainable whaling industry. The film casts a wide net on several different issues all related to the dire plight of the oceans, but because it bounces around so much, its coverage of these issues is extremely shallow, and perhaps because there isn’t time to do a deep dive on any one topic, the interviews shown are clearly cherry-picked, chosen because they align with Tabrizi’s biases.Â
The documentary features insightful interviews with a few environmental activists and scientists, mainly the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, who work to take down illegal fishing vessels, and the Dolphin Project. As well, Tabrizi interviews representatives from Earth Island Institute, the organization behind the dolphin safe tuna label, and representatives from the Plastic Pollution Coalition. From a journalistic perspective, these interviews are almost unethical in nature, as Tabrizi asks extremely leading questions, edits responses way out of context, and purposefully backs the interviewees into a corner. Earth Island Institute has released a statement claiming that Seaspiracy chose to “grossly distort and mischaracterize the program,” and did a disservice to the organizations that are making a critical difference in marine mammal populations. The Plastic Pollution Coalition released a similar statement claiming that the filmmakers “bullied our staff and cherry-picked seconds of our comments to support their own narrative,” choosing to “grossly distort and mischaracterize our staff and organization.”Â
One thing the documentary does well is provide clear use of visuals to help the viewer understand the insanely large statistics being thrown at them, especially graphs representing the dissemination and extinction of sea life. The most shocking statistic the film presents is the levels of plastic in the ocean that came from the fishing industry, and that fishing nets make up 46 per cent of the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” The filmmaker gets this statistic from one 2018 study, so the bit of fact-checking I did myself fell in line with the film’s findings. I found a study that estimates 58 per cent of microplastics on the ocean’s surface is from derelict fishing buoys, and a Greenpeace report stated that “ghost gear” and other abandoned plastic fishing nets and gear, which make up 10 per cent of the ocean’s total plastic, are the most deadly of all the ocean plastics for sea life because they are essentially designed to kill. Another shocking, almost unbelievable statistic highlighted in the film is that oceans will be empty of fish by 2048 — however, this statistic was pulled from a 2006 study that was proved to be erroneous in 2009. Seaspiracy is a good example of why we should not necessarily trust documentary filmmakers to deliver the cold, hard, scientific truth, as they are not scientists or researchers themselves, but rather storytellers.Â
The main point the film attempts to drive home is that sustainable fishing is impossible and the best way we can save the oceans and reverse climate change is to stop eating fish. In another highly misleading interview with a representative of Oceana, an organization that campaigns for policy changes eliminating illegal fishing practices, the interviewee is made to look incompetent, as she could not define the term “sustainable fishing.” Oceana clarified that the former staff member who conducted the two-hour long interview, which was later dissected in the editing room, did incredible work toward developing policies that prevented illegal fishing. So, asking her a question about consumer seafood guides, which was not necessarily a part of her expertise, was inappropriate. Oceana made a statement regarding the film’s position to simply stop eating fish, stating that “choosing to abstain from consuming seafood is not a realistic choice for the hundreds of millions of people around the world who depend on coastal fisheries — many of whom are also facing poverty, hunger, and malnutrition.”
Oceana’s statement touches on a key point that Tabrizi fails to address, as the film’s interviewees are mainly white people with Westernized viewpoints. Tabrizi doesn’t take into consideration the perspectives of people across the globe who rely on fishing to survive. The film does mention how some Somalians had to resort to piracy when illegal fishing vessels overtook their waters, but instead of talking to Somalians, they choose to highlight the white-led Sea Shepherd Society that worked to overtake illegal fishing vessels themselves.Â
Despite all this, it has to be said that Tabrizi beautifully illustrates the way all ocean life works together to sequester carbon and help regulate our planet’s atmosphere. The founder of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Captain Paul Watson, eloquently compares Earth to a spaceship, and all of Earth’s inhabitants as crew members on this spaceship hurtling through the solar system: “Every spaceship has a life-support system, provides us with the food we eat, the air we breathe, and regulates the climate, the temperatures. That life-support system is run by a crew of earthlings, and there’s only so many crew members you can kill before the machinery begins to break down; you run out of engineers. And that’s what’s happening; we’re killing off the crew.”
Although Seaspiracy has extremely slanted interviews, some outdated facts, and cannot seem to find a clear focus, it tells a story of the importance of saving the oceans by saving the marine life that inhabit it — from the algae all the way up the food chain to the whales. They all play a part in our survival and we must play a part in theirs.
Image: Seaspiracy (Netflix)
Andrea Sadowski is working towards her BA in Global Development Studies, with a minor in anthropology and Mennonite studies. When she's not sitting in front of her computer, Andrea enjoys climbing mountains, sleeping outside, cooking delicious plant-based food, talking to animals, and dismantling the patriarchy.
