Seaspiracy: How capitalism, corporations & the fishing industry are destroying our oceans (E1005)
We speak to the UN special rapporteur on human rights and the environment, David Boyd. He discusses the class dynamic of the climate change crisis and how the rich are overwhelmingly to blame for the rise in CO2 emissions, how poor countries are bearing the brunt of the effects of climate change, why it is the responsibility of richer countries to fight climate change, myths about China being the world’s worst polluter, the increasing fatalities from air pollution and much more! Finally, we speak to Captain Paul Watson, Sea Shepherd president and founder, who stars in Netflix’s documentary ‘Seaspiracy’. He discusses how the oceans are the planet’s life support, why we must issue a moratorium of 50 years on heavy industrial fishing and waste dumping into our oceans to fight climate change, how corporations and capitalism are making profit out of the deaths of entire species of fish and ecosystems, why direct action is now needed to save the oceans and fight climate change, how the corporate fishing industry has impoverished poor fishermen leading them to piracy and much more!
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STATEMENT ADDITION:
Mr. Mark Palmer, of the International Marine Mammal Project at Earth Island Institute, released the following statement about the documentary Seaspiracy:
“No labeling standard can rightly be guaranteed as 100% perfect. But the filmmakers falsely used my statement to portray the Dolphin Safe tuna label as meaningless. This is just flat out wrong.
The Dolphin Safe tuna label is not perfect, but it is one of the most effective fishery conservation measures with solid results. It has resulted in a historic and massive reduction in dolphin mortality and shifted of 95% of the global tuna fishing industry away from the use of the most horrendous dolphin killing fishing methods. The Dolphin Safe label prevents the killing of tens of thousands of dolphins every year.
In the 1980s, before Dolphin Safe, 80,000 to 100,000 dolphins were being killed in the tuna fishery every year. Due to the Dolphin Safe standards which our organization pioneered, beginning in 1990, the number killed is now under 1,000, based on reports from onboard government observers. Those 1,000 dolphins are not killed by Dolphin Safe tuna fishermen; they are killed by Mexican tuna fishermen who do not adhere to the Dolphin Safe standards and their tuna cannot be legally labeled “Dolphin Safe” in the US or Europe. The filmmakers did not report this information from my interview.
The Dolphin Safe label standard is codified in US federal law with severe civil and criminal penalties for any violations. The primary ocean area — the Pacific Ocean — where tuna fishing for the canned tuna takes place, have international government observers on 100% of purse seine tuna fishing vessels, attesting to each trip’s fishing methods, catch, and dolphin safety. It has an extremely high level of compliance within the global tuna industry.
The Mexican fishing industry has the vast majority of the remaining vessels that still target and kill dolphins to catch tuna, but none of their canned tuna enters US and European Dolphin Safe canned tuna markets.
The filmmakers chose to omit all the information I provided in an hour-long interview, as it went against their narrative that the only solution is for no one to eat any products from the ocean. It’s a shame that they presented such false and misleading portrayal of this important issue.”