Response To Seaspiracy.

 There are many evil things that take place in the pursuit of money. When it comes to making money from fish, there are many terrible things that are done and that have been known for years.

This includes the use of exploited labor and slave labor on fishing vessels. It includes the terrible practice of cutting the fins off of live sharks and throwing them back into the sea to die slowly. It includes the trawlers that scrape the ocean floors without regards to the ecological damage done. Trawlers that destroy the ocean floors, turning productive seas into barren deserts. It includes the terrible harm and waste that comes from bycatch; the many animals that are killed and discarded in pursuit of  marketable fish. Reckless fishing and overfishing are destroying oceans. Wildlife is being decimated and suffering greatly. It is not just fish, but all kinds of seabirds, marine mammals, sea turtles and more. 

What takes place on oceans and seas are far away from inquiring eyes. Murder literally takes place and there is no one to investigate. Bodies get thrown into the seas. Slave workers and underpaid workers that cannot take the misery of being trapped on ships, oftentimes for years on end, throw themselves into the seas to escape their misery. 

High drama may open eyes to what has been known for a long time and ignored. When the shock effect wears off, inaction and apathy unfortunately returns. 

Some people may be influenced by the documentary and choose never to eat fish. Billions of people do eat fish, or have no hesitancy about eating fish if they can get fish. The actions that are taken next are what are most important. Far more has to be done than what happens on the micro level .A few more people eating not eating fish is not going to change anything. 

There are millions of fishing ships out on the oceans and seas fishing, with some abiding by maritime laws and others not. Commercial fishing is far too unregulated, completely lacking law enforcement entities to ensure the rule of law on open seas.

Why is there no movement, why are there no protests, why is there silence and complicity to slavery on the high seas? Why is there silence and complicity to the mass destruction of ocean fisheries and ocean wildlife? 

Why do people care about the destruction of intelligent wildlife that they can see, but ignore the way larger destruction of the same intelligent animals when it occurs out of sight? Commercial fishing as it presently exists is destroying oceans, killing off all forms of wildlife. 

The destruction of the fisheries of individual nations contributes to political and economic instability. Developing nations must be assisted in protecting their own waters from illegal fishing vessels from foreign nations. 

A civilized world does not live with the rule of law confined to a few borders and lawlessness on the high and open seas. In the way that the U.N. mobilizes forces, even though they are too often ineffective, to patrol and calm down violent or potentially violent conflict zones, nations can come together to provide the law enforcement that is critically lacking on oceans and seas. Similar to the U.S. Coast Guard, international forces must be given authority and law enforcement powers by the U.N. to patrol the open seas. There is no excuse for slaves to exist on any shipping vessels. There is no excuse for any fishing vessel to be able to violate any and all maritime laws. There is no excuse for the continued lack of outrage at all of this.

Between the premise that all fishing is bad and must be banned, to the present situation that all fishing is acceptable, no matter how destructive, no matter how abusive it is to its labor force, there is a middle ground. Absolute positions result in more of the same; absolutely nothing getting accomplished and for all the evil to continue. Like it or not, billions of people are not just going to stop eating fish. 

What happens on the oceans must be regulated. There must be international law enforcement entities to enforce those regulations. For one nonprofit entity to assume that role with one or two ships does nothing to create this. There are millions of ships and vessels fishing out on the oceans and seas. Accepting the substitution of one organization for the complete lack of a civilized, law enforcement response to the mass destruction and cruelty that many fishing vessels and ships inflict ensures the destructions to oceans continues and so does slavery.  A movement is needed to fight for international maritime law enforcement forces.

Individual nations whose waters are being depleted by illegal commercial fishing vessels must be provided assistance. The more impoverished are the oceans, the more impoverished are people. Strong coast guards and maritime law enforcement must be established in developing and developed nations.

Plastic pollution is an enormous threat to the health of oceans, wildlife and humans. The fact that commercial fishing ships and vessels discard enormous amounts of fishing lines, nets and more into the oceans, does not detract from the fact that plastic trash originating from land is enormous and also incredibly destructive.  Plastic pollution in all its forms must be stopped. How to stop plastic trash originating from ships at sea is something about which I have no idea.

There is no plastic coalition anywhere in the world doing anything of significance to stop plastic pollution other than line their own pockets, in my opinion. To me it is a disgraceful movement. No different than the fraud perpetuated by those that deem a fishery sustainable or dolphin free, knowing such certification is a lie. 

Billions of people in developing countries use plastic daily, completely lacking a way to properly dispose of their plastic waste. As long as billions of people depend on plastic and use plastic daily, plastic pollution will only worsen if they continue to lack proper waste management. Millions of kilos of new plastic trash originating from land daily enters rivers and oceans. While alternatives to plastic are pursued, while plastic reduction is pursued - although the trajectory is towards more plastic use, not less- there must be a movement to establish universal proper waste management. Let all these industries and companies, including the multi billion dollar fast food companies, help pay for the proper recovery of plastic trash. People must be employed to remove plastic trash already in the environment, and people must be employed to properly collect and dispose of new plastic trash.  

There is no easy and inexpensive way to stop the plastic pollution nightmare. Continuing to do nothing ensures a nightmarish, costly beyond belief outcome.

For the Faroe man that helps slaughter pilot whales and justifies it by asserting that killing one animal is the same as killing others, he fails to understand that the way some animals are slaughtered is far more painful and brutal than others. There is no easy way to kill highly intelligent marine mammals. They suffer greatly. Without empathy towards other living creatures, without the desire to inflict as little pain and suffering upon other living creatures as possible, we as humans completely fail. Whales and dolphins are intelligent, wild and free animals that do not deserve the incredibly painful deaths that  humans too often inflict upon them. No animals deserve cruel and painful deaths at the hands of humans, including animals that are not wild, and that are raised for slaughter.