Seaspiracy is weakened by framing the environment as a consumer issue

Politics and food are deeply entwined because what you eat is a powerful statement of your identity, but also because food shopping is where individuals can use their consumer power to create change. You may think that your purchasing habits are insignificant, but the boycott of South Africa was partly responsible for the end of Apartheid. Lots of people changing how they shop can have a big impact.

It’s hard to talk about the politics of food without thinking about this consumer choice framework. If we stop people from buying Soda Streams and Israeli dates, can we stop Israeli settlements in the West Bank? Debates around buying Fair Trade or sustainably sourced produce stems from the Gandhi insured idea that we should use our consumer power to be the change we want to see in the world.

Seaspiracy vs The Cove

It is with this in mind that I approached Seaspiracy, a new Netflix documentary about the fishing industry. The film begins by looking at whaling and dolphin killing in Japan. Seaspiracy makes a case that these practices are unnecessarily bloody and cruel, although this subject is covered more effectively by the 2009 documentary The Cove.

The film quickly moves on from this to explore the environmental impact of the fishing industry, first in Japan and then all over the world. I consider myself to be reasonably well informed about environmental issues, but I was flabbergasted at how destructive the fishing industry is.

Oil spills and garbage patches

Perhaps the most impactful moment of the film is when it argues that the BP Oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 was a net benefit for marine life, because it caused a temporary stop to fishing. This fact was not only surprising, but brought home to me the impact of an industry I had naively assumed was largely benign. I had made this assumption because, even in news sources that report on environmental stories, there is little reporting of overfishing and pollution from the fishing industry.

The film draws an interesting parallel between the high level of concern over plastic straws, and other single-use plastics, against the lower level of concern about the environmental impact of the fishing industry. One thing I didn’t know is that nearly half of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is fishing gear the industry abandons.

(Un)sustainable fishing

The contrast between the two is important, as single-use plastic is seen as an issue that can be tackled with consumer power - simply stop buying single-use plastics - whereas it’s much harder to change how the fishing industry goes about catching fish. Shouldn’t we only buy sustainably sourced fish and thus change the fishing industry using our consumer power, I hear you ask? Well, Seaspiracy doesn’t think this will work.

Seaspiracy shows that buying sustainably sourced fish is not an effective way to stop the damaging practices of the fishing industry. The film demonstrates that there is no way to accurately inspect the fishing boats whilst at sea to make sure they are fishing according to sustainability standards.

In one interview, a representative of the body who certifies that the food we buy is sustainably fished, admits that their representatives don’t check all the boats that are supposed to be catching sustainably sourced fish and can be bribed even if they did see unsustainable practices.

The role of government

The film concludes that the only way to protect ocean life is to eat less fish, once again framing an environmental issue as one of consumer choice. The focus on using consumer power to affect environmental change is not just limited to issues of fishing, it is a key part of many environmental narratives. Framing an environmental problem as an issue of consumer choice places the emphasis on individuals to address these big problems and overlooks the role of collective action in tackling them.

Consumers do hold a lot of power in our capitalist economic system and by shopping with the environment in mind we can send signals that might cause industries to change. I’m not for a second saying we shouldn’t consider the ethics of what we spend our money on.

However, the problems facing the environment are not just ones of consumer choice. In a world where 71% of emissions comes from 100 companies, there is a vital role for governments to take on these mega-polluters as even consumer power isn’t enough to get them to change. They must be compelled to change by the only thing more powerful than industry: the government.

Employment and the fishing industry

Seaspiracy focuses too much on consumer change as a solution to the problems of the fishing industry and not enough on what can be done by the government. It also fails to explore the impact of the collapse of the fishing industry, following everyone stopping buying fish.

The film takes aim at the subsidies that Western governments give to fishing and blames them for the environmental damage that results from these subsidies. Although it is correct that by supporting the fishing industry the government is supporting the damage it does to the environment, subsidies exist to protect sources of employment. Many economically depressed coastal communities depend on income that comes from the fishing industry, which is kept going by the subsidies.

The film does not adequately explore what the impact of everyone stopping eating fishing would be on the people who work in the fishing industry. It does explore the effect that industrial fishing from Chinese fishing boats has had on small-scale fishing in Africa. It argues that small-scale fishing is no longer sustainable because of the impact of large industrial Chinese fishing.

When fishing stops being a viable source of food and employment, it pushes the former fishermen into either piracy or trading in bush meat, the latter of which the film blames for the recent Ebola outbreak. Seaspiracy shows the negative effects of unemployment in the African fishing industry, but it doesn’t stop to consider the effect of shutting down large industrial fishing operations that employ many more people in other countries.

A powerful argument

Seaspiracy powerfully portrayals the huge environmental impact of the fishing industry. It’s horrifying to see the devastation that this industry causes, and more needs to be done to stop this damage before it becomes irreversible.

The film makes a powerful argument to stop eating seafood as a means to prevent the destruction of our oceans. I agree that we should stop using our consumer spending to support the fishing industry, but by framing this as only a matter of consumer choice, the film is missing the broader social change that is needed so that government power can be brought to bear to protect the environment from exploitative industries.

If we think of the environment as something that can be fixed at the checkout, we ignore the complex political issues - from food distribution to employment - that are mixed in with the environmental protection that together are needed as part of a broad political response to the environmental crisis we all face.