The Scales Fell From My Eyes
And now Deep Sea Trawling is on my mind - Ocean, the film and must-sign petitions
Dear Human of Planet Earth,
I sat down to a film screening of Ocean with David Attenborough without knowing what it would be about. I was there because:
The Ocean is something I know little about.
David Attenborough is beloved to me, an icon of our age and I trust any programme he’s involved in is worth my time. (Though watch out for unrelated social media pages that use his name just to get our attention!)
The film was showing at the Ruskin House Screen Club and I’ve always found their documentary films to be absorbing and rich with insights.
Before the film was even nearly finished, I knew I would be writing to you about it. My strength of feeling about the legal yet morally criminal practice of deep sea trawling surged from a vague 5 to a roaring maxed out 100.
A week ago, if you said ‘Deep sea trawling’ to me, I’d think ‘overfishing’ and not much else. Knowing how massive the oceans are, I imagined climate change which alters the acidity and temperature of the oceans and industrial and plastic waste pollution to be the ocean’s key threats.
After what I learned about deep sea trawling, I believe it should be banned altogether. Like oil and gas drilling, it would be too disruptive to ban it overnight but we need to work towards a ‘No Deep Sea Trawling’ world because deep sea trawling is as crazy as setting fire to all the world’s tropical rainforests at once.
With no smoke and no indigenous tribes pushing back, it’s easy to think of the results of deep sea trawling being a wide array of seafood in our groceries and restaurants, plus high quality krill supplements in high-end health food stores.
But Deep Sea Trawling is industrial scale pillaging of a foundational part of life on this planet. Trawling may seem like an efficient way to catch seafood but most of what is caught is thrown back dead and ocean habitats are destroyed in the process.
Sustainable fishing has been part of human culture everywhere humans have lived in proximity to the sea and rivers - and of course, where else could most of our ancestors have lived, water being essential for life?
Today coastal communities are unable to fish sustainably because their catch is either hoarded by multi-national industrial-scale trawling or dwindled to nothing after years of trawler hauls and habitat destruction.
Aerial images show the desolate trails that Deep Sea Trawling leaves behind. They look like war zones.
I know you’ve had enough bad news this year, this month, even this week.
So l’m grateful (and surprised) there’s some good news. Where no-trawling and no-fishing bans have been respected, ocean eco-systems have re-established themselves, not in a vague and tentative way but with vigour and abundance.
I really want you to see Ocean with David Attenborough. And if you have seen it, share your thoughts below!
Here’s the trailer:
Here’s a review:
And here’s how you can arrange to see it:
Look out for it on your streaming services but it’s a great film to arrange to see with friends and family on the big screen and to recommend to your child’s school.
How to watch Ocean With David Attenborough in the UK - UpNext by Reelgood
For Croydonians there’s a viewing at the David Lean Cinema tomorrow evening.
Raise your voice:
Whether or not you can make the film, please sign these petitions.
Urge Steve Reed MP and Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to ban bottom trawling in the UK’s 30,000 square kilometres of Marine Protected Areas.
https://act.for-the-ocean.org/act/protect-uk-marine-havens
Petition Prime Minister Keir Starmer to bring in the primary legislation to ratify the Global Ocean Treaty and sign it into UK law. The UK has signed it but not ratified it. So far 28 countries have ratified it but 60 are needed for the treaty to take effect.
What next?
Next order of business: making sure that any seafood I consume has not been acquired from deep sea trawling!
Years ago I would extol the benefits of krill as a supplement. Today I’m thinking, the collective cost is not worth my personal marginal gain.
Meanwhile, my son has taken the easy research-free route by becoming a vegetarian!
Read more for a deeper dive:
The Trouble with Trawling: the Massive Carbon Footprint of Bottom Trawling – envirobites
Protecting the Oceans Vital Food Source: Krill — Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
FAQs: Bottom Trawling - Oceana Europe
What is bottom trawling and why is it bad for the environment? - Greenpeace Aotearoa
With Love,
Your Friendly Neighbourhood Radical,
Croydon,
London,
That patch of earth known today as the United Kingdom
Lat +51.51 Long, -0.118
P.S. have you signed the petitions? Scroll up and click.
P.P.S.
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I will sign the petitions! And I will watch the films. Thanks for sharing ✨
Thanks for highlighting this really important issue, another in a long list of humanity not seeming to be able to do the right thing. Good luck to your son with his vegetarianism!