Where have all the fish gone? Have we reached the end of the line?

By 2048 we might have a world without seafood. Bluefin tuna, cod, salmon, snapper or halibut will not exist in our diets because they will have been fished out. Even clams, lobster and shrimp are at risk.

The End of the Line, the first major documentary film revealing the impact of overfishing, examines the impact of human fish consumption on the world’s oceans. Charles Clover, the investigative journalist who wrote the book on which the film is based, confronts politicians and restaurateurs who seem to care very little about the destruction of our oceans. Clover says that, "we must stop thinking of our oceans as a food factory and realize that they thrive as a huge and complex marine environment.”

Multiple reasons have caused the current crisis. Consumers demand more variety of fish and unknowingly eat unsustainably caught seafood. According to a recent report on the decline of predator fish, humans have caught and consumed over 65 per cent of all large fish species in the last 100 years. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that over 70% of the world’s fish species are either fully exploited or depleted. Experts say that this ecological imbalance will forever change the oceans, with only small fish such as sardines and anchovies surviving in future decades.

Governments and politicians overlook the advice of scientists who set limits on the numbers of fish which should be caught to maintain and restore depleting fish species. The UN Environment Program says international organizations and governments should regulate the number of fishing boats and the days they fish in order to stabilize fish populations.

Furthermore, the global fishing industry reacts slowly to a fish crises on which their livelihoods depend. Fishermen discard more than 10 per cent of all the fish caught for human consumption. As much as two-thirds of the fish caught in some areas ends up back into the water, usually dead. EU rules specify that when a quota for one species is exceeded, fishermen must throw surplus catch back into the ocean. EU Ministers plan to make the most radical change to fisheries policy in 40 years: a common fisheries policy, aiming to reform fishing quotas. Fishermen do not need to throw away their by-catch. This is a small step in the right direction. However more people should be educated about eating sustainable seafood, and politicians should respect the science and support the creation of marine reserves.

To view the End of the Line trailer and website, click here.

Who are the Real Pirates?

The three movies that have so far been released in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series have grossed about $2.7 billion in worldwide ticket sales and another $615 million in DVD sales in the United States alone. The antics of Johnny Depp’s character have also spawned Disney theme park rides, spinoff novels and video games, and countless other adaptations and promotions. This celebration of outlaws has delighted millions of movie-goers and generated handsome profits for the (Western) world’s entertainment complex since 2003.

But no such amusement was triggered by modern-day, real-life pirates some 8,000 miles away, off Somalia. After a U.S. captain was captured and held for ransom, a media frenzy ensued. Celebrity columnist Tom Friedman bemoaned that we live “In the Age of Pirates.” Calls for stepped-up military intervention to confront the rising threat of piracy grew more insistent. In fact, a militarized response has been in the making for some time. In August 2008, Combined Task Force 150—a multinational force set up under the aegis of the “war on terror”—was tasked with patrolling the Gulf of Aden. The UN Security Council adopted French-drafted Resolution 1838, endorsing air and naval attacks against acts of piracy.

Western commentators express bewilderment at the fact that instead of being suppressed, piracy seems to be spreading, with more daring ship takeovers farther from the Somali coast. Not only is there an unwarranted faith in military solutions, but much of the media coverage also conveniently sidesteps the broader context. Outside intervention has long succeeded in creating greater misery for ordinary Somalis:

Under dictator Mohamed Siad Barre (who held power from 1969 to 1991), large amounts of weapons were supplied first by the Soviet Union and, after Somalia and its rival Ethiopia switched superpower patrons in the late 1970s, by the United States. After the dictator’s fall, U.S. weapons were captured by ruthless warlords. The ensuing anarchy helped lead to an ill-fated U.S./UN intervention in the early 1990s.

In late 2006, the Bush administration encouraged Ethiopia to invade Somalia in order to overthrow the Islamic Courts Union, even though the ICU had finally re-established a degree of calm and order. And as analyst Bill Hartung noted in January 2007, “the U.S. has been a central player in the Somali civil war” by backing anti-ICU warlords, providing arms and intelligence to Ethiopian forces, and trying to kill ICU leaders with AC-130 gunships.

Part of the rationale of foreign intervention off Somalia is to protect fishing boats from piracy. Arguably, however, foreign (mostly European and Asian) fishing fleets there are essentially illegal (since there is no functioning government that can regulate activity in Somali waters). Growing numbers of local fishermen have been impoverished. The value of the poached fish is perhaps three times as much as pirates garner in ransom payments.

There is also evidence that toxic and nuclear wastes have been dumped off the Somali coast by European companies as far back as the early 1990s. Johann Hari explains that “Somalian fishermen took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least levy a "tax" on them. […] No, this doesn't make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters – especially those who have held up World Food Programme supplies.” Hari quotes one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali: “We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas.”

Confronted by the naval might of the world’s leading powers, Somalia’s pirates have shown themselves to be resourceful and cunning. But they are no match for the industrialized world’s media and entertainment complex that one moment glorifies celluloid make-believe pirates and another takes great care to gloss over the reasons for very real modern-day piracy in one of the world’s most destitute areas.