Deep Trouble by Cathy Bill
The environmental film club is intended to inform people and generate debate about environmental issues. If taken seriously, this should translate into some kind of action, which can be individual change but could also become cooperative.
Our first film was ‘Deep Trouble’, part of the BBC Blue Planet Series. It looked at the global fishing situation, at fish stocks in crisis due to over-fishing and other threats. Many major stocks have already been depleted and have never properly recovered. Our own stocks of many popular fish species, like galjoen, spotted grunter, kingklip and steenbras, are seriously threatened. Around the world, Atlantic cod, north sea mackerel stocks and blue fin tuna stocks have collapsed.
Fishing methods cause the death of many other species caught in the nets, with a global estimate of 25% of the total catch being this so-called by-catch. What does this mean for the world? Many of us don’t need to eat fish as we have plenty of other protein in our diets, but for some fishing communities, this means a serious loss of protein. More fundamentally, though, do we really have a right to let certain species be driven to extinction to feed a voracious population? I don’t believe so – we must address our greed, wanton wastefulness and our populous numbers.
The documentary illuminated the global-local connection well by linking the buying power of individuals at their local fish markets to what is happening to the stock at sea. Creating awareness of the global picture could make individuals stop buying those fish species. Clearly, if enough people do so, this will affect the market significantly.
Similarly, buying an ornamental fish for an aquarium is a potentially damaging action unless one is aware of where and how those fish are caught and what impact that has on the natural environment. The film made this extremely clear by exposing the use of cyanide in catching ornamental fish and the damage this does to coral reefs. Buying power is one of the most autonomous ways consumers have to change the way things are, and awareness is the first step to changing individual behaviour.
This is not to say that individuals will change and can be left entirely to make their own choices. Can and should they be forced? Legislation is not always very effective. Even though it is illegal, catching and selling many of the endangered fish species in SA continues and they are sold at restaurants and shops under different names. How this can be prevented with limited conservation officials to check up on fishermen and fish outlets, is difficult to say.
So what can we do collectively? The suggestion was made to paste the fish guide outside restaurants. This could perhaps be done by supportive restaurants and through customer awareness, used to pressure those restaurants who are buying illegal fish species. We can also tell our friends and ask them to tell their friends too.
We can lobby for marine protected areas. The film showed that marine protected areas have been successful in promoting the productivity of commercially fished species – to the benefit of the fishing industry too! We can also lend our support to groups actively working to expose illegal fishing and whaling like the WWF, Greenpeace, and the Sea Shepherd. Whether on the individual or the community level, we are forced to acknowledge that we are hard-pressed to remain passive once we know of the problems.
