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Are We Paying to Damage the Ocean? · How To Protect The Ocean

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  What if one of the most common fishing methods costs
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  more than it actually makes?
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  That's what we're gonna talk about on today's episode, because this is
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  the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, where we talk about the good, the
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  bad, and the ugly in this situation of what's happening in the ocean.
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  If you wanna find out more and you wanna learn more about the ocean and
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  you wanna hear this podcast talk about it five days a week, you can follow.
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  Hit that follow button on your favorite podcast app so you
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  don't miss next week's episodes.
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  Monday to Friday, we're gonna have an interview on Friday, four solo episodes
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  to prepare you for that interview.
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  It's a full themed week.
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  I can't wait to introduce that to you, that theme next week.
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  So stay tuned for Monday, but hit that follow button to listen
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  to more of these episodes.
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  It's kind of interesting 'cause the question for today is, are we funding
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  an industry that is damaging the ocean more than it actually benefits us?
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  And I think sometimes you look at the idea of fishing.
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  A lot of times when you see fishing, it's usually one or
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  two people go out on a boat.
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  They take fishing nets, or they'll take a rod and reel, and they'll just kind of
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  pull and reel, and they'll just kinda put their fishing line in, and they take
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  the fish out and they put it in a bucket.
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  And they just continue to do that until their bucket's full or the boat's full,
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  and then they go in and they sell it, and they can feed their families and so forth.
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  But then when you start to think about the industrial fishing fleet,
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  that's where it gets dangerous and a little kinda nasty and destructive.
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  And when you start to see the damage some of these tools that are used to
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  fish can cause, and they're not used in the proper way, or they're overused,
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  they can really cause a lot of damage.
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  And that's what we're gonna be talking about today, 'cause we're
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  gonna be talking about a recent study that was covered on the site that I
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  love the most this week, phys.org.
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  It examined bottom trawling in Europe.
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  And you've probably saw a lot about bottom trawling in the movie Oceans, that
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  was narrated by Sir David Attenborough, and it was released last year.
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  In advancement of the Nice Conference of the Ocean Decade, they talked about
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  this fishing method where heavy nets are used to drag across the sea floor.
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  And what it is, it's basically two doors, a lot of the times with a
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  chain that goes along the bottom, and there's a net that goes behind that.
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  And it's attached to a boat.
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  And that boat releases the net, and it goes underwater, and it
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  usually drags along the bottom.
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  They have some that are in the water column, but mostly
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  it's, drags along the bottom.
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  And that net will go across, and that chain and the doors
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  will go across the ocean floor.
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  And it'll just destroy everything in its path.
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  It'll go for a couple of kilometers, and it'll pick up the net.
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  It'll take the net and just open it on the deck.
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  And then the fishermen go through and they say, "I wanna keep this fish. I'm not
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  gonna keep this fish. I'm gonna throw it overboard." And there's all this stuff.
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  There's a lot of bycatch, meaning there are fish that are
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  not targeted that are caught.
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  Other seafood like invertebrates and stuff like that, if they're
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  targeting fish that are not the target species that are caught.
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  There are certain net sizes, mesh sizes that allow certain species to go through
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  and not allow other species to go through.
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  There are sea turtle exclusion devices which allow sea turtles to
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  get out of the nest so they don't get stuck, they don't get caught.
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  But you've seen a lot of videos where you've seen great white sharks that
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  are caught in the net, whale sharks that are caught in the net, manta
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  rays that are caught in the net, other sharks that are caught that are not
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  the target species that could die, dolphins, some small whales, pilot
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  whales and so forth that have been caught.
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  The nets can be various lengths and sizes that can catch a
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  certain amount of species.
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  Some of those, like, high seas trawlers are massive, and their
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  nets are just gigantic, and they catch so much, so much seafood.
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  And not all of it is the target species.
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  Many of it is not the target species.
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  And so we're gonna be talking about that fishing method
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  today, because it's important.
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  Because a study found that while the industry generates profit, the
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  total societal cost is far higher.
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  And in some cases, up to 90 times higher.
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  We're gonna talk about what that actually means, because a lot
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  of times we're hearing trawlers, "Well, the fish it brings in, it
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  probably makes a profit out of it."
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  But what else do we have to consider when we are talking about trawling, when
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  we're talking about this fishing method?
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  Because most of that cost that is 90 times higher comes from carbon.
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  Yes, carbon.
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  We talked about carbon earlier this week, about how there are certain
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  environments that will store carbon better than environments on land.
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  And we know that these areas can store, like, up to four to 10 times
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  of the carbon that trees on land can.
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  And so the sea floor that stores large amounts of this
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  carbon is really important.
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  But of course, trawling disturbs that.
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  It just kinda scrapes all those animals out, and it destroys the bottom, like
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  the first layer of that bottom part of the ocean, that will release all
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  of that carbon back into the system.
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  And that's where we start to see where, all, like, the mitigation and everything
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  that's done and all these productive habitats, 'cause, habitat really ends
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  up protecting the ocean, protecting the fish that are in the ocean, the
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  crabs, the lobsters, the invertebrates.
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  That habitat provides a home.
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  It's like a home.
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  So imagine a tornado comes across and just destroys your home.
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  And your home is gone.
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  You gotta rebuild that home.
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  But it's expensive to rebuild that home, and not everybody's gonna
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  be able to rebuild that home.
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  Well, the same thing is happening in the ocean, but even faster and more.
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  And even in marine protected areas, like the UK just until recently allowed, I
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  believe it's still until recently, I have to look up that, but they allowed
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  trawling in their marine protected areas.
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  Well, how can you protect fisheries if you're gonna allow trawling
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  in marine protected areas?
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  That's the whole point a lotta times of marine protected areas to do that,
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  and we're not seeing that happen.
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  So carbon gets released.
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  Now, there's also another layer, the public subsidies
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  that support the industry.
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  So, society ends up paying for it twice.
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  So taxpayer dollars goes to subsidize the industry so that these fishers and
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  fishing industry can actually make money.
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  Once through the funding, and again in the environmental damage, we're looking
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  at a lot of costs to society and it outweighs the cost by 90 times, the cost
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  of the profit that's made from these.
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  So at what point do we allow these subsidies to continue and the
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  damage to the environment continue?
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  You wanna support the local community, but is trawling the way?
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  And is trawling in certain areas only the way, where we allow small areas
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  where trawling can happen, and hopefully restoration can happen within that area.
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  Or it's not the same areas all over and over again.
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  Now, there are clear options.
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  Like I said, we can restrict trawling in certain areas, in the marine protected
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  areas and other sensitive areas.
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  But we should also reevaluate subsidies.
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  Now, I've covered an episode or two on subsidies, and the World
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  Bank has this new subsidy document that's out and policy that's out.
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  And that's, when we can start to look at reevaluating subsidies and taking action
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  on it and aligning policies with real costs, now we can really start to make
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  a difference and really start to reduce those extra costs on the environment.
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  So when you get a fish next time, you're getting seafood, and you know
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  it's been caught by something that's been trawled, you now know the cost.
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  It's not just you're paying for the fish, but the societal cost, the world cost of
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  releasing all that carbon, destroying that habitat, and subsidizing with your money.
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  I'm not saying don't eat seafood, but maybe eat seafood from another method.
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  Cause right now the system is misaligned, and we need to fix it.
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  And until we fix it, it's always gonna be misaligned, obviously.
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  I think I just reaffirmed myself.
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  But anyway, regardless, it's something that's really important
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  'cause it's not just overfishing.
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  It's a system where we pay to make the ocean worse.
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  Think about that.
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  We're actually hitting it 90 times worse than what we left it just for fish.
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  I'm not saying seafood altogether is bad.
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  What I'm saying is trawling may not be the way we're doing it, and the way we manage
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  it right now is definitely not the way to do it, and it's making the ocean worse.
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  So I would love to hear your comments on this.
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  I would love to hear what you have to say, because this is the
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  beginning of a conversation.
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  I started this podcast 11 years ago to continue that conversation to
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  happen, and just to introduce you to all these different things that are
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  happening in the ocean, and I would love to hear your thoughts on trawling
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  and what we should do about it.
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  If you wanna hit me up on my socials, just go in the show notes of your favorite
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  podcast app that you're listening on this, listening to this podcast episode on.
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  And of course, if you wanna give me feedback, you can do that at
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  speakupforblue.com/feedback, all one word.
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  speakupforblue.com/feedback.
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  Leave me a voicemail, or you can put some text in and/or type in your answer or
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  comment or question or whatever that might be, critique, whatever that might be, and
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  I would love to hear from you on that.
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  And of course, if you want to get an email every day, five days a week,
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  you can do so by signing up to my newsletter, speakupforblue.com/newsletter.
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  I wanna thank you so much for joining me this week on these
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  podcast episodes each and every day.
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  It's so much fun to be able to do this.
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  I'm looking forward to next week, getting back into the regular theme.
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  I'll let you know what that is on Monday.
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  And, yeah, I can't wait to hear from you, and I can't wait for you to hit that
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  follow button, and share this episode with somebody you think will benefit from it.
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  So thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How
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  to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin.
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  We'll talk to you next time.
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  Have a great weekend, and happy conservation.