Latest / Common Sense Health / The Secret Cost Of Your 'Healthy' Fish
Transcript
- Stephen Thomas BSc. Hons: Hello. There should be an image of a salmon fillet just here. And it does look healthy, doesn't it? I mean, it's rich in omega threes. It's packed with protein and it is one of the most popular dinners in the world. I really enjoy it. But what if I told you that the cheap salmon sitting in your supermarket aisle might actually have a link to environmental destruction or big corporations changing their names and also worst of all, the displacement of an endangered colony of penguins. Now. To understand how a fish on your plate connects to a penguin on an isolated South American island, we have to travel back to March 2012 to a place called, and here we go, Islot Econitios, which I think means Rabbit Island. Now this tiny islet in the Aisian or Aisian region of Chile was home to roughly 600 vulnerable Humboldt penguins. That was until a company called Samania mainstream arrived with heavy machinery and some empty sacks. Oh, by the way, this story has come to my attention as on my 62nd birthday, the present was an afternoon feeding pink penguins, penguins. And if I get my act together, there should be a video of those penguins. Anyway, in 2012, workers operating on behalf of Seminera mainstream landed on this protected sanctuary, but they didn't come for the fish. They came for the ground beneath the penguins feet. So they began legally extracting tons of natural gravel directly from the nesting beaches. Now, local conservationists and eyewitnesses photograph this operation, which is pretty lucky. The images were really clear. The workers shoveling up the ecosystem bag by bag, simply to use as cheap material for a nearby industrial salmon infrastructure. Now, the international outcry was swift. Organizations like Sea Shepherd broadcast the evidence globally. Under intense local pressure and overwhelming photographic proof, Salmoneira mainstream admitted to the theft and was fined by the Chilean Port Authority. But for the penguins, that legal victory came too late. The heavy machinery, the structural destruction and the aggressive human presence completely ruined the fragile habitat. So 600 penguins abandoned their ancestral. nesting grounds, they lost their homes for the sake of a corporate balance sheet. Very sad, isn't it? Now, to understand why stealing gravel from a penguin colony is an ecological crime, we need to look at the science of guano, which is the polite scientific word for bird poo. In a balanced coastal ecosystem, gravel isn't just dead rock and bird droppings aren't just the waste. They are the engine of life. Sea bird guano is incredibly rich in two vital chemical elements, phosphorus and nitrogen. So phosphorus is essential for cellular energy transfer and the formation of DNA in all living organisms. And nitrogen is the primary building block for amino acids and proteins. It also drives plant growth. Now, when penguins nest on gravel for generations, their guano binds with the porous stones. And then when it rains, this concentrated nutrient rich mixture gently leaches back into the surrounding shallow waters. And this triggers a process called nutrient cycling. Now the phosphorus and nitrogen fertilize marine phytoplankton. You know, the microscopic plants at the very bottom of the ocean food web. So more phytoplankton means more small fish, which means more food for the carnivorous animals in the area. which includes the penguins, whales, seals, and ironically some salmon. ⁓ stealing this specific nutrient soaked gravel, the company didn't just take rocks, they ripped out this biochemical battery powering this entire local marine food web. So I just want to get into why I said about the rebranding and the legal issues. Now, if you look up Salmonella mainstream today, you won't find them. but they didn't go out of business. just changed their clothes. Basically the company transitioned into CIRMAC, which was subsequently then purchased by the global Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi. Now today CIRMAC is one of the top three largest salmon farming entities on the planet, but a new name didn't completely erase all those old habits. The company's recent legal history shows a continuous battle with environmental watchdogs. just recently Chile's environmental superintendent filed major charges against CIRMAC for severe overproduction beyond legal limits in the fragile area of Los Lagos. Now before that Chilean courts officially declared that they were a repeat offender for failing to report critical veterinary antibiotic treatments and ⁓ they didn't do it. to the government and didn't do it within legal timeframes either. And the Supreme Court of Chile upheld heavy financial penalties against them for failing to maintain baseline sanitary conditions at their ocean pens, risking biological contamination of the sea and their legal battles have even reached Europe, where the European Commission launched an antitrust investigation into CIRMAC and other Norwegian giants for alleged cartel-like price-fixing. How do you fit into this story? How do I fit into it? Well, this brings us back to standing in that supermarket aisle in London or Manchester or Edinburgh or wherever you are. I you can ask yourself, does this fish come from CIRMAC? Well, supermarkets really print the name of the farming corporation on the front of the packet. Instead, they hide it behind pleasant private labels. But we know from massive UK antitrust lawsuits filed by retailers such as Tesco, Asda and Morrison's and CIRMAC. have been a core long-standing supplier of Atlantic salmon entering the UK market. So if you're buying farmed salmon from Norway or Canada or Chile, there is a massive chance your money is flowing directly back to Sir Max infrastructure. So how do you vote with your wallet? It's simpler than you think, actually. Just check the origin. If the label says farmed in Norway, Canada or Chile, just put the item back. Instead, go for wild caught. Look for labels that explicitly say wild Alaskan sockeye or wild pink salmon. Brands like Leap or Fish Tales offer these across the UK. Now wild salmon can't be confined to corporate ocean pens, meaning zero ties to CIRMAC. Just choose organic British if you can, like I say wild caught. And if you must buy farmed, look for certified organic Scottish salmon. CIRMAC does not operate ocean pens in Scotland, meaning your money stays within a local area, but it's much more heavily scrutinized. Now, I'm not a fan actually of any farm salmon, by the way. I do understand budget restraints. I just don't trust this process and it does collateral damage to the birds and other marine life outside of the farms as well. So this is where we have some power from this information. Every time we buy groceries, we are casting a vote for the kind of world we want to live in. We can choose to fund a system that has a history of displacing endangered wildlife for gravel, overproducing fish in crowded pens and hiding behind corporate rebrands. Or we can take 30 seconds to read the back of a label, choose truly wild, sustainable seafood and protect the environments that creatures like the Humboldt penguin call home. The choice is entirely in your hands. So anyway, thanks for watching and do stay informed. Now, if you liked this and you want to be part of a community of like minded people, well, you could consider joining my common sense group online. There is a link in the description or you could scan the QR code, which has been on display throughout the whole of the video. I thank you very much for listening and I look forward to seeing you on the next one. I just thought it would be nice today to do something slightly different, maybe a little bit political for some people, but. It is always good to look at who's producing your food, you're getting it from, and if you can make the right choices or better choices, I think that's one of the things that we could all embrace together. Anyway, thank you for watching. See you on the next one.