Tag Archive for 'charles clover'
The Spanish version of The End of the Line, the first major feature documentary film revealing the impact of overfishing on our oceans, was launched by MarViva Foundation, Oceana Europe and renowned singer Miguel Bose in Madrid on 3rd February.
MarViva Founder and President, Erica Knie, speaks during the press conference presenting The End of the Line in Madrid, Spain. (From left to right), Knie, Oceana Europe Director Xavier Pastor, and artist Miguel Bose
The film examines the imminent extinction of bluefin tuna, brought on by increasing western demand for sushi; the impact on marine life resulting in huge overpopulation of jellyfish; and the profound implications of a future world with no fish.
Bose is the narrator in the Spanish version of the documentary, directed by Rupert Murray and based on investigative journalist Charles Clover’s book of the same name.
During the presentation, MarViva and Oceana released a statement signed by a group of environmental organisations and international figures urging Spain to support the ban on the international trade of bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) at the next Conference of the Parties of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) that will be held in Doha (Qatar) in March.
Representatives of Greenpeace, Ecologistas en Acción, Pew Foundation and the government of the Balearic Islands, and Roberto Mielgo (the former tuna farmer turned whistleblower who is a protagonist of the film) were present to support the statement.
They highlighted the critical situation that the species is undergoing in the North Atlantic and the need for immediate action to ensure its future. Decades of overfishing, illegal fishing and management dominated by industry interests, have decimated the bluefin tuna spawning stock to levels below 15 per cent of the existing population before industrial fishing.
Negotiations are currently taking place in the heart of the EU for a common stance for the CITES meeting, which will be a determining factor for this species’ future. The European Parliament’s Environment Committee, in a resolution within the process framework, has already urged Member States to support Monaco’s proposal for a ban on international trade.
The signatories consider that Spain has the responsibility of acting to preserve bluefin tuna, and they urge the Spanish government to immediately adopt and promote the following measures:
Support for the inclusion of bluefin tuna in Appendix I of CITES
Bluefin tuna is disappearing. The decades of management by the Contracting Parties to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), which include the EU, have been called an “international disgrace” [Report of the Independent Performance Review of ICCAT, 2008].
The parties have shown themselves to be incapable of adopting the necessary measures such as quotas in accordance with scientists’ advice or the closure of the fishery during the spawning period. CITES is currently the sole valid alternative to guarantee the future of this species.
On the other hand, the socio-economic considerations do not make sense in this context. The EU Member States must guarantee the fishing industry’s long-term viability. The administration’s current position only constitutes a guarantee that bluefin tuna fishing will cease to exist in the near future.
Spain, which currently holds the EU presidency and has the highest quota percentage among Member States, therefore has the responsibility of supporting this measure.
Creation of marine reserves in bluefin tuna spawning areas
The protection of bluefin tuna spawning areas in the Mediterranean through the creation of marine reserves is a necessary step to protect this species, starting with the area located to the south of the Balearic Islands where there is already sufficient scientific information that upholds the immediate need for protection.
The signatories include:
Organisations:
1. Palma Aquarium
2. PEW Foundation
3. Slow Food Spain
4. Slow Food Illes Balears
5. Greenpeace España
6. Avina
7. Ecologistas en Acción
8. WWF
9. Grup Balear de Ornitología (GOB) Mallorca
10. Grup Balear de Ornitología (GOB) Menorca
11. Grup Balear de Ornitología (GOB) Eivissa
12. Instituto Internacional de Derecho y Medio Ambiente (IIDMA)
13. Amics de la Terra Balears
14. Amigos de la Tierra Spain
15. Centro de Estudios Rurales y de Agricultura Internacional (CERAI)
International Public figures:
1. Kofi Annan, former secretary general, United Nations
2. Javier Solana, former High Representative of the European Union for the Common
Foreign and Security Policy
3. Michael Douglas, actor
4. José María Figueres, former President of Costa Rica
5. Sybilla, designer
6. Ted Danson, actor
7. Elle MacPherson, model
8. Basilio Baltasar, Director, Fundación Santillana
9. Dr. Enric Sala, investigative scientist of Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) y Ocean Fellow, National Geographic Society
10. Diego Hidalgo, President, Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior (FRIDE)
11. Jordi Bigas, journalist
12. Diego Azqueta, Honorary President, WATU Acción Indígena
13. Sean Cleary, CEO, Strategic Concepts
14. Colin and Livia Firth, actors
15. Jordi Bigas, environmental journalist
16. Víctor Viñuales, Director, Ecología y Desarrollo
17. Pedro Barbadillo, director
18. Rupert Murray, director, The End of the Line
19. George Duffield, producer, The End of the Line
20. Charles Clover, investigative journalist, author of The End of the Line
21. Valeria Golino, actress
22. Baron Eric De Rothschild, banker
23. Greta Scacchi, actress
24. Stephen Fry, actor
25. Dr. Carles Amengual i Vicens, Education Secretary, Liga Médico Homeopática Internacional
26. Yannick y Ben Jakober, artists
27. Irene Peukes, designer
28. Sandy Hemingway, President, Amigos de la Tierra Spain
29. Liliane Spendeler, Director, Áreas Ambientales, Amigos de la Tierra Spain
30. Yolanda Kakabadse, former President, IUCN, and Senior Advisor, Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano
31. Prof. Jacques Marcovitch, former President, Universidad de Sao Paulo
32. Jaume Tapies, chef and President, Relais & Chateaux
33. Musaed Al Saleh, Council member, Earth Council Geneva (ECG)
34. Jacques Perrin, director and producer
35. Tom Aikens, chef
36. Sophie Andrieu, author
37. Joanna Lumley, actress
38. Charles Dance, actor
39. Fiona Shaw, actress
40. Zac Goldsmith, environmental journalist
41. Damian Aspinall, entrepreneur
42. Ben Elliot, entrepreneur
43. Ben and Kate Goldsmith, entrepreneur and envionromentalists
44. Laura Bailey, actress
45. Alan Rickman, actor and director
46. Prince Urbano Barberini, actor
47. Richard E Grant, actor
48. Sophie Dahl, writer and model
49. Emilia Fox, actress
50. Amber Valletta, actress and model
Bluefin tuna - sometimes you just can’t believe how absurd the story gets.
Raul Romeva i Rueda and Charles Clover at ICCAT
News from WWF and a Green MEP show that over an eight-year period the EU bluefin tuna fishing industry received subsidies totalling €34.5m.
Yes folks, your tax helped fund the overfishing of a species now teetering on the very brink of extinction. A species that 21 out of 27 EU countries now think should be subject to an international trade ban.
Raül Romeva i Rueda, a Spanish Green MEP, received answers to parliamentary questions revealing the extent of subsidies which took place between 2000 and 2008.
Of the €34.5m total, some €33.5m was for the construction and modernisation of fishing vessels, and only a tiny proportion (€1m) for decommissioning boats.
These revelations come as the EU Commission and member states have to start readdressing their own thoughts on Atlantic bluefin. Last month’s ICCAT meeting in Brazil failed to close the fishery, and saw EU negotiators (led by France and Spain) pushing for the highest possible quotas.
This in itself was hypocrisy after three-quarters of EU member states had voted to support an international ban on the species - showing just how disproportionately powerful the lobby of the Mediterranean fishing nations is.
These new revelations make the whole EU bluefin story even more difficult to swallow, since the already lucrative trade in bluefin (which has escalated despite scientific warnings) has been made even more profitable with taxpayers’ money. And it’s not even as if the subsidies were targeted at supporting traditional or lower-impact methods of fishing - they also applied to the massive purse-seiners.
The beneficiaries of the money were Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta and Spain. In an amazing coincidence the six EU member states which blocked support for an international trade ban were Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta and Spain.
It really makes you wonder what the 21 other EU countries are getting out of this arrangement… and what exactly they will do next? The EU must come up with an agreed common position before the CITES meeting in March 2010.
Many countries like the UK have already publicly supported a full trade ban. This new illustration of just
how the countries blocking effective measures to protect this species are being subsidised to trash the species can surely only strengthen the case for such a ban.
The End of the Line was shown in remarkable circumstances this week – in the official convention hall of a hotel near Recife, Brazil, where the world’s oldest whole-ocean fisheries management organisation was meeting to set controversial catch limits for the Atlantic’s dwindling populations of tuna, swordfish and sharks.
The End of the Line is shown at the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas meeting in Brazil
It took a certain amount of persuasion. It needed the crucial backing of the Brazilian chairman of the meeting, Prof Fabio Hazin (the curiosity of these meetings is that the chairmen are usually enlightened while the contracting parties from the fishing nations, which include Libya, are anything but).
It also needed a mysterious process of agreement from heads of delegations sitting in closed session.
The chief scientist, Dr Gerald P Scott, an American, was consulted, and pronounced in a neutral kind of way that the idea of showing a film, after and outside the official business of the day, was something that had been done before - though quite when nobody could remember - and might provide an opportunity some delegates might not otherwise get to see it. The film was duly shown in the convention centre, on official equipment.
Was this a sign that the dysfunctional International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas – often known to its critics as the International Conspiracy for Catching All The Tuna – was at last beginning to listen to voices outside the fishing industry, such as the citizens who actually pay them to manage the sea? No one could say for sure.
About 40 people postponed their need for a beer or managed to slip out of meetings to see the film. Some of these, inevitably, were the already converted: conservationists who were seeing the film as an act of solidarity with its message.
Two Asian delegations stood around talking before filing out. But here and there, as you looked around, were some senior delegation folk sitting in small groups including, significantly, most of the Spanish delegation. At the end, there was applause.
We were approached the next night by the secretariat requesting a second screening for delegations, principally Mexico, that had missed the screening we had organised because of meetings. So we were back by popular demand.
Could the message be getting out that our seas are a mess and ICCAT has failed for 40 years to tackle the problem of the depleting Atlantic ocean?
Whether or not this was a sign of changing times, for once this week the message got through.
Ends
Charles Clover, author of The End of the Line, appearing on Channel 4 News on the likelihood of a ban on bluefin tuna fishing.
A last-ditch campaign to save the bluefin tuna is fast gathering support in Britain and will soon become a political and environmental issue in Australia where the species is being fished with indiscriminate abandon for super profits.
London’s celebrity chefs are taking the endangered fish off their menus and Waitrose supermarket has banned its sale. Fishmongers and restaurateurs throughout the country are being assailed - or so we read - by customers asking, “Do you source your fish sustainably?”
Bluefin tuna is on the brink of extinction through overfishing, and the issue is now so critical that both Britain and France are supporting a resolution by Monaco to ban fishing of the species when the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) meets in Doha in October.
Japan, where a single fish can command more than $120,000, is expected to oppose the move. Let’s see what that gallant protector of the whale, Peter Garrett, decides to do.
The issue of overfishing has come to the fore in the past month thanks to the release of the critically acclaimed documentary The End of the Line, based on the award-winning book by London Daily Telegraph journalist Charles Clover. “Everybody knows there’s no fish left in the sea,” says Clover. “They probably caught them while we were filming it.”
Mature spawners are fished out in UK waters, and are fast disappearing in the Mediterranean, where bluefin are still being landed at a rate of at least 60,000 tonnes a year - three times the legal limit, with organised crime with Mafia links said to be involved.
Public concern has led to a significant shift in policy in Britain and France. Although France has Europe’s biggest bluefin fishing fleet, President Nicholas Sarkozy last month spoke out for the need to protect fishing stocks. “Ours is the last generation with the ability to take action before it’s too late,” he said.
British fisheries minister Huw Irranca-Davies followed suit, saying he will lobby the United States and other countries to support the ban on sales of bluefin.
The End of the Line, which premiered to critical acclaim at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, documents not only the bluefin issue but such cases of overfishing as the catastrophe of Newfoundland, home to the world’s most abundant supply of cod, which has been decimated since the early 1990s.
The film also shows how African coastal people, long dependent on fish, are losing their food supply to big commercial fisheries. And it demonstrates that fish farming, with its need for massive supplies of fish food, is no solution to the problem.
Scientists interviewed in the documentary predict that if fishing continues unchecked, the population of the oceans will be wiped out by 2048.
The End of the Line is an independent film made with the support of organisations including WWF, the Marine Conservation Society, Channel 4’s Britdoc Foundation and charitable foundations, and backed nationally by Waitrose.
It initiated a citizens’ campaign to change fish sales practices through consumer action. Jamie Oliver didn’t take tuna off his menus until clients started raising the issue. Japanese chain Nobu attracted spirited protests when it refused to stop serving tuna sushi in its London outlets.
The film-makers themselves are leading the campaign. Producer Claire Lewis, who says working on the project changed her life, doesn’t eat anywhere without first asking: “Can you tell me where your fish comes from?”
Author Charles Clover has been campaigning on the issue for five years now. “We must stop thinking of our oceans as a food factory,” he says, “and realise that they thrive as a huge and complex marine environment.
“We must act now to protect the sea from rampant overfishing so that there will be fish in the sea for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.”
This documentary, which has the hard-hitting quality of Michael Moore’s movies, deserves to be released in Australia but no distributor has yet stepped forward.
In the past week Los Angeles blog Curbed LA has been pondering the question we set about our set of images taken on the streets of LA. Adrian Glick Kudler wanted to know what the connection between them was. You can find out here.
About.com ran an extensive preview of The End of the Line by Jennifer Merin. She writes that the documentary is “a beautifully shot film that alerts audiences to the devastating impact overfishing has on our oceans.”
Tiny Choices, a blog about the little decisions that people have to make everyday, gave away tickets for the beach screening of the film on Governors Island in New York.
The Star Tribune, Minnesota, reviewed the film. Colin Covert writes: “Some marine populations ‘are no longer renewable because of what we have done to them,’ cautions London Daily Telegraph correspondent Charles Clover, whose work inspired this fact-packed film. With commendable clarity, it lays out the data.”
More on the song Coma by Kevin Heard and Thinbuckle. It turns out that none other than Lou Reed played guitar and sang backing vocals on the track. You can find further details on the Brooklyn Vegan blog.
Nicholas Lander, in a feature for the Financial Times, looked into the supply of fish to restaurants. He sent a menu from Oliveto restaurant in Oakland, California, to Charles Clover for comment, who said that “it was ‘a menu from the future, information-wise; [but it's a] shame about the halibut and swordfish’.”
MPR News in Minnesota, also reviews the film. Euan Kerr says: “The End of the Line, Rupert Murray’s troubling documentary about the impact of overfishing, explores the subject at great length . . . . It’s a thought-provoking film.”
Minnesota entertainment site City Pages draws together a brief summary of local coverage for The End of the Line, mentioning the 76% positive rating from Rotten Tomatoes.
Finally this week, the LA Times says it has had enough of ‘The world is horrible’ docs.
“Don’t get us wrong, we love that movies like the dolphin-slaying expose “The Cove” and the alarming over-fishing tale “The End of the Line” are being made - they’re a vital social service. But we’re overwhelmed. Keep making the films; but for now can we just change our behavior without seeing them? We’ll catch up with all these films later, but we’re sad enough already.”
Missing the point a little?
While reviewing the coverage that The End of the Line has received over the past months we came across a number of articles and stories that we hadn’t included in our weekly news round-ups.
To put this right, we have pulled together all the articles that slipped through the net, below.
You can see what the media and the blogosphere have had to say about The End of the Line on our new Media Coverage page.
Back in May Endangered New Jersey blog carried a preview of the film. It said: “The film aims to be more than just a doomsday warning. It offers real, practical solutions that are simple and do-able.”
Total Film reviewed the movie, giving it 3 stars. Jamie Russell said: “[Rupert] Murray, working from Brit journo Charles Clover’s book, accentuates the positive with a closing ‘get involved’ sermon about our eating habits.”
Writing in The Independent in an article on bluefin tuna entitled ‘This is the blue whale of our time‘, Charles Clover said: “The collapse of the bluefin now being predicted is a crisis of Atlantic proportions.”
Also in The Independent Martin Hickman reported on Mitsubishi’s efforts to stockpile bluefin tuna.
The Gazette, a regional paper covering Colchester in Essex, focused on the need for change in fishing legislation.
While an article in The Japan Times showed the reach that the film has had. William Hollingsworth highlighted the contradictions in Nobu’s bluefin tuna policy.
One that we should not have missed was Nobu -no brainer, by our very own Willie MacKenzie of Greenpeace UK, who has been doing tremendous work for The End of the Line.
Caterer Search reported on the efforts by restaurant owner Tom Aikins, who teamed up with the campaign, to change the way professional chefs think about seafood.
He said: “All chefs need to understand where their fish comes from, help with traceability of any fish products, make sure they are not serving endangered species”
The New York Post focused on the storm caused by the film about Nobu, especially the response of celebrities such as Kate Goldsmith and Sienna Miller.
The RSPB, understandably, concentrated on the damage that longline fishing does to seabirds, in its preview of the film.
The Daily Mail covered the move by Pret a Manger to stop using unsustainable tuna.
As did The Sunday Times.
The Hampshire Chronicle carried a lengthy preview of the film, featuring quotes from The End of the Line producer Claire Lewis. She said: “I read Charles Clover’s book and it changed my view of the ocean overnight. I rang him and the rest is history.”
On World Ocean’s Day, the Telegraph ran a preview of the film. As did The Guardian, who also focused on Pret a Manger’s move away from unsustainable seafood.
Greenpeace’s Willie Mackenzie continued to publicise the film, outlining the campaign’s activities in the run up to World Ocean’s Day.
Birdlife International said of the release of the film: “Today, on World Oceans Day, a powerful new film - The End of the Line - highlights the problems of over-fishing.”
In The Times, Ocean’s Correspondent Frank Pope, wrote: “Explanations do not get much more powerful than the film The End of the Line, which looks at the effect of overfishing, and which is being shown today, World Oceans Day, at cinemas nationwide.”
Environment news site Ecorazzi focused their attention on the celebrity response to Nobu’s decision to keep bluefin tuna on the menu.
The celebrity party after the 8th June screenings featured in the London Evening Standard.
Sam Leith, writing in the London Evening Standard, hailed Charles Clover as a ‘hero’. However, it is because of Sam’s love of eating tuna that he is concerned about it’s possible extinction.
The BBC explored a number of the issues that are raised in the film, especially the threat to bluefin tuna. Stephen Dowling quotes Charles Clover as saying: “Bluefin tuna has become the poster boy for the overfishing campaign. It’s on the buffers - it’s really on the slide down now.”
Daniel Kessler of Greenpeace, writing in the Huffington Post, praised the film: “Nobu’s arrogant denial of the reality of our mutual challenge - the continual decline of the health of our oceans - is a serious problem.”
He went on to say: “Greenpeace has already “outed” Nobu on their unsustainable practices (this interaction is featured in the forthcoming documentary The End of the Line, based on the excellent book by Charles Clover).”
Another Greenpeace blogger, Adele, was also very impressed, saying: “I was at the [UK] premiere screening of the film (a documentary based on the book by journalist Charles Clover) here in London, and boy, it took me back. It was like Defending Our Oceans: The Movie.”
Financial news organisation Bloomberg concentrated on the Pret a Manger’s assertion that prices will not go up after their move to sustainable tuna.
Writing in Newsweek, Daniel Stone said: “At current capacity, the world’s fishing fleet could catch four times more fish each year than are actually alive in the oceans.
“This sad fact is the central point of a new documentary released today, End of The Line, an astute, powerful and discomforting look at what we’ve done to the world’s oceans.”
Sylvia Patterson, writing in the Sunday Herald, said that for her, “a world without fish is a world where there’s nowt for tea.”
“The End of the Line has arrived all round, as the just-released film globally acknowledged to be the Inconvenient Truth of the oceans thunders home its staggering facts about ‘the greatest environmental disaster that no-one’s heard of’.”
The London Paper reported on the reasons behind Pret a Manager’s change in tuna sourcing policy: “Metcalfe changed the store’s policy on tuna after seeing The End of the Line, the shocking documentary on the global fishing business.
“He saw the film five months ago and was so disturbed, he arranged a private viewing for 40 of the company’s senior managers at a private cinema in London four days later. ‘I felt I had a responsibility,’ he says. ‘Knowledge is power’.”
The Big Issue in Scotland reported the angry reaction to the film from Scottish fishermen, who said it was “excessively gloomy and over-simplistic”.
Slightly later than usual, here is the latest coverage and reviews relating to The End of the Line film and our campaign to protect the world’s oceans.
Another busy week has seen more reviews, features and support from media in the US, Canada and Britain.
First mention must go to the review of The End of the Line by respected film critic Roger Ebert, in the Chicago Sun Times.
He gave the film 3/4 stars, saying: “The End of the Line, directed by Rupert Murray, based on a book by Charles Clover, is constructed from interviews with many experts, a good deal of historical footage, and much incredible footage from under the sea, including breathtaking vistas of sea preserves.” Continue reading ‘The End of the Line reviews and coverage’
News of The End of the Line is spreading far and wide.
Dutchmen Jos Wassink and Koos Termorshuizen are currently on a three-month cycling tour around the North Sea.
They stopped off in Dedham, Essex, to see Charles Clover on their way through England and wrote about it on their website Northseacycling. You can read their interview - Inconvenient Truth of fisheries - on the site.
All of this week’s coverage of The End of the Line comes from the United States and Canada - apart from one mention in The London Standard.
Charles Clover is interviewed about the film by Katherine Monk in Canada’s National Post. He tells her: “You people in Canada have already seen what happens to communities and the ecosystem when you fish out a given species.
“The reality of overfishing became obvious with the collapse of the northern cod stocks in Newfoundland. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans screwed up.
“They thought their job was taking care of the fishery, and not the fish. You have to take care of the fish first, because without the fish to catch, there is nothing for the people - and this was a bit of a revelation.” Continue reading ‘Canadian media dominates this week’s coverage of The End of the Line’
The official cinema release of The End of the Line has led to further coverage of the film. Here we round up the latest reviews.
The Observer review of The End of the Line
Next time someone tells you there are plenty more fish in the sea, refer them to this alarming documentary. Jason Solomons, 14 June 2009.
The Telegraph review of The End of the Line
This new documentary starring former Telegraph environment editor Charles Clover is a powerful and troubling indictment of global fishing policies. 4/5 stars, Sukhdev Sandhu, 11 June 2009.
The Guardian review of The End of the Line
Doing something about [overfishing] means politicians imposing catch-limits or complete bans, and the consumer turning away from wastefully farmed fish and demanding sustainable stocks. Murray’s film is clear-sighted about the tough choices involved. 4/5 stars, Peter Bradshaw, 12 June 2009.
The Times review of The End of the Line
Rupert Murray’s forceful documentary The End of the Line should do for our oceans what An Inconvenient Truth did for climate change - that is, stamp the issue into the public consciousness and shame governments around the world into at least talking about doing something. 4/5 stars, Wendy Ide, 11 June 2009. Continue reading ‘The End of the Line film reviews’
This week saw lots of coverage of Nobu’s decision to leave bluefin tuna on their menus, but to include a suggestion that diners choose a sustainable alternative.
The story featured on The Guardian’s Word of Mouth blog, where Jay Rainer labelled it “indefensible idiocy”.
The Telegraph, The Independent, The Daily Mail and This is London carried the story with all mentioning Charles Clover’s book and the film.
This is London followed up their coverage with an opinion piece by Charles Clover, where he said: “[Nobu] is participating in the extermination of a species.
“And when his celeb clientele finally understand that this is wrong, they will turn their backs on his restaurants, never to return.”
Coverage of The End of the Line increased with two articles appearing on The Telegraph. It ran a story on Ted Danson’s endorsement of the film and a review, with both including video clips.
Continue reading ‘Nobu leave bluefin tuna on menu, but add warning’
The End of the Line has been cropping up on blogs and news sites, and is receiving some very positive feedback.
Recent comments on the film and the campaign have appeared on the Washington Post, California Chronicle, Spear’s WMS (Wealth Management Survey) and Whole Food Market’s blog. Here is a round-up of the coverage the film is receiving.
Charles Clover answers questions about the film and it’s message for the Washington Post’s All We Can Eat food blog.
Asked whether it is too late to save the oceans, he replies: “No. But part of the problem is that people still believe we live in a world of plenty. The world of plenty in terms of fish disappeared in 1988, and we haven’t caught up with that fact yet.”
He goes on to deal with the issue of farming carniverous fish: “It takes five pounds of little fish to grow one pound of salmon. And actually those fish, like Peruvian anchoveta and blue whiting, eat very nicely. So why don’t we eat the little fish?”
In an opinion piece for Spear’s WMS, William Sitwell, Editor of Waitrose Food Illustrated, writes: “While those in the food world and others who know and care about the plight of depleting fish stocks have been talking about this for ages, sometimes you need to get something onto the telly to get people to pay attention.”
Whole Story, the Whole Foods Market blog, has a review by Carrie Brownstein, which has generated some debate amongst readers. She says: The film begins with beautiful footage of marine life and quickly (and graphically) moves toward its key message: The oceans are overfished and fish populations are in trouble.”
John Mitchell, writing in the California Chronicle, considers the the social implications of the need to curb overfishing:
“One of the most fascinating passages of the film . . . takes a look at the coast of Africa, which is being overfished by foreign - specifically European - boats. This has decimated not only the sea but also the livelihood of local fishermen, who now have nothing to catch.
“Colonialism is dead officially, but its ghost continues forward in the form of sucking up resources - the fish depletion is a direct contributor to the current pirate problem that’s making the headlines, pushing once-working fishermen into a life of crime in retaliation.”
What saddened Amanda Rappak the most, in the Green Living blog, was the inability of governments to “penetrate the complex fish market system with effective enough controls that would actually limit how much fish is caught”.
She also highlighted the film’s positive message: “The film offers avenues for taking action with its campaign, and so does Greenpeace. But it seems the first step to change would begin with a personal pledge to always knowing exactly where your food comes from and how it reached your plate.”
The Enviro blog at Huck Magazine cites the support the film is getting: “The film which was selected for the Sundance Film Festival this year has gathered international support from organisations such as WWF, and well known faces such as broadcaster Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, also offers simple solutions we can all adapt to help prevent such a tragic future.”
Writing in the 1Click2Fame blog, Annabel Harrison says: “After watching the film, I realised that we should be doing so much more to protect what is one of the biggest natural sources of food for humans. The positive aspect of this global issue is that it’s not too late – there is plenty we can do to make sure that species don’t become extinct.”
On her blog, Regency Life in the 21st Century, Kimba writes : “We forget that these waters are also our to maintain, protect, and sustain. How? By eating only sustainable seafood. By helping politicians understand there needs to be protected areas where fishing is illegal. By getting the word out! There is a great new book and film “The End of the Line” that will tell you more.”
Charles Clover, author of The End of the Line and one of the stars of the film, has talked to Fork in the Road, the food blog for Village Voice in New York.
He outlines his concerns about overfishing, the solutions that are currently in place and why we shouldn’t assume we live in a world of plenty. He also talks about whether he eats fish, he says:
“Yes, but less than I did. I am mightily confused by whether any farmed fish is sustainable and I would just prefer to eat the little fish that they feed to carnivorous fish . . . . I like mackerel, which is now MSC-certified, and have learned that it makes wonderful sushi straight out of the sea with English mustard, as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall serves it.”
To read the full interview see No Fish by 2048? The End of the Line–Interview with Journalist Charles Clover on the Fork in the Road on Village Voice.
So, what’s the movie we’re here in Sundance with about then? Well it’s an adaptation of Charles Clover’s brilliant book on overfishing, The End Of The Line, which is an evocative, and shocking portrayal of what we have done, and are doing to our oceans – just to put seafood on our plates.
Greenpeace guppies spread their message about overfishing on the ski slopes
Seafood is a global issue and practically nowhere on our seas is beyond human reach now – the movie gives an overview of the main issues like overfishing, destructive fishing and poor management.
The movie takes a global look at the true price we’re paying for our seafood, vividly illustrating the impact we’re having, but that very few of us even realise.
Continue reading ‘Is it The End Of The Line?’
