There have been many articles and reviews featuring The End of the Line this week following the film’s release in the United States on 19th June.
Entertainment Weekly’s review of the film says: “Fishermen are no longer simply ”fishing.” They’re subjecting threatened species to the equivalent of carpet bombing, and this passionate ecological documentary, The End of the Line, spells out the problem in clear, urgent, prosaic terms.”
Twilight Greenaway, writing for The Ethicurean, suggests that the film missed one point that would help sustain life in the oceans - eating less fish. She went on to say: “Since seeing the film, the possibility of thriving oceans once again full of wild fish of all colours and sizes seems ever more compelling.
I write this while looking out over the sea at Cape Cod realising that it is here along this coast that we humans have done the most damage to fish stocks.
Cod is the history of this coast and its people. It is utterly beautiful here in Provincetown where The End of the Line is being screened as part of the their film festival.
Despite wind and rain - yes, like the UK - this is a community that was founded on fishing bounty. It now lives on tourism.
My co-speaker at the Q&A was Owen Nicols, a young man who was born and bred here in Provincetown. He is studying for a PHD in Fisheries Science and works at the local Oceans Institute.
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’
A powerful new consortium has been formed to help protect threatened tuna in the Eastern Tropical Pacific.
The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF), made up of conservation groups, scientist and tuna industry workers immediately demanded better protection of dwindling tuna stocks.
The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation, formed to protect threatened tuna in the Eastern Tropical Pacific, has attacked the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission ahead of their latest meeting
And they launched a scathing attack on the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) for ignoring scientific advice about overfishing and the damage being done to other species such as dolphins, turtles, sharks and seabirds.
The new pressure group claimed that IATTC, made up of 16 member countries with a mandate to regulate fishing fleets to avoid over-exploitation of tuna in the Eastern Pacific, had held six meetings in the past two years but had failed to take a single decision to help the threatened fish. Continue reading ‘New consortium aims to protect threatened tuna species’
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.
The UK cinema release of the film is being supported by retailer Waitrose, which has a long term commitment to responsible fish sourcing.
The retailer launched its Responsible Fishing Policy 12 years ago, which includes a complete ban on any threatened species and on damaging fishing methods such as beam trawling.
All its fish are from sustainable wild sources or, if farmed fish, from responsible farming systems. Mark Price, Waitrose managing director, said:
To support the launch of such an important film was an absolute must for Waitrose. With many species on the brink of extinction there has never been a more pressing need to bring this issue to the fore. The End of the Line shows that we can all enjoy fish, but encourages viewers to think more carefully about where their fish is coming from.”
To find out more about Waitrose’s policies go to: www.waitrose.com/food/productranges/fish.aspx
Government plans for ‘protection zones’ around the UK coastline are inadequate and won’t halt the dramatic decline of marine species, according to environment groups.
WWF: New marine proposals are “a drop in the ocean”
They have warned that much tougher legislation and more ambitious marine protection zones are needed to help preserve sea life.
The EU has ordered member states to set up special zones under its Marine Strategy Directive, in a bid to halt the slide in biodiversity caused by overfishing and industrialisation.
For years we have been told that the Omega 3 fatty acids from oily fish such as salmon, tuna and mackerel are good for the heart and brain.
Now, some of the people who proved that the world’s fish catches were not rising but falling - a critical milestone in this century’s thinking - have produced a report that shows that the evidence for the beneficial effects of Omega 3s is somewhat less impressive than one might think.
The study actively challenges dietary advice that we actually should be eating more oily fish.
It says that people in the Northern hemisphere who eat a balanced diet may be getting enough Omega 3s anyway but people in the Southern hemisphere are having their essential proteins and fish oils stolen from them by diet faddism in the North.
Oily fish can actually be bad for overweight or unhealthy people with heart problems, it says.
Was the fad for Omega 3s perhaps just a marketing strategy worked up by the fishing industry? That’s going too far, but it certainly looks as this dietary obsession is something we should be looking at a whole lot more critically now we know that wild fish stocks are in trouble almost everywhere.
Policies can be skewed by vested interests - including our own perceived health interests.
In fact what the human race needs are balanced policies that promote healthy people and healthy wild fish populations, able to feed a human population that will rise by a third over the next half century.
That is what we should be planning for, together with ways of producing Omega 3 fatty acids from vegetables and algae, to take the pressure off fish.
In the meantime, we may actually need to eat less of certain fish - salmon and tuna for instance - rather than more as the dieticians have been calling for.
Fish must be exploited less heavily if they are to adapt to climate change, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.
Responsible fishing practices need to be more widely adopted to tackle over-fishing and fishery management plans should include strategies for coping with rising sea temperatures.
“Best practices that are already on the books but not always implemented offer clear, established tools towards making fisheries more resilient to climate change,” said Kevern Cochrane, one of the authors of The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (Sofia), 2009.
“So the message to fishers and fisheries authorities is clear: get in line with current best practices, like those contained in FAO’s Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, and you’ve already taken important strides towards mitigating the effects of climate change.”
Climate change is already altering the distribution of both marine and freshwater species with warmer-water species being pushed towards the poles and experiencing changes in habitat size and productivity, the report says.
It is also affecting the seasonality of biological processes and altering marine and freshwater food sources which has unpredictable consequences for fish production.
A decrease or loss of locally available fish stocks will pose serious problems for communities which depend on abundant supplies for their livelihood.
“Many fisheries are being exploited at the top range of their productive capacity. When you look at the impacts that climate change might have on ocean ecosystems, that raises concerns as to how they’ll hold up,” said Cochrane.
Vulnerable communities who rely on their fishing and aquaculture industries need to take urgent action to strengthen their resilience to climate change, the report urges.
The authors of the report say that fisheries and aquaculture make a minor but significant contribution to greenhouse gas emissions during fishing operations and the transport, processing and storage of fish.
The average ratio of fuel to carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for capture fisheries is estimated at about 3 teragrams of CO2 per 1m tonnes of fuel used.
“That could be improved. Good fisheries management can substantially improve fuel efficiency for the sector,” Cochrane said.
“Overcapacity and excess fishing capacity mean fewer fish caught per vessel - that is, lower fuel efficiency - while competition for limited resources means fishers are always looking to increase engine power, which also lowers efficiency.”
Much of the industry’s carbon footprint comes in the transport of the fish, particularly by air, once they have been harvested.
Intercontinental airfreight emits 8.5 kg of CO2 per kilogram of fish transported. This is about 3.5 times that for sea freight and more than 90 times that from local transportation of fish where it is consumed within 400 kilometres of catch.
Dramatic title perhaps, but maybe not quite so far-fetched.
In Sundance, one of the questions that came up repeatedly at showings of the End Of The Line movie is ‘what about climate change?’ assuming, rightly, that a warming planet will have implications for our fish populations too.
Orange roughy after being caught by a deep sea trawler
Well my practised response to this before I got there was simply that the effects of climate change make all of the issues of rapacious overfishing all the more important. They make the need for precaution when it comes to fishing, and the need for fully protected areas essential.
The truth is that climate change is already affecting our oceans, and we don’t know what the outcome will be on currents/temperature/salinity, which means we can’t predict what impact it will have on plankton or anything more complicated.
So, we’ve been here at Sundance to help give Greenpeace support to the End Of The Line film.
In many ways this isn’t normal Greenpeace territory, and we found out with quite short notice that the movie was premiering here in Utah, so we scratched our collective heads and thought what to do.
In the end, and after some complicated logistics involving four Greenpeace offices (thank you guys!) we managed to get five Greenpeace US volunteers, and two red fish suits from Greenpeace Netherlands.
Park City during Sundance is crazy busy. The Main Street, hotels, and carparks are all chockablock, and everyone has a film to sell or see.
So, clearly we needed something to attract a bit of attention. And I think that a huge, round, red, fluffy fish is about as eye-catching as it gets. Our teams of volunteers alternated between being fish, and engaging with curious members of the Sundance public who wanted to know what’s going on. Continue reading ‘One fish, two fish, red fish . . . .’
There have been moments during the production of The End of the Line when we have felt that someone up there wanted this film to be made and to be seen by as many people as possible.
It happened again as we arrived in Park City, Utah, for the Sundance Film Festival.
The End of the Line team after the world premiere
Jeff Hutchings, a professor from Dalhousie University, Canada, travelled here at his own expense just to be part of the excitement and see himself in the film.
The overfishing of the oceans is contributing to global warming, scientists have found.
They have discovered that the ocean’s ability to absorb pollution and purify the atmosphere is influenced by an unexpected factor – fish droppings.
Alkaline chemicals such as calcium carbonate from fish poo can help balance this acid and help to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere
The increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere not only drives global warming, but also raises the amount of CO2 dissolved in ocean water, resulting in the sea becoming more acid and potentially a threat to sea life.
Alkaline chemicals such as calcium carbonate can help balance this acid and help to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
Scientists previously thought the main source for this balancing chemical was the shells of marine plankton, but they were puzzled by the unexpected quantities of carbonate in the top levels of the water.
