The Truth About Giving Up Fish

Until 2021, your experience of crimes connected to the fishing industry was likely limited to the colleague eating heated mackerel leftovers in your openplan office. But in March last year, a controversial Netflix documentary called Seaspiracy caused an even bigger stink by suggesting there was something deeply fishy about the industry itself. As millions watched, buoyed by a roster of celebs tweeting their endorsement, the rep of the protein long hailed by dietitians as one of the healthiest things you can eat began to, well, tank.

The problem, according to filmmaker Ali Tabrizi, is a global fishing industry that’s awash with corruption. An industry that’s wiped out 90 per cent of the world’s large fish and kills 30,000 sharks an hour; whose nets are responsible for 70 per cent of the macro plastic in the sea, and whose workers are beset by human rights abuses. Without radical change, warns, unsustainable fishing could leave the world’s oceans virtually empty by 2048 – a stat