Raül Romeva i Rueda

Un dels darrers llibres que he llegit és d’aquells que et canvien la vida. Es tracta de The End of The Line, de Charles Clover. El seu subtítol ho diu tot: How overfishing is changing the world and what we eat. És un d’aquells llibres que t’obren els ulls respecte d’una realitat, la de la situació dels mons marins i oceànics, la qual no per què no la veiem deixa d’existir. Vaig tenir ocasió de conèixer l’autor fa unes setmanes, a Brussel.les, durant l’exhibició de la pel.lícula derivada del llibre ( film’s website ). Les expectatives, ja elevades, es van veure llargament superades.

Per a gairebé la meitat de la població del planeta (2.600 milions de persones) els aliments d’origen marí suposa la principal font de proteínes. Les dades apunten a que l’any 2048 podria ser l’any del col·lapse definitiu. No falta tant. A banda de l’incomensurable desastre ambiental (tota espècie que desapareix suposa un clar suspens a la suposadament superior espècie humana), tenint en compte que avui són prop de 500 milions de persones les que viuen d’aquesta activitat, estem parlant d’un col·lapse de dimensions planetàries. Així doncs, no és només un problema de manca de responsabilitat ambiental, és tambe un suicidi. La necessària resposta, però, comença a casa nostra. És el que vaig intentar posar de manifest amb el meu informe relatiu al Reglament sobre Control de la Pesca que el Parlament Europeu va adoptar fa unes setmanes.

Però amb això no n’hi ha prou, sobretot per què constato que la sensibilització política, mediàtica i fins i tot social segueix essent escassa. Precisament la setmana passada em vaig trobar a Brussel.les amb una delegació del
sector de la pesca catalana que hi eren per participar en
la fira Seafood. El sector, responsable i víctima a la vegada, ha de
ser també part de la solució. Però per tal que així sigui cal una
política clara i amb estratègies ben definides a escala global, amb mesures sancionadores justes i dissuassòries, així com amb incentius cap a les bones pràctiques. Cal una
major consciència de les institucions en relació a la veritable
gravetat del problema, i una major consciència social i mediàtica sobre la
veritable dimensió i les enormes conseqüències que pot tenir a escala
global.

Potser l’entrevista a Charles Clover que adjunto més avall i publicada ahir al blogs.villagevoice.com, la lectura del seu llibre o el visionat de la pel.licula que se’n deriva poden ajudar. Hi confio. (segueix…)

No Fish by
2048? The End of the Line–Interview with Journalist Charles Clover

By Sarah DiGregorio in DiGregorio, Featured

Friday, May. 1 2009 @ 3:06PM

“Imagine a world without fish.” That’s the
tagline of The End of the Line, a documentary that landed on my desk
last week. The press release goes on to say that if we continue to overfish the
oceans at the current rate, there will essentially be no fish to eat by 2048. At
first, this all seems hyperbolic. Most of us know that there are problems with
overfishing, but we don’t think it will lead to a world without edible fish, or
an ocean clogged with algae and jellyfish, or an ocean that will not be able to
absorb carbon dioxide, worsening global warming. But that’s exactly what will
happen if we don’t change our ways. The oceans are not inexhaustible,
and we have nearly exhausted them.

About 75% of wild fish are either fully-exploited or
overfished. That means that they need conservation in order to survive in their
(much reduced) present numbers. Put another way, scientists say that the number
of large fish in all the seas have been reduced by 70-90%. Those fish are just
gone, because we ate them. And because fishing has become big, big business:
According to CNN, 50% of the world’s catch is caught by 1% of the fishing
fleet. These industrial boats have gigantic capacities, and incredibly
sophisticated technology, including ultrasound. The largest trawl net in the
world would hold three 747s. As an expert in the film says, “Our fishing
power outweighs our ability to control ourselves.”

Take bluefin tuna for an example. The fish is in
severe decline; the Atlantic population has been cut by nearly 90% since 1970. It’s
in demand because it goes for such a high price–it’s the most expensive sushi
you can buy. There are weight quotas (which are actually too high to sustain
the species, say scientists) imposed by governments, but those quotas are not
enforced. Japan has bought 6 billion dollars worth of illegal bluefin
over the past 20 years.

Despite this apocalyptic scenario, restaurants all
over town, including Nobu and Masa, still serve bluefin tuna. Sushi Samba,
among many others, serves Chilean seabass. The only way that businesses will
stop making money off of what are essentially endangered species is if we stop
buying them.

The good news behind all this bad news is that we can
easily do something about this problem, and it doesn’t mean you can’t
eat fish. There are many fin fish and shellfish that are sustainably produced,
it’s just a matter of putting a little bit of thought into what you buy. Yesterday,
I found wild Alaskan salmon (one of the only sustainable kinds of salmon) at
Whole Foods, and while the fish is usually upwards of $20 per pound, this
1-pound frozen package was only $8.50. Salmon freezes well, so there’s no
reason not to take advantage of a great deal like that.

That salmon had the Marine Stewardship Council-certified sticker, which is something you can look for, or check out Seafood Watch to find out which species are good choices.

End of the Line premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Fest, and it will be playing on June 19th at Cinema Village. Go to the film’s website to watch the trailer and to find out about other
screenings.

After the jump, journalist Charles Clover, the
correspondent for The End of the Line, and author of the book of
the same name, answers
our questions, including why he still eats fish, and why we shouldn’t assume we
live in a world of plenty.

The prediction that there will
basically be no more fish by 2048 if things continue down this path is such a
dire prediction that many people who haven’t seen the documentary might find it
hard to believe. What do you say to people who think it sounds like science
fiction?

Let’s be clear about what scientists are actually
saying. They say the likelihood is that if things go on as they have in the
past we shall run down all the major fisheries in the world to below a 10th of
what they were in 1950 by some time around the middle of this century. That
doesn’t mean no fish, just a fraction of the fish we have today when the human
population will have increased by a third. The date 2048 appeared nowhere in
that paper, it is controversial and disputed and appeared only on the press
release, but by goodness it got the world’s attention. And no one can say that
the trend isn’t down in most places.

Do you think that consumer awareness programs like Monterey Bay‘s Seafood Watch are helpful? I am wondering if it just perpetuates
the problem: if it tells us we should buy Pacific sole instead of Atlantic
sole, might not that cause Pacific sole to become overfished before long?

I have that worry too. That is what will happen unless
the recommended “green” choice actually comes from a fishery that is
actively better managed than the amber or red choice and is independently
verifiable as being so, as with those certified by the Marine Stewardship
Council. I think you’ll find that the “green” choices tend to come
from fisheries like that, such as Alaskan pollock or salmon. These fisheries
harvest far less of the spawning stock each year than those in, for instance,
the US North East or the North
Sea. So there is less
risk they’ll collapse.My worry is that, even though they are the best yet, the MSC [Marine Stewardship Council] doesn’t yet make tough enough management
recommendations.

Do you still eat fish?

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, rather than the salmon or bass
itself. I like shellfish, which is mostly sustainable. 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. I would like to like tilapia and vegetarian fish but you can’t get
them where I live.

Why do you think that overfishing and the problems
with farmed fish have been so little covered in the media?

It takes a while, generally about 50 years, for any
major idea to catch on. Take Rachel Carson’s revelations about what DDT did to
robins and other wildlife. It was more than 20 years before organochlorine
pesticides were banned in UK and people had to fight every step of the way to get
them banned. We only figured out in 2002 that the world’s wild fish catches,
which we thought had been rising inexorably, had actually been in decline since
1989. The official figures were wrong.

People still think unconsciously that they still live
in a world of plenty. In fact we are entering a world of scarcity and the
likelihood is that by depleting the fish in the oceans we are taking away food
that people in developing nations need to survive, wiping out species that we
will need to eat generations into the future, and accelerating global warming
by affecting the oceans’ ability to absorb carbon dioxide. These are massive
issues but until recently fisheries reporting was exclusively about wrecks and
whether fishermen could live with reduced quotas imposed upon them by
politicians. People take a while to change
their mindset.

What’s the single most important thing every seafood eater can do to help?

Buy only sustainable seafood. Don’t eat any fish that
is endangered or threatened in the area in which it is caught. Eg: bluefin
tuna, bigeye tuna, shark, sturgeon products.

Do you feel hopeful, or do you feel that our awareness
has come too late?

I am still hopeful. I think the timing is critical
though. If we don’t start seeing strict scientific management of fisheries with
controls aimed at increasing the biomass of fish, I think we will see food
security problems and ecosystem problems which will reverberate on a global
scale. If we don’t do the three “asks” in the film now – buy only
sustainable seafood, tell politicians to adopt scientific quotas and cut the
fleet and set up many, large marine reserves – then in a few years time I shall
be saying don’t eat fish at all.

What has the reaction been to the documentary?

Not many people have seen the film yet, but of those
few seemed to have any idea that overfishing was as global a problem as it is,
or as bad as it is, or that it affected our food security in this new century
or that it looks as if it accelerates global warming. Nobody knew. The reaction
has been strongest among young people, who feel angry that our generation has
dropped the baton and handed them a fatally damaged world.

Font foto: cortesia de The End of The Line.