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I watched David Attenborough's recent film 'Ocean' on a big screen. The footage of bottom trawling was really shocking. I don't understand how that has been all

I watched David Attenborough's recent film 'Ocean' on a big screen. The footage of bottom trawling was really shocking. I don't understand how that has been allowed to continue in UK coastal waters, let alone to be subsidised in marine protected areas. Madness. It's like napalming a forest to get a few deer. Thankfully things may be changing: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-proposes-to-extend-ban-on-destructive-bottom-trawling https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-proposes-to-ex... Don't know how much of that was due to the film.

Velorivox 1y ago
The relevant excerpt. [0] [0] https://youtu.be/IzG9AwlypaY?feature=shared https://youtu.be/IzG9AwlypaY?feature=shared
- hermitcrab 1y ago
  Watch it in a cinema, to get the full effect. There are some before and after scenes of the sea bed, which are pretty shocking as well. I'm not sure how that got that footage. Surely fisherman would not want that to be seen?
  - hermitcrab 1y ago
    Found this: "Technically, probably the hardest thing was trying to film bottom trawling because it's never been filmed before and we didn't know if it was possible. You have to film the wonder but you also have to film the destruction. Capturing that was absolutely essential and it took a lot of research to find some scientists planning bottom trawling experiments who decided that adding cameras would help their research and also help to share it with the world." At: https://www.arksen.com/blogs/news/ocean-with-david-attenborough-behind-the-scenes https://www.arksen.com/blogs/news/ocean-with-david-attenboro...
  - closewith 1y ago
    But watch it anyway. Trawling should be banned.
dzhiurgis 1y ago
> subsidised in marine protected areas What do you mean?
- aspenmayer 1y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_protected_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_protected_area > A marine protected area (MPA) is a protected area of the world's seas, oceans, estuaries or in the US, the Great Lakes. These marine areas can come in many forms ranging from wildlife refuges to research facilities. MPAs restrict human activity for a conservation purpose, typically to protect natural or cultural resources. Such marine resources are protected by local, state, territorial, native, regional, national, or international authorities and differ substantially among and between nations. This variation includes different limitations on development, fishing practices, fishing seasons and catch limits, moorings and bans on removing or disrupting marine life. MPAs can provide economic benefits by supporting the fishing industry through the revival of fish stocks, as well as job creation and other market benefits via ecotourism. The value of MPA to mobile species is unknown.
- hermitcrab 1y ago
  "Bottom trawling in seas globally emits as much carbon as aviation, and in Europe costs society up to €11 billion annually while governments subsidize it with €1·3 billion." https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(25)00134-2/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5... "A wealth of studies also show that bottom trawling generates significant amounts of CO2 emissions and is fuelled by government subsidies." https://www.bluemarinefoundation.com/2025/05/07/thebottomline-frequently-asked-questions/ https://www.bluemarinefoundation.com/2025/05/07/thebottomlin...
ropable 1y ago
I watched this film last night, and it was stunning and horrifying all at once. It really brings home the impact of industrial-scale trawling on the marine environment. It's literally like bulldozing a garden to harvest the fruit.
- hermitcrab 1y ago
  It is like bulldozing a garden full of lots of different fruits and then only taking the apples above a certain size.
toomuchtodo 1y ago
Greenpeace used to drop boulders into the ocean to prevent bottom trawling circa 2021-2022. Unsure if they still do. Fairly straightforward to solve for if you’re willing to drop chunks of rock (granite, non reactive) or concrete in the ocean at the right spots. Bans are nice, destructive force against adversaries works better though. Hard to take the selfish out of the human, so you have to engineer systems accordingly. https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/live-greenpeace-boulders-brighton-fishing/ https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/live-greenpeace-boulders-... https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-marine-biological-association-of-the-united-kingdom/article/abs/effects-of-antitrawling-artificial-reefs-on-ecological-indicators-of-inner-shelf-fish-and-invertebrate-communities-in-the-cantabrian-sea-southern-bay-of-biscay/18FE762DCDD1A40E3291C9937AB14A87 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-marin...
- noisy_boy 1y ago
  I think it would be a great PR idea for a billionaire to buy a few old ships and use them to drop rocks over the most popular/vulnerable fishing grounds. What happened to rich people who were all not evil?
  - xingped 1y ago
    New money outcompeted old money in the economic ecosystem and new money doesn't have the same historical fear of the proletarian guillotine.
    - hermitcrab 1y ago
      ...yet.
    - hermitcrab 1y ago
      Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Brian_Thompson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Brian_Thompson
  - Grimblewald 1y ago
    How do you think billionaires became billionaires? How can you extract a billion dollars of wealth in your life time, or even several generations? Certainly not by creating value. Almost certainly by destroying something else, privatising the profits and socialising the losses. E.g. mining, commercial fishing. Etc. We will never see billionairs act as a force for good because the current system only allows for evil to create such a level of private capital. I would go as far as to argue such wealth disparity is not natural and is only possible through severe perversion of the natural order.
abrookewood 1y ago
That part of the film is horrifying. Like genuinely, sick-to-the-stomach horrifying. I can't believe that anyone would willingly cause that much destruction.
- closewith 1y ago
  > I can't believe that anyone would willingly cause that much destruction. I interact with fishermen as part of a marine SAR role and there's a significant subset who treat the sea with contempt. Not usual to see them dump rubbish overboard in littoral areas, flicking cigarettes butts into the sea, etc.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - abrookewood 1y ago
    Such weird behaviour considering it is the source of their livelihood.
    - baobun 1y ago
      Speculating: Perhaps for some they start being aware of horrible inherent aspects of their work/industry (such as in the movie or otherwise). It becomes self-defence to emotionally detach and distance from the whole ocean at some point. With that, it can be easy to relativize and individuals cigarette butts.
marcus_holmes 1y ago
Stop eating fish. The fishing industry is destroying the oceans.
- oporquinho94 1y ago
  Individual actions won’t change the system, you need collective organised action
  - marcus_holmes 1y ago
    Be the change you want to see in the world. You can only control your actions. Also taking the action of starting to organise some collective action is a good thing. But don't continue eating fish until everyone else agrees not to, because that becomes self-defeating.
  - ninetyninenine 1y ago
    Exactly. The tragedy of the commons makes it so that individual action of eating the fish is the most rational move. Mobilizing people to act irrationally is challenging unless they are forced to do it by law.
  - Nasrudith 1y ago
    That is a complete paradox because you not only cannot have collective organized action without individual ones but the previous is entirely composed of the latter.
  - taskforcegemini 1y ago
    why not both, if the point for both is to reach the same goal?
  - yesfitz 1y ago
    This is organizing. We're inviting you to join the collective of people who don't eat fish. Our main activity is finding and encouraging others to not eat fish. If you'd like to organize more collective action, we will probably be interested! But the baseline is actually inaction. First, do no harm.
doktorn 1y ago
TIL: trolling != thrawling
rex_lupi 1y ago
Seaspiracy is another eye opening documentary.
- riffraff 1y ago
  Seaspiracy (like Cowspiracy by the same author) is pretty full of factual errors on misrepresentations. While the core ideas may be right, it's basically a propaganda piece.
- hermitcrab 1y ago
  'Seaspiracy' is a polemic with little attempt at balance or objectivity IMO. But I think it is still worth watching.
riffraff 1y ago
what, how is it allowed in marine protected areas? I mean, what are they protected from if not BT? I think the EU planned to ban bottom trawling completely by 2030 and that got nowhere, but it still upholds a ban on bottom trawling in marine protected areas[0][1], in addition to national ruling (e.g. Italy bans it near the coast and in shallow waters). [0] https://www.bluemarinefoundation.com/2025/05/22/eu-court-upholds-protection-from-bottom-trawling/ https://www.bluemarinefoundation.com/2025/05/22/eu-court-uph... [1] https://www.bairdmaritime.com/fishing/regulation-enforcement/eu-court-upholds-bottom-fishing-ban-sparking-industry-backlash https://www.bairdmaritime.com/fishing/regulation-enforcement...
madaxe_again 1y ago
People did indeed used to set fire to forests to get a few deer - you’d use the flames to drive them to a cliff edge, or to a river, where you would either let gravity do the work, or just pick off the panicked mass with spears or rocks. Le plus ca change…
- hermitcrab 1y ago
  I guess you could get away with it when humans were nomadic and population density was low.

Velorivox 1y ago

The relevant excerpt. [0] [0] https://youtu.be/IzG9AwlypaY?feature=shared https://youtu.be/IzG9AwlypaY?feature=shared

hermitcrab 1y ago
Watch it in a cinema, to get the full effect. There are some before and after scenes of the sea bed, which are pretty shocking as well. I'm not sure how that got that footage. Surely fisherman would not want that to be seen?
- hermitcrab 1y ago
  Found this: "Technically, probably the hardest thing was trying to film bottom trawling because it's never been filmed before and we didn't know if it was possible. You have to film the wonder but you also have to film the destruction. Capturing that was absolutely essential and it took a lot of research to find some scientists planning bottom trawling experiments who decided that adding cameras would help their research and also help to share it with the world." At: https://www.arksen.com/blogs/news/ocean-with-david-attenborough-behind-the-scenes https://www.arksen.com/blogs/news/ocean-with-david-attenboro...
- closewith 1y ago
  But watch it anyway. Trawling should be banned.

dzhiurgis 1y ago

> subsidised in marine protected areas What do you mean?

aspenmayer 1y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_protected_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_protected_area > A marine protected area (MPA) is a protected area of the world's seas, oceans, estuaries or in the US, the Great Lakes. These marine areas can come in many forms ranging from wildlife refuges to research facilities. MPAs restrict human activity for a conservation purpose, typically to protect natural or cultural resources. Such marine resources are protected by local, state, territorial, native, regional, national, or international authorities and differ substantially among and between nations. This variation includes different limitations on development, fishing practices, fishing seasons and catch limits, moorings and bans on removing or disrupting marine life. MPAs can provide economic benefits by supporting the fishing industry through the revival of fish stocks, as well as job creation and other market benefits via ecotourism. The value of MPA to mobile species is unknown.
hermitcrab 1y ago
"Bottom trawling in seas globally emits as much carbon as aviation, and in Europe costs society up to €11 billion annually while governments subsidize it with €1·3 billion." https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(25)00134-2/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5... "A wealth of studies also show that bottom trawling generates significant amounts of CO2 emissions and is fuelled by government subsidies." https://www.bluemarinefoundation.com/2025/05/07/thebottomline-frequently-asked-questions/ https://www.bluemarinefoundation.com/2025/05/07/thebottomlin...

ropable 1y ago

I watched this film last night, and it was stunning and horrifying all at once. It really brings home the impact of industrial-scale trawling on the marine environment. It's literally like bulldozing a garden to harvest the fruit.

hermitcrab 1y ago
It is like bulldozing a garden full of lots of different fruits and then only taking the apples above a certain size.

toomuchtodo 1y ago

Greenpeace used to drop boulders into the ocean to prevent bottom trawling circa 2021-2022. Unsure if they still do. Fairly straightforward to solve for if you’re willing to drop chunks of rock (granite, non reactive) or concrete in the ocean at the right spots. Bans are nice, destructive force against adversaries works better though. Hard to take the selfish out of the human, so you have to engineer systems accordingly. https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/live-greenpeace-boulders-brighton-fishing/ https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/live-greenpeace-boulders-... https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-marine-biological-association-of-the-united-kingdom/article/abs/effects-of-antitrawling-artificial-reefs-on-ecological-indicators-of-inner-shelf-fish-and-invertebrate-communities-in-the-cantabrian-sea-southern-bay-of-biscay/18FE762DCDD1A40E3291C9937AB14A87 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-marin...

noisy_boy 1y ago
I think it would be a great PR idea for a billionaire to buy a few old ships and use them to drop rocks over the most popular/vulnerable fishing grounds. What happened to rich people who were all not evil?
- xingped 1y ago
  New money outcompeted old money in the economic ecosystem and new money doesn't have the same historical fear of the proletarian guillotine.
  - hermitcrab 1y ago
    ...yet.
  - hermitcrab 1y ago
    Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Brian_Thompson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Brian_Thompson
- Grimblewald 1y ago
  How do you think billionaires became billionaires? How can you extract a billion dollars of wealth in your life time, or even several generations? Certainly not by creating value. Almost certainly by destroying something else, privatising the profits and socialising the losses. E.g. mining, commercial fishing. Etc. We will never see billionairs act as a force for good because the current system only allows for evil to create such a level of private capital. I would go as far as to argue such wealth disparity is not natural and is only possible through severe perversion of the natural order.

abrookewood 1y ago

That part of the film is horrifying. Like genuinely, sick-to-the-stomach horrifying. I can't believe that anyone would willingly cause that much destruction.

closewith 1y ago
> I can't believe that anyone would willingly cause that much destruction. I interact with fishermen as part of a marine SAR role and there's a significant subset who treat the sea with contempt. Not usual to see them dump rubbish overboard in littoral areas, flicking cigarettes butts into the sea, etc.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- abrookewood 1y ago
  Such weird behaviour considering it is the source of their livelihood.
  - baobun 1y ago
    Speculating: Perhaps for some they start being aware of horrible inherent aspects of their work/industry (such as in the movie or otherwise). It becomes self-defence to emotionally detach and distance from the whole ocean at some point. With that, it can be easy to relativize and individuals cigarette butts.

marcus_holmes 1y ago

Stop eating fish. The fishing industry is destroying the oceans.

oporquinho94 1y ago
Individual actions won’t change the system, you need collective organised action
- marcus_holmes 1y ago
  Be the change you want to see in the world. You can only control your actions. Also taking the action of starting to organise some collective action is a good thing. But don't continue eating fish until everyone else agrees not to, because that becomes self-defeating.
- ninetyninenine 1y ago
  Exactly. The tragedy of the commons makes it so that individual action of eating the fish is the most rational move. Mobilizing people to act irrationally is challenging unless they are forced to do it by law.
- Nasrudith 1y ago
  That is a complete paradox because you not only cannot have collective organized action without individual ones but the previous is entirely composed of the latter.
- taskforcegemini 1y ago
  why not both, if the point for both is to reach the same goal?
- yesfitz 1y ago
  This is organizing. We're inviting you to join the collective of people who don't eat fish. Our main activity is finding and encouraging others to not eat fish. If you'd like to organize more collective action, we will probably be interested! But the baseline is actually inaction. First, do no harm.

doktorn 1y ago

TIL: trolling != thrawling

rex_lupi 1y ago

Seaspiracy is another eye opening documentary.

riffraff 1y ago
Seaspiracy (like Cowspiracy by the same author) is pretty full of factual errors on misrepresentations. While the core ideas may be right, it's basically a propaganda piece.
hermitcrab 1y ago
'Seaspiracy' is a polemic with little attempt at balance or objectivity IMO. But I think it is still worth watching.

riffraff 1y ago

what, how is it allowed in marine protected areas? I mean, what are they protected from if not BT? I think the EU planned to ban bottom trawling completely by 2030 and that got nowhere, but it still upholds a ban on bottom trawling in marine protected areas[0][1], in addition to national ruling (e.g. Italy bans it near the coast and in shallow waters). [0] https://www.bluemarinefoundation.com/2025/05/22/eu-court-upholds-protection-from-bottom-trawling/ https://www.bluemarinefoundation.com/2025/05/22/eu-court-uph... [1] https://www.bairdmaritime.com/fishing/regulation-enforcement/eu-court-upholds-bottom-fishing-ban-sparking-industry-backlash https://www.bairdmaritime.com/fishing/regulation-enforcement...

madaxe_again 1y ago

People did indeed used to set fire to forests to get a few deer - you’d use the flames to drive them to a cliff edge, or to a river, where you would either let gravity do the work, or just pick off the panicked mass with spears or rocks. Le plus ca change…

hermitcrab 1y ago
I guess you could get away with it when humans were nomadic and population density was low.