 You're listening to food for thought a food-infolded podcast Okay, I think we're on suppose a good place to start probably is to maybe introduce yourself Ryan Explain what it is that you do and your your history. Okay. Hi. I'm Ray Hillborn I'm a professor at the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington I am an ecologist by training got into fisheries about 50 years ago Working initially for the Canadian government's Department of Fisheries and later working for one International Tuna Research Agency and then I've been here at University of Washington for about 33 years My interest used to be probably the population dynamics of fish and the management of quotas and in more recent years I've gotten very interested in The comparative environmental impacts of different form of food production and I teach a course on on exactly that that is What are the costs of producing food from fish and from? Terrestrial systems and I know a lot about terrestrial systems in that I Worked on farms when I was a undergraduate student going to university. My son is a farmer. He has farms about 500 acres About a mile from where I am right now And there was a time that my wife and I actually owned that farm. Thankfully, we don't own it anymore Okay, cool and just to clarify so we're here having this conversation today to hopefully clear the air around some of the Misconceptions around fisheries and the science that we see in front of us and what the science is actually saying So hopefully you can provide some insight on that and I think I think are probably a good place to start with this Is a is a pretty big question But I'm one I hopefully you can you can share your insight on and that is is it possible to actually fish commercially and Sustainably at the same time. Well, the commercially part really is irrelevant That whether it's a commercial or as aboriginal or a subsistence or recreational fishery. That's that's reasonably unimportant Certainly many fisheries have been managed sustainably for thousands of years and I'd say within the ocean community all but a few People would agree that yes fisheries if properly managed can be sustained. They can continue to produce food As long as the ocean isn't I mean, there's concerns about what global warming will do Some fish stocks may disappear under global warming or other forms of climate change but if the oceans are Not totally transformed by by climate change. There's no reason that many fisheries You know most of the fisheries in in Norway for instance Can't be maintained forever Yeah, that's that's a very different perspective than what you probably see. I think 99% of the time You actually touched on something else there that I noticed which was that there's there seems to be a lot of focus on the fact that plastics pollution is playing a bigger role than Climate change or global warming in itself on these fisheries and the stocks. There are certainly some concerns You know whether micro plastics which are making their way in the food chain may pose health hazards Is it affecting the functioning of the oceans? I don't think there's any evidence that it's affecting how the oceans perform their major functions, whether it's oxygen production Whether it's carbon sequestration or whether it's production of food But it's I mean, it's not that we should ignore it, but it certainly would be very low on my list of priorities about Protecting the oceans. I guess you're kind of thinking of things in like a kind of sliding scale And this is not necessarily on the top of the list in terms of what we should be focusing our attention on or exactly if you If you in fact if there've been surveys of this of people who you know ocean scientists What do you think are the biggest threats to the oceans as we know them and climate change comes out? Always by as number one whereas in the public plastic seems to come out this number And the climate change ocean acidification Exotic species pollution, you know Overfishing is probably number five or six on on on the list Because one of the things you have to remember is that Fishing and overfishing and illegal fishing doesn't affect most of the marine ecosystem That the base of the food chain is phytoplankton And we never fish phytoplankton. The next trophic level up is zooplankton There's there's minuscule fisheries on that so the whole base of the food chain that constitutes You know 90% of what's in the ocean isn't it really impacted by fishing and I would then again I would contrast that with agriculture Agriculture, what do you do you eliminate the base of the food chain? You eliminate the primary producers the trees or the grasses and the shrubs and so you know if you look at how Fisheries affect the ecosystem. It's very small compared to how agriculture affects the ecosystem even even poorly managed fisheries affect the Ecosystem much less than any form of of or almost any form of agriculture Wow, okay, I Mean for context I Are on a very novice level, but I studied marine science in university and that was I even for us That was not necessarily something that was in the in the spotlight. I think it was definitely Yeah, as you say plastics are front and center and then beyond that it's the impact on ecology of overfishing really That's that's that's sort of what you know, that's where the focus has been for the for the last 20 or 30 years in undergraduate Marine teaching and so we've got this cadre of people who really haven't thought very deeply about What fishing does to the oceans and in comparison to what other forms of food production do to their ecosystem? if we were to stop all ocean fishing and And changed and and instead replace it with the current mix of protein that people are consuming You would need an additional area equivalent to the entire amazonian rainforest So what's the better trade-off the impacts we're having in the ocean by fishing or Eliminating the Amazonian rainforest. I think that's one that people would definitely be either one side of the other there But that's a fact. Yeah got to produce the food somehow. Yeah, absolutely I think that's one of the things that is is least considered about this whole issue And is probably one of my key frustrations that I hear when people have a Totally one-sided approach to the fact that we should have some drastic And gargantuan shift to the whole food system and move away from these industries entirely is that you can provide that as Someone that's pushing them but for the people that have been pushed by these decisions That are not in such fortunate positions. I don't think there are necessarily alternatives that are actually going to provide that solution. So Yeah, probably not so one-sided to it Okay, I'm gonna go through a few of these a few of these quick ones We'll discuss some of the things that came through the sea spirits the documentary One of them was that they are They place fisheries at a total collapse at 2048 and I'm aware that this is one of those kind of older studies that was thrown out and has caught a lot of wind Is there any truth to that or is there is it a little bit more nuance than that? No, it's not more nuanced. It's just absolutely wrong Many of the authors of that paper and I and a number of others did a you know We sat down as scientists and said okay, what do we really know and we wrote three years after that paper came out We published another paper with the same first author Boris worm Showing that in fact where we had data fish stocks weren't declining now Where we have data is selective. It's the better managed places in the world But you know, there is no question that Europe will have fish in 2048 There's no question that much of the world will have fish in 2048 and in fact Boris worm who was the lead author on that 20 all fish gone by 2048 has Offered to hold a seafood banquet on December 31st 2047 And I'm I'm really hoping I can attend Because that day will be my 100th birthday I Fitting a fitting way to go. Yeah, I think I mean I think they even exaggerated it further than that to be honest I believe I said it was empty seas totally but about the middle of this century. So that's sort of the mythology that That has has developed that even that the seas are being empty For again the places where we have data and we published a paper on this in 2020 and the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and this covers about a little over about half of the world's Total fish production the abundance of fish is increasing Not decreasing Problem is there's another half of the world where we don't have good data and probably the abundance of fish there is decreasing But I mean that's the that's the problem with this These narratives is they want to be global, but the story is very different in different places And certainly in in Europe, North America most of South America other places like Australia, New Zealand and South Africa The larger major fisheries are doing well and and in on average increasing in abundance And that's a that's almost a total contrast They see Spiracy doesn't talk about the fact that almost all the great whales are Growing rapidly or have recovered to where they were before industrial whaling. Yeah So it's looking a little bit better than people probably have once thought I assume But I mean that that lack of having available data or I suppose accurate data Is that something that you you have trouble with in assessing these things accurately? Is that something that people can use to play into misinformation because you don't have necessarily all the data from every area? Well, it certainly helped a minute. So it's an impediment We just simply really can't talk about the global status of fisheries with a lot of accuracy Certainly not with the accuracy we can about that half where we have quite good data FAO is sort of the most authoritative, you know, so they're estimating that globally maybe Globally roughly 32% of fish stocks are Overfished now overfished doesn't mean collapsed all overfished means is Not producing at their maximum potential. I suspect that's roughly roughly right that it's it's something something like that but You know, basically, it's the the less developed countries the tropical countries Which don't have the kind of research agencies you have in Bergen You know, they don't have an IMR with seven research vessels They don't have hundreds of scientists. We know a lot less about their fisheries than we do About the developing countries fisheries than we do about the richer countries That actually brings us very fittingly to the next point I was going to cover actually was there was also a reference to 90% of fish stocks being overfished or over exploited But I have recognized that the source that they've used there is is in reference to the FAO study Right, and they've they've actually got that broken down to 61% that are fully exploited and 29% that are over exploited So well, they've changed the terminology from fully exploited to I Think sustainably exploited. I can't remember the exact term But but a lot of anti fishing groups have used that have have said 90% of stocks are overfished or on the brink of being overfished, which is fully exploited Whereas, you know, the FAO's point is that fully exploited is exactly what the objective of most national fisheries agencies is is to fully exploit not to over exploit but to fully exploit the Resources and what does fully exploit actually mean for those who have no idea about it means being harvested in a range that produces long-term maximum yield Okay, so if that is fished at that amount constantly then in theory that stock could reproduce Well, it's okay. You don't get a constant catch because stocks go up and down But fished in a way that would produce the long-term potential maximum Given year-to-year variation in environmental conditions. Okay, so it's not necessarily An instantly a bad assumption to be fully fished. No, no being fully fished is what national fisheries agencies and FMOs are attempting to do that kind of brings us around to bycatch That was another one that was kind of hit on quite heavily and 40% statistic of Some of these estimates placing 40% of global catch of being bycatch. Is that anything close to the reality or is that I mean it? You know 30 years ago. It could have been approaching that Now I think the best estimates are more like 8% and that's due to several reasons one is Nowadays there a lot more of what is caught is is used particularly for aquaculture feed and The other the other reason is that there's been a lot of technological changes in how to avoid avoid bycatch So yeah, it's an issue, but a way to put it in context is that in the in the terrestrial food chain 30% of food is wasted It's wasted from everything from being eaten by rats in storage bins to Being thrown out in the past it's used by date in retailers to rotting in people's fridges and That's that's probably true of fish as well. So the you know the 8% at the At the production level it's a concern. It'd be nice to get to get rid of it But it doesn't threaten the sustainability of using the oceans to produce fish This is just a bit of a personal curiosity here kind of following up from the fact that You as you mentioned it's quite hard to attain data from those less managed fisheries with less resources It does that make these estimates hard though. I mean, I'm just trying to think how do we how do you actually estimate something like bycatch if you've got Say half of those fisheries That aren't providing the data that you need to make those estimates I mean, it's definitely hard. It's not something that I've I've done any of my own own work on but There's a number of people who have spent a lot of time and so these are these are our Estimates the thing the thing is that that in the places where the data are the poorest So and one of those is Southeast Asia is they now use everything Some of my colleagues leave and I've been to ports in China and places like that and everything that they catch is Now used so they've eliminated bycatch As a concern of catching things and then throwing it Overboard so there's probably more bycatch in the places. We know about then in the places. We don't know That's very interesting and I haven't I think that's also something that's not explored too often is the fact that that that total bycatch is Also segmented down further into things that are Repurposed or reused or resold in different in different value chains So it's yeah, as you say it could be repurposed into feed for either agriculture industries or aquaculture itself So yeah, yeah, that's the law the basic generally the high quality fish Goes to markets fresh markets typically the next level down That it will go to make serene, you know fish paste which is used for a whole bunch of things and then the lowest quality stuff Which is often essentially slurry at the bottom of the of the whole Goes into aquaculture feed Okay, and do you think that there's a place? For these kind of new industries that are starting up. I've just noticed there's a few especially around Europe There's a few of these kind of restaurants that are focusing on using bycatch to try and improve the value of bycatch as a means to reduce it Do you think there's any any benefit to doing that? Is that realistically going to make a difference? Yeah, I think it's I think it's it's great And I've been to restaurants by chefs who specialize in you know in in that and you know There's a lot an amazing amount of underutilized Fish in the world You know, I mean here in the where I live in the west coast of the US We only catch 25% of the allowable catch To and and some of that is due to lack of markets that we've just got resources that we can catch but you know they don't get enough of a price and so I had a student who's part of his thesis was You know, is there a way to say use those for food banks? To get those to people who could who are nutritionally deprived So they're definitely definitely sounds like there is a place for that and there is some some space for development there One last kind of statistic that I thought would be worth getting your opinion on was the the cod statistics I think was on the cod and haddock saying that they will be declining by 80 or they have declined by 87% and 99% respectively I think for some people hearing those numbers is Extremely alarming and they'll be thinking how could we possibly be still seeing something with 99% Population depletion being served in supermarkets and can be commercially fished, but uh, but that's that's totally wrong I mean in the abundance of Atlantic cod is growing It's roughly Roughly where it was 40 years ago But it's growing it's growing pretty rapidly a lot of it is the the barren sea stock of Norway But Icelandic cod some cod stocks of the southern cod stocks are not doing well They're they're hovering and one one one cod stock mean again I don't know where that number came from but They're the the there's a large cod stock in Eastern Canada so-called northern cod Newfoundland Labrador and it did decline by 99% It has recovered somewhat since then So I mean it's just a classic case of them cherry picking one number They're not talking about the cod stocks have doubled or tripled in abundance in the last 30 years Yeah, they did definitely they did definitely use that statistic and they use one also They said the same for halibut 99% reduction rate and then they said some some wild Some wild numbers like a thousand percent less likely to catch one now than you would be in the 1800s Which was another sort of strange cherry picks But I just you know wasn't clear what stock they were talking about you know the thing is fish stocks go up and down and So at any point in time you can find hundreds of fish stocks that are going down So you've really got it you've got to look at the big picture and that's what you know Activist groups like this do is they go out and they cherry pick one they cherry pick another and say oh this stocks declined by 70% or 99% but You know, it's the role of scientists to sit back and take the big picture and look across all the data and say what do we know And when there is when that when that when you're talking about those individual stocks that and in a film like this Where they do generalize all of those into one kind of presumed mass I Suppose it's worth thinking about it Do they do they individually manage those stocks like will scientists employed certain measures for certain stocks to try and manage them If they have recognized that they are declining more than others Oh, yeah, I mean, you know, I mean across the the the the rich countries of the world that manage their their fisheries You know, so in in in say in the eastern Atlantic, there are I don't know 15 or 20 different cod stocks That each of which is individually managed with an individual quota And so the ones that are in trouble the quotas will be much lower than the ones that have been doing well Okay, so it's definitely individually managed and do you think the governments are willing to to to really address these things and is it Is it the role of governments? I guess to address these things or yes. I mean, that's what that's Since they are typically common property resources In some cases international property resources, we really do have to rely on the governments to do these things Now what has changed is in many cases fishing industries where governments haven't done it in some cases fishing industries are stepping up because Nobody has a bigger stake in the sustainability of a fishery than the fishing industry Because that's how they make their living the people who who fish for their living and And in many places in the world Fishing industry is stepping up to augment What the government's doing both by doing doing research developing new technologies Etc and that's really what a lot of the Eco certification is about is that in places like southeast asia Where governments haven't done a lot in the way of fisheries management in some cases the fishing industries are Are putting what's called fisheries improvement plans together in order to To improve their sustainability largely to get access to european and american markets Okay, interesting because they did definitely mention that as well They talked about the fact that you could definitely not trust eco labels because they couldn't guarantee they couldn't actually Prove that anything that they were claiming was happening at sea. There are always gaps in the system, but I guarantee you that Fisheries that are certified by the marine stewardship council are among the best managed fisheries in the world and The environmental impact of eating those fish is almost certainly less than the alternative foods Okay, that's very good to know actually because that's uh, That's definitely something that is I think shaking the cage for a lot of people there because they've looked to that label And just assume that that is a kind of tick all And when we're talking about governments Subsidies were another one that they were they were mentioning is something that really dictates Overfishing in itself and they felt that subsidies themselves Handed out by governments were were kind of responsible in some ways for overfishing um Even to the point where a lot of people have been calling for the complete abolishment of all subsidies for the fishing industry, but uh, do Do you think that this is a a realistic solution and what happens if we took away all these subsidies? Well, I mean I would say I mean the first there's a people we tend to distinguish Subsidies into two groups what are called good subsidies and bad subsidies? So almost all countries the government pays for the science associated with the oceans and with the management And that's you know, you could view that as a subsidy But that is what the people who work on that issue you typically call a good subsidy It actually supports the management of the fishery. But what are called bad subsidies are most commonly fuel subsidies sometimes construction subsidies In in some cases those will contribute to Making the fishing pressure higher than it would be if they weren't subsidized Now again in fisheries like european and american fisheries where we manage fisheries by quota That simply isn't true Because the the catch is regulated by the regulation not by the economics of fishing But uh, let's say Chinese supply fuel subsidies for their high seas tuna flea. Yeah, there's no question that that is Is what leads to more pressure on the high seas tuna fisheries than would be in the absence of those subsidies And when the japanese dramatically reduced their tuna fuel subsidies Their high seas fishing effort for tuna went way down I mean, there's general agreement that we should we should get rid of fuel and construction subsidies except in special cases for you know for special communities But uh subs subsidies are not The major cause of fisheries concerns, but to the extent they can be eliminated to be a good idea Okay, interesting. So I guess uh All that would really be doing is raising the price of those fish and if if you are under a quota system Where you can only catch a certain amount anyway, then those subsidies in theory shouldn't be having too much of an impact In terms of those people that are advocating for changes in their Grand changes in dietary habits of say eliminating the entire industry of fisheries or say agriculture Um, what what do you think the ramifications would really be for those other countries? Well, I mean it's it's it's I'd say it divides into two Two groups first for the poor people of the world The hundreds of millions of people are the billions who depend upon fish For an essential part of the nutrition. They have no alternative Okay, they can't afford to buy something else for the rich people of the world And what you know, and again, this is where I I I actually I have a friend who was the head of conservation programs I'm switching here. Can you I just switched headsets here? Perfect. Yeah, okay And you know, he asked me about I remember it was in January of 2010 and he said Listen, I'm a conservationist. Should I stop eating fish? And I said, well If you don't eat fish, what are you going to eat? And he said, well, I'm not a vegetarian I would eat more beef chicken and pork and this led me on what's been a major part of my research for the last 11 years is what's the alternative cost Of to the environment of beef chicken and pork compared to catching fish in the ocean and there's simply no comparison uh, you know that that that catching fish in a well-managed fishery leaves a Functioning ecosystem that is very little different from what it was like in the absence of fishing Whereas more beef chicken and pork You would require enormous land clearance enormous loss of biodiversity Yeah, I guess that also brings into play the whole aquaculture conversation now that things have seemed to move increasingly towards land-based systems um I have my own opinion on it, but I'll hold it for now Do you have any perspective on that as providing a potential solution? I know especially in a lot of uh Less wealthy countries that it is a big part of the it is a big part of their protein production so And certainly aquaculture isn't it's going to continue to be to grow probably to continue to be the fastest growing form of food of food production um But again, you can't just talk about aquaculture. So very high portion of global aquaculture is freshwater aquaculture in land and Another large portion is shellfish now. I mean shellfish is probably the most sustainable Food in the world shellfish culture. You don't have to feed them all they feed themselves and uh in terms of carbon footprint production per area Cannot be beat then with within other forms of aquaculture If you have to feed them Then the real environmental cost of that is the production of the feed And that's where all of the critics of salmon farming get it wrong So they talk about sea lice and they talk about They talk about the the little dead zones and the sediments underneath Salmon farms. I mean the total area of norwegian salmon farms is on the order of the size of the oslo airport You know, it's it's minuscule the real environmental impact of the norwegian salmon industry is where the crops are grown to feed them That's that's not trivial. But the thing about salmon is a salmon converts food to flesh more efficiently than a chicken or a pig or a cow So that's why uh, you know, I think that I would still say that a farm salmon is a more environmentally friendly choice Than a beef chicken or a pork Yeah, especially with no way as the example there. I mean the whole industry this year I think is just kind of grouped together and decided that they don't want to be sourcing their soy fillers for the feed from anywhere, but uh, you know, uh, they don't want to support anything from uh forested agriculture. So I think there's definitely positive steps forward in that space as well. Um, but it seems like uh, aquaculture and agri and uh Wildcatch fisheries as well It seems like the the public hold a lot of resentment for the fishermen themselves or the the fisher women themselves Do you do you think that that is uh, something that's justified or are they being kind of unfairly persecuted here for What's happened, uh in the state of the oceans in the in the us We have a we have a heroic image of the single fishermen, you know, and and uh, And we you know, we have these tv shows. I doubt they make it to europe called deadliest catch and There's three or four tv shows that are reality shows going out on fishing boats So so I don't think that we vilify Individual fishermen we we tend to vilify the foreign Industrial fishermen who's plundering our waters again. It's this break between the industrial fishermen and the uh, The small scale fishermen that somehow small scale is killing a fish with a small boat Is less impactful than killing the same number Well killing a certain number of fish with a bunch of small boats Has less impact than killing the same number of fish with one boat and that's that's a very common Misconception that somehow small scale fishing is always more sustainable than industrial fishing Yeah, that's a very I mean I talked actually to a fisherman not too long ago. Uh back in australia He uh, he'd worked on a a few different types of fisheries or wildcatch and he actually had He actually had an opposing perspective that I thought he would have and he was in favor of the largest scale boats because he was He was under that kind of impression that they were you know, they were so heavily regulated when they were at that size That uh, he felt that the technology that they were using and the uh, the oversight that they have was actually better than What he was probably doing with the smaller boats and the smaller fleets that they were on so uh I don't know. I guess there's there's a lot to be said for that I mean the big thing is that it's that large vessels certainly in the us Are all have observers on board independent observers run by the government Uh, whereas that's very difficult to do on small boats So we know a lot more about the large boat fisheries than we do the small the small boat the small boat fisheries. Um, but It's it's it's some it's somewhat it's somewhat I don't want to come down on The side of one one or the other. I think they can all be very well managed Uh, and and increasingly the technology of Our camera system satellite tracking means we can track small we can know what's going on in small boat fisheries and I I know a lot of fishermen don't like me to say that but they just have to own up and accept the fact That they need to move to camera systems and vessel tracking. So we always know where they are and we always know what they're catching Yeah, why has there been such a big, uh, refuel to that? Is it just because they don't they do you think that there are Too many people that are doing the wrong thing and they don't want to be caught or is it just they don't like the excessive oversight? Well, I'd say the first is cost. It does cost. Yeah, I can cost money Again, think of your independent fisherman who's out on the ocean It's a you know, the idea of having yourself on camera all of the time You know, but you know, this happens to grocery clerks. It happens to all sorts of people in the world and You know, my attitude is or using a public resource That's just going to be one of the costs of doing business guys Yeah fair perspective very fair perspective Uh and for yourself, right? What do you think is the biggest kind of misconception that you you personally would hear about fisheries that's being constantly sprayed out there and Would you well that that a that is not sustainable That the oceans are being empty to fish And that somehow Producing food on land is much more sustainable than producing food in the ocean. I'd say those are the the three big misconceptions Okay, and had I mean, do you think that Documentaries again, I hate to do that, but it didn't it didn't feel a lot like a documentary do you think that these sort of mass media portrayals are Actually damaging to the to the industry itself and they're damaging to the whole cause even Perhaps to the other side to the to the vegan movement as well because they do In my opinion kind of reduce a bit of the credibility of their argument when you approach it from such an angle and so to some extent I'd say this is just like a bunch of mosquitoes Biting and I know the hijack like Christina Hicks. I had an email from her. She had no idea she was even going to be in it and And I think the marine stewardship council made the right choice and just simply refusing to Deal with these people because they are so selective of what they actually show on the screen You know, so they may film you for two hours And then just find some little snippet that looks embarrassing. I mean oceana came out looking really silly in that and and You know, I mean, I generally consider oceana an anti fishing NGO So um, um, but I don't think they're they're they're they're not threatening the existence of of fisheries I think there's been a lot of damage to the aquaculture industry It's very difficult say in the united states to expand aquaculture even though it's clearly Of a very low impact form of of food production Let me just add one of my other one of they they they made a big deal of this You know that well if you if you uh, if you have a if you don't eat meat and fish You don't and animals don't die and these people don't know how food is produced. There's estimates That that the number of vertebrate animals that die per acre to produce a vegan meal Is uh, is much higher than uh, what you how many animals die to have a beef meal That was definitely one of the arguments made as well. It wasn't about the art about that far away is Wayla when he was saying it's you know, it's the equivalent of two two thousand chickens. Yeah, exactly You know, I mean, I'm very sympathetic to being more concerned about the life of a whale than a chicken I mean, I I've I've you know from an animal rights perspective. I'm on I'm on board with that Just to wrap things up. We're getting on now So if there's any final remarks that you want to leave or final considerations for people or places that they can learn more Now that's probably the time Well, okay, we have a fact check website called sustainable fisheries dash udub.org We're actually putting together a full page on sea spiracy because it had it required so much fact checking but it really is intended to be a source on Real good scientific information on issues in in fisheries and I would encourage everybody to look at that fantastic