103 Ian Urbina: Where Your Fish Comes From

Approximately 50 of our seafood is farmed, and the other 50 percent arrives to consumers via practices involving human abuse and serious environmental damage.

Much of the farmed fish eat fish-meal that is derived from massive overfishing of fish less desirable for eating (but nonetheless ecologically important) and other species, such as whales, sharks, turtles) caught up in the fishing process. Cooked, ground up, and used to feed the farmed fish.

We tend to think about greenhouse gases as being the driver of global change, but these practices are wreaking severe havoc on the planet, underwater.

Human abuse and slavery are often involved in the fleets that harvest from the sea. Invisible people, disposable people.

Because all of the above take place out of sight, the damage usually goes unseen for lack of journalistic coverage. It’s expensive to document but critical that it’s brought to light.