How To Protect The Ocean

In 2023, a marine heat wave settled over Palmyra Atoll, a remote ring of coral islands about 1,000 miles south of Hawaii, and stayed for more than half a year. Some of the reef's most vibrant corals turned white. Joe Pollock of The Nature Conservancy, who monitors the reef, admitted he didn't know if it would come back. Three years later, he put his face in the water and found the reef floor covered in baby corals.

In this episode, I break down why Palmyra recovered when so many reefs struggle. It comes down to an intact food web: parrotfish that graze algae off the reef, a bubblegum-pink crustose coralline algae that holds space for young corals, and sharks that keep the whole system in balance. Then we travel to Tsitsikamma, Africa's oldest marine protected area, where Rhodes University researchers found that protected red roman stayed active through an extreme cold spell while fished populations slowed down.

Protected areas buy reefs time, and cutting emissions decides how much time they need. I close with one simple action you can take this year: submitting a short comment of support the next time a marine protected area consultation opens in your region. Here's the template from the episode, ready to copy and paste: "I support protecting this area because intact ecosystems recover faster from heat waves. Please give science-based protections full weight."

Takeaways

• Bleached coral is starving, not dead, and can recover if the heat breaks in time
• Palmyra's reef recovered with a "sea of baby corals" whose parents survived the 2023 bleaching
• Corals that survive bleaching often tolerate heat better and can pass that tolerance to offspring
• Parrotfish, crustose coralline algae, and sharks form the "crew of three" that keeps a reef ready to recover
• Protected red roman in South Africa kept moving through a cold spell that slowed fished populations
• At 1.5°C of warming, 70 to 90% of coral reefs are projected to decline, so emissions cuts remain the primary fix
• One two-sentence comment on an MPA consultation counts

Important Links and Calls to Action

Copy-and-paste comment for your next MPA consultation: "I support protecting this area because intact ecosystems recover faster from heat waves. Please give science-based protections full weight."

• NPR: There are still nearly pristine coral reefs. They're a blueprint for coral restoration: https://www.npr.org/2026/09/18/nx-s1-5901157/coral-reefs-bleaching
• Chasing Coral (Netflix documentary): https://chasingcoral.com
• Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network 2025 Report (living coral down about 10% since 1980): https://gcrmn.net/2025-report/
• Corals that survive bleaching gain heat tolerance (NPR): https://www.npr.org/2024/04/01/1241431817/coral-climate-change-heat-great-barrier-reef-bleaching
• Crustose coralline algae, the unsung architects of coral reefs (Smithsonian Ocean): https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/plants-algae/coralline-algae-unsung-architects-coral-reefs
• High apex predator biomass on remote Pacific islands (Palmyra predator density): http://researchgate.net/publication/33548989_High_apex_predator_biomass_on_remote_Pacific_islands
• Global decline of oceanic sharks and rays, 71% since 1970 (Nature): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03173-9
• Red roman study, Mlotshwa et al., Rhodes University (African Journal of Marine Science): https://doi.org/10.2989/1814232X.2025.2558738
• IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C: https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/
• Super Reefs framework (The Nature Conservancy, WHOI, Stanford): https://www.nature.org/en-us/what-we-do/our-insights/perspectives/super-reefs-heat-resilient-corals/
• Mote Marine Laboratory releases hatchery-raised Caribbean king crabs: https://mote.org/news/mote-marine-laboratory-releases-first-hatchery-raised-caribbean-king-crabs-onto-floridas-coral-reef-marking-major-milestone-in-restoration-efforts/
• New hope for Puerto Rico's coral reefs, sea urchin restoration (NOAA Fisheries): https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/new-hope-puerto-ricos-coral-reefs
• Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Marine Protected Areas: https://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/oceans/mpa-zpm/index-eng.html
• Government of Canada, Consulting with Canadians: https://www.canada.ca/en/government/system/consultations/consultingcanadians.html
• US federal public comment periods (Regulations.gov, includes NOAA): https://www.regulations.gov

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Quick test: name one marine protected area in your country. If you came up blank, you're in good company. When an aquarium in Durban, South Africa surveyed its visitors, fewer than one in five could name a single MPA. Andrew Lewin explains why that silence is one of the biggest threats MPAs face, because a place nobody can name is a place nobody defends when it gets weakened, shrunk or quietly reopened.

This episode follows South Africa's long road from protecting 0.4% of its mainland ocean to 5.4%, and the communicators who realized the science and consultations were done but the public was missing. They called MPAs "nature reserves of the sea," talked about what protection does for people, and built a simple map that let visitors find their own town beside a protected area. That idea grew into MPA Day, a celebration that started with a phone call to a handful of friends and now runs every 1 August in more than 25 countries with UN Ocean Decade endorsement.

Andrew practices what he preaches by naming one: the Gully, a giant canyon off Nova Scotia where northern bottlenose whales hold their breath for over an hour. Then he hands you a five-minute task. Find the MPA closest to you, learn one species that lives there, and share it with the HTPTO community so we can build a list of places named by listeners around the world.

Takeaways

• Most people can't name a single marine protected area, and that lack of awareness leaves MPAs exposed to quiet rollbacks
• Ocean protected areas have no gates or signs, so they need communicators to make them visible
• South Africa's 20 new MPAs took more than a decade of science and consultation, then needed public support to cross the finish line
• Framing MPAs as "nature reserves of the sea" connects a new idea to one people already know
• Explaining what MPAs do for people (more fish, tourism jobs, storm protection) builds support faster than biodiversity language alone
• A map showing protected areas near people's own towns was the most effective exhibit at the aquarium
• MPA Day grew from a few friends in 2021 to a global event endorsed by the UN Ocean Decade
• Your task: find your nearest MPA at protectedplanet.net and learn one species that lives there

Links:

For the call to action:

• Anywhere in the world: Protected Planet
• Canada: Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Marine Protected Areas across Canada
• United States: NOAA MPA Inventory, which includes an interactive map viewer

For the stories in the episode

• MPA Day: mpaday.org
• South Africa's MPA network: Marine Protected Areas South Africa, run by SANBI and its partners
• The uShaka survey and how the exhibit came about: The Ocean Project, a blog post by Judy Mann
• The Gully: Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Gully MPA

Most people can't name a single marine protected area in their own country. Dr. Judy Mann-Lang found that out the hard way when she asked aquarium visitors to name one and they named the aquarium. With South Africa's new MPAs stalled on a minister's desk and oil and gas lobbyists in the room, she realized the ocean needed public support that didn't yet exist. That gap became MPA Day.

Judy spent 30 years at uShaka Sea World in Durban, moving from education to CEO to conservation strategist, then five years with the Two Oceans Aquarium, earning a PhD on how effectively aquariums communicate conservation along the way. She and Andrew talk about layering messages for visitors who have never seen an aquarium, the Penguin Promises study that tracked whether people kept a conservation pledge a year later, why sustainable seafood is complicated, and the two shifts that made MPA Day work: explaining MPAs as nature reserves in the sea, and showing how they support people as well as biodiversity.

You'll leave with a clearer sense of why invisible boundaries are so hard to love, how a single idea grew from one aquarium to celebrations around the world, and what you can do on 1 August next year. Judy also shares how she handles eco-anxiety: start in your own community, and get outside to the places that keep you inspired.

Links mentioned in this episode

• MPA Day: https://mpaday.org/
• Two Oceans Aquarium: https://www.aquarium.co.za/
• Communication4Nature (African Conservation and Rangers): https://www.africanconservationrangers.org/new-page-2
• Mission Blue Hope Spots: https://mission-blue.org
• ProtectBaltic: https://protectbaltic.eu/
• Andrew's YouTube video on Palmyra Atoll's coral recovery: https://youtu.be/3gI2_DcZwqM

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You bought the fish with the green check mark. Investigators with The Outlaw Ocean Project then checked the supply chains behind hundreds of seafood companies making sustainability claims, and more than half had a documented crime or concern somewhere upstream. In the final episode of our fish feed series, Andrew Lewin looks at what sustainable seafood labels cover and where their audits stop.

Follow fishmeal from Western Sahara to ASC-certified sea bass farms in Türkiye that supply UK supermarkets, and from the Golden Lead plant in Gunjur, The Gambia, to a certified shrimp feed mill in Vietnam whose customers ship to Canadian freezer aisles. Most certification audits focus on the farm, which means the origins of the feed often rest on paperwork. Andrew also explains why crew interviews at sea rarely happen in the conditions that would let workers speak freely.

Then hear what happened in 2023, when investigators published trade records linking Uyghur forced labour to seafood sold in North America and Europe. Companies cut ties with named suppliers within a day. Visibility changed behaviour, and that is where you come in: one email to your grocery chain asking whether its seafood policy covers fish feed adds to the pressure that rewrites next year's supply chain report.

Takeaways

• Seafood certification audits mostly focus on the farm and sometimes the processor, so fishmeal sources further upstream often go unexamined
• Fishmeal linked to Western Sahara and to a polluting plant in The Gambia has been traced toward certified feed mills and farms supplying major retailers
• Seafood Watch ratings cover environmental impact; labour risk sits in a separate business tool
• In 2023, seafood buyers cut ties with suppliers within a day once evidence of forced labour was public
• Canada (S-211), the UK (modern slavery statements) and Australia require large companies to report on forced labour in supply chains
• One email asking "Does your seafood policy cover fish feed?" is a simple, effective action

Links and Important Notes:

1. Food for Feed investigation (The Outlaw Ocean Project): https://foodforfeed.theoutlawocean.com/ The main hub for the series you built this week around.
2. Bait to Plate tool: https://baittoplate.theoutlawocean.com/ This lets listeners trace companies themselves, which fits the episode's "you can see the chain" message.
3. Canada: S-211 report catalogue (Public Safety Canada): https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/lbrr/ctlg/rslts-en.aspx?l=7 The government library catalogue holds filed reports under the Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act, so Canadian listeners can search their grocer directly.
4. UK: Modern Slavery Statement Registry (GOV.UK): https://modern-slavery-statement-registry.service.gov.uk/ The government registry lets you search statements with filters. One caveat worth knowing: submission is still voluntary, and not every organisation has added its statement yet, so UK listeners may need to check the company's own website.
5. Dr. Judy Mann-Lang / MPA Day: tease next week's episode with a link once it's live.

In a single day in March 2024, Gambian navy officers arrested eight industrial trawlers. Seven were fishing in waters reserved for local canoes, four were using illegal nets, and every one had switched off its tracking beacon. That one patrol shows a problem playing out across the global ocean. About three in four industrial fishing vessels are not publicly tracked, and many of the boats supplying the fishmeal that feeds farmed fish are among the hardest to see.

In this episode of How to Protect the Ocean, Andrew Lewin follows the boats that catch the fish behind fish feed. He covers how vessels go dark, repaint and reflag, and how transshipment lets them stay at sea for months. He looks at fishmeal-linked boats working inside marine protected areas and the crew members who pay the price when help is weeks away. He also tells the story of Viktor Boshko, a deckhand who spent nearly two weeks at sea with a crushed arm before reaching a hospital.

The episode also covers what's working. The Gambia partnered with Sea Shepherd to put armed patrols at sea. Indonesia became the first country to publish its fleet's tracking data on a free public map. Satellite radar now detects boats with their beacons off, and port controls are closing doors on illegal catch. Andrew ends with a simple action you can take tonight from your phone.

Takeaways

• About 75% of the world's industrial fishing vessels are not publicly tracked, according to a 2024 Nature study.
• Fewer than 30% of the 2,400+ ships tied to fishmeal production have public location data, and fewer than 10% are in the UN's global vessel record.
• Without a permanent ID, a boat caught fishing illegally can repaint, rename and reflag, then return to fishing.
• Transshipment lets fishing boats offload at sea and stay out for months, out of reach of inspectors and medical help.
• Public tracking data, satellite radar and port controls are making it harder for dark vessels to hide.
• You can explore the Global Fishing Watch map for free and see who is fishing near your coast.

Links shared in the episode:

• Global Fishing Watch map: https://globalfishingwatch.org/map

Supporting links

• Outlaw Ocean Project, Food for Feed findings. This is the source for the fishmeal fleet stats: the 2,400 ships, the under 30% / 25% / 10% figures, the 70+ ships in MPAs, and the 50 crew deaths and injuries. https://foodforfeed.theoutlawocean.com/findings
• Bait to Plate. Their free tool traces fishmeal from vessel to plant to retailer. It ties in well with yesterday's "email your favourite company" action. https://baittoplate.theoutlawocean.com
• Outlaw Ocean, The Gambia story. This covers the 2019 patrol, the blank logbooks and the crew sleeping on the wheelhouse roof. https://foodforfeed.theoutlawocean.com/reporting/the-gambia
• Outlaw Ocean, Russia story. This covers Viktor Boshko and the Kalinovka. https://foodforfeed.theoutlawocean.com/reporting/russia
• Sea Shepherd Global. This is their report on the March 2024 arrest of eight trawlers. https://www.seashepherdglobal.org/latest-news/eight-trawlers-arrested-gambia
• ESA summary of the 2024 Nature study. This explains the 75% untracked finding. https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Copernicus/Sentinel-1/Sentinel-1_and_AI_reveal_75_of_fishing_vessels_not_tracked

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On a May morning in 2017, the people of Gunjur in The Gambia woke to find their lagoon had turned red, with dead fish on the surface. Investigators traced the pollution to a fishmeal plant up the road. In this episode, Andrew Lewin follows the feed from West African beaches to farmed salmon fillets in Europe and North America, building on The Outlaw Ocean Project's five-year investigation into the fishmeal industry.

Small, oily fish like sardinella and bonga are everyday protein in Senegal and The Gambia. Fishmeal plants buy them in unlimited volumes, outbid the women who have smoked and sold fish on the beach for generations, and ship the oil north to feed salmon. Andrew walks through what that means for families who struggle to put three meals on the table, for communities living beside the plants, and for fishers who risk the Atlantic crossing to the Canary Islands when the fish run out.

Communities are fighting back. Abéné in southern Senegal got its plant suspended within three months of opening, and major salmon feed buyers say they have stopped sourcing from the region. Andrew closes with one action that takes two minutes: email the brand behind the farmed salmon or shrimp you buy and ask where its feed comes from.

Takeaways

• Fishmeal and fish oil link West African food security to farmed salmon sold around the world
• Fishmeal plants outbid local women processors, driving up fish prices and pushing them out of work
• Plant wastewater and stench affect millions of people who live nearby
• Collapsing fish stocks are one of several factors pushing people onto the deadly Atlantic route to the Canary Islands
• Abéné, Senegal, used protests, petitions and a community vote to suspend a plant within three months
• Mowi and Skretting say they stopped sourcing West African fish oil in 2023
• One email asking your seafood brand whether its feed contains West African fishmeal or fish oil adds pressure for change

Links:

• The Outlaw Ocean Project (main site): https://theoutlawocean.com/
• Food for Feed investigation (fishmeal series): https://foodforfeed.theoutlawocean.com/
• Gambia reporting: https://foodforfeed.theoutlawocean.com/reporting/gambia
• Mauritania reporting: https://foodforfeed.theoutlawocean.com/reporting/mauritania
• Outlaw Ocean Substack: https://theoutlawocean.substack.com/

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The family behind the world's largest salmon farming company built a global industry. Now one of its members is asking how it can be sustainable to grind up fish from poorer countries, ship them across the world, and feed them to salmon sold to wealthier shoppers. In episode 2048, Andrew Lewin follows farmed fish from your plate back to the fishmeal boat to answer him.

More than half the seafood eaten worldwide now comes from farms, and most of it is fed. Andrew breaks down what fishmeal and fish oil are made of, why roughly a fifth of the global wild catch ends up as feed, and how forage fish declines show the strain on the small fish that tuna, seabirds, whales and coastal communities depend on. He also explains why a half-billion-dollar insect farm couldn't replace fishmeal, and how Norway cut marine ingredients from salmon feed while total wild fish use kept climbing.

The fastest fix is already at the seafood counter. Mussels, oysters and clams eat plankton straight from the water and need no feed at all. This is the first of four episodes on fish feed, drawing on reporting from The Outlaw Ocean Project. This week, swap one farmed salmon or shrimp meal for farmed bivalves.

Takeaways

• More than half of the world's seafood now comes from fish farms, and about two-thirds of farmed seafood is fed.
• Fishmeal is made by cooking and grinding small fish like anchoveta, sardinella and herring, and most of those fish are suitable for people to eat.
• Forage fish declines are hitting fisheries worldwide, including Canada's 2022 herring quota cut and Atlantic mackerel closure.
• Insect protein and other alternatives remain far too small to replace the fishmeal fish farms use each year.
• Norway cut marine ingredients in salmon feed from about 90% to 22% over 30 years, yet industry growth pushed total wild fish use higher.
• Farmed mussels, oysters and clams need no feed, making them one of the lowest-pressure seafood choices available.

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More than half the seafood eaten on Earth now comes from fish farms, and most of those farmed fish are raised on fishmeal made from wild-caught fish. Maya Martin, deputy editor at The Outlaw Ocean Project, joins Andrew Lewin to unpack Food for Feed, a five-year investigation that traced fishmeal from the ships that catch it, through the plants that grind it, to the farmed fish on your plate.

Maya explains how forage fish like sardinella and anchoveta are pulled from waters off West Africa, Peru and Southeast Asia, often from stocks that are already overexploited and from communities that depend on them for food and work. She walks through the stench and toxic waste that surround fishmeal plants, the protests they spark, the deaths and injuries of workers, the fire-retardant chemical ethoxyquin, and fish farms built in China's Xinjiang desert whose salmon has reached US institutions. She also shows how the team's Bait to Plate tool lets anyone follow a supply chain end to end, and why third-party certifications have missed many of these problems.

You'll leave knowing which seafood choices avoid the fishmeal problem, from filter-feeding shellfish to local catch you can see come in, and which organizations are pushing retailers and governments to clean up the supply chain. Content note: this episode discusses forced labour, violence, deaths at sea and migrant deaths. Explore the investigation at foodforfeed.theoutlawocean.com and baittoplate.theoutlawocean.com.

Links mentioned in this episode

• Food for Feed investigation: https://foodforfeed.theoutlawocean.com
• Bait to Plate supply chain tool: https://baittoplate.theoutlawocean.com
• Food for Feed findings: https://foodforfeed.theoutlawocean.com/findings
• Methodology, including country-by-country partner groups: https://foodforfeed.theoutlawocean.com/methodology
• Company and certifier responses (Discussion page): https://discussion.theoutlawocean.com/food-for-feed
• The Outlaw Ocean Project: https://theoutlawocean.com
• Amnesty International: https://www.amnesty.org
• Greenpeace: https://www.greenpeace.org
• Oceana: https://oceana.org
• Sea Shepherd: https://seashepherd.org
• The Outlaw Ocean Project's New York Times follow-up on eating seafood sustainably: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/09/briefing/fish-food.html
• Previous HTPTO episode with Dr. Marine Cusa (Oceana) on fishmeal:
  • Fish Feed in Aquaculture: https://www.speakupforblue.com/show/speak-up-for-the-ocean-blue/podcast-28/
  • The Squid You Eat is a Mystery: https://www.speakupforblue.com/show/speak-up-for-the-ocean-blue/podcast-82/

Takeaways

• More than half of the world's seafood comes from aquaculture, and more than two-thirds of farmed seafood depends on fishmeal and fish oil from wild fish
• At least half of the species landed by fishmeal vessels assessed in the investigation are overexploited or worse
• Roughly 90% of the catch used for fishmeal is edible for people, and in West Africa sardinella is a staple protein and a livelihood
• More than 9.5 million people live within a mile of a fishmeal plant, and the investigation documented at least 80 incidents of civil unrest tied to the industry
• Over half of more than 550 seafood companies making strong sustainability claims had documented crimes or concerns in their supply chains
• Farmed shellfish like mussels, oysters and clams need no feed, which makes them a lower-impact choice
• Your action: look up one farmed seafood product you buy on Bait to Plate and see where its feed came from

Picture a big sign over the seafood counter promising sustainable fishing, with a fish every independent guide says to avoid sitting on ice right below it. In most countries nobody broke a rule, because the word "sustainable" on seafood has no legal definition. In this final episode of our sustainable seafood week, Andrew Lewin walks you through how to see past that sign and choose seafood you can feel good about.

You'll learn how to use the eco-labels and seafood guides that have already done the research for you, including the Marine Stewardship Council's blue tick for wild seafood, the Aquaculture Stewardship Council label for farmed seafood, and regional guides like Seafood Watch, Ocean Wise, the Good Fish Guide and GoodFish. Andrew explains why tuna can be a best choice or one to avoid depending on species, ocean and gear, how to ask the person behind the counter without making them the target, why "local" on vacation deserves a second look, why eating invasive lionfish and blue catfish helps, and how to think about shark on the menu.

Then Andrew answers the voice in your head that says one shopper can't matter. The story of Louisiana shrimp shows how a Seafood Watch rating, the businesses that follow it, and the customers behind them pushed a state to start enforcing sea turtle protections again. Your next seafood purchase is part of that same pressure. Pre-order David Shiffman's book Why Sustainable Seafood Matters using the link in the show notes.

Takeaways

• "Sustainable" and "responsibly sourced" have no standard legal definition on seafood in the US or Canada, so treat store signs as marketing
• Look for the MSC blue tick on wild seafood and the ASC label on farmed seafood, and use your region's seafood guide
• The same species can be a best choice or one to avoid depending on where and how it was caught
• Ask the counter staff politely; if they can't tell you where or how a fish was caught, choose something else
• Eating invasive species like lionfish and blue catfish helps native ecosystems
• In 2013 Seafood Watch red-listed Louisiana shrimp over a law blocking sea turtle protections, and by 2015 the state repealed that law
• Your action: download your country's seafood guide and look up one item before your next purchase

Pre-Order Dr. David Shiffman's book called "Why Sustainable Seafood Matters"

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Off the south coast of England, about 100 kilometres out, sits Haig Fras, a granite reef covered in jewel anemones and cup corals. For years it was protected on paper, yet heavy fishing gear could still drag across it. In March 2024, that finally changed. In this episode, Andrew Lewin explains why where we fish matters as much as how much we fish, and what it takes to turn a line on a map into real protection.

Andrew breaks down the difference between midwater and bottom trawls and puts the damage shown in the recent Ocean documentary into context. Bottom trawling lands about a quarter of the world's wild-caught seafood, and the impact depends heavily on where it happens. He walks through the research on paper parks, where trawling was more intense inside European marine protected areas than outside them, and the five features that make an MPA deliver results. He also explains how England used public consultations to ban bottom-towed gear over sensitive reefs, and why the same place-based logic applies to fish farms.

The episode closes with a simple action anyone can take. The next time your government proposes or reviews a marine protected area, submit a public comment supporting rules that keep bottom trawling off sensitive habitats. Consultations count comments, and the rules written there decide whether a park is real.

Takeaways

• Bottom trawling supplies about a quarter of wild-caught seafood, and its impact depends on the habitat being trawled.
• Regions where less than 10% of the seafloor was trawled almost always had sustainably fished stocks.
• In a study of 727 EU MPAs, 59% were commercially trawled, and trawling was 38% more intense inside them than outside.
• MPAs that are no-take, enforced, older than 10 years, larger than 100 km², and isolated deliver far more fish and sharks.
• England's 2024 byelaw banned bottom-towed gear over reefs in 13 more offshore MPAs, including Haig Fras.
• Aquaculture now produces 51% of the world's aquatic animals. Look for ASC or BAP labels and seafood guide ratings.
• Submitting a public comment during MPA consultations directly shapes the rules.

Pre-Order Dr. David Shiffman's book: "Why Sustainable Seafood Matter"

Support Independent Podcasts: https://www.speakupforblue.com/patreon

Need help with your ocean non-profit, company, or project? Get the help you need with Pisces Oceans Inc.: https://www.piscesoceans.ca Connect with Speak Up For Blue Website: https://bit.ly/3fOF3Wf Instagram: https://bit.ly/3rIaJSG TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@speakupforblue Twitter: https://bit.ly/3rHZxpc YouTube: www.speakupforblue.com/youtube