Marine biologists Marianne van Mierlo and Barbara van Genne travel the world under the guidance of Dutch MP Marianne Thieme to find out what fishing has actually done to the oceans. Scientist Daniel Pauly warns that at current catch rates the seas could be empty of fish within forty years, and the film backs that claim with footage of bottom trawlers scraping the seafloor clean, hauling up bycatch that gets tossed back dead or dying. Underwater photographer Dos Winkel shows the two biologists what is still alive down there and what is disappearing, filmed on location in Newfoundland, Bonaire, the North Sea, the Azores, and several sites in the Netherlands. Fishing authorities point to sustainable-fisheries programs as the fix, but the scientists interviewed reject the premise outright, arguing that every fish taken now is one too many. The film's conclusion is blunt: there is no such thing as sustainable fishing, only degrees of depletion, and the footage of trawler decks and stripped seabeds is the evidence it leaves you with.