05
May 2008 - Pacific Ocean — The Greenpeace
ship Esperanza freed tuna, sharks, marlin
and an endangered sea turtle from a Taiwanese
longliner on Saturday. The vessel was fishing
in the Pacific Commons, the international
waters we want to see protected as a marine
reserve.
We encountered the longliner,
Ho Tsai Fa 18, while it was hauling in tens
of kilometres of fishing line. The captain
was asked to release all of the live catch.
When he refused our activists freed everything,
including several oceanic sharks and a massive
Pacific blue marlin that leapt into the
air like a rocket as soon as it was freed
and quickly swam away.
Our activists also found
a juvenile olive ridley sea turtle caught
on the line which was released alive. In
the past, this species of turtle was slaughtered
in the hundreds of thousands for meat and
leather. It has yet to recover from centuries
of over-exploitation. This young turtle
probably hatched in Papua New Guinea where
olive ridleys are known to nest.
The Esperanza also hauled
in several kilometers of the longline and
activists branded the hull of the fishing
vessel with "PIRATE?" in red paint.
Why the question mark?
To make a point: loopholes in existing regulations
and lack of enforcement on the high seas
make it impossible to know when legal vessels
are actually fishing illegally -- and the
pockets of international waters surrounded
by national fishing zones provide safe haven
for pirates who are plundering fish from
nearby Pacific island countries. Turning
those international waters into Marine Reserves
would make piracy harder.
Once the fishing gear
was completely out of the water the captain
of the Taiwanese vessel reluctantly agreed
to leave the international waters. But several
kilometers of his line remains on the Esperanza
so that Greenpeace can publicly return it
to the vessel's company headquarters in
Taiwan.
Tuna is one of the most
valuable exports from the Pacific, bringing
in more than 10 percent of the total GDP
of the region. It is worth US$3 billion
US a year, but up to 95 percent of this
goes into the pockets of foreign fishing
operators who take 900 times as much fish
from the Pacific as Pacific nations do.
The Esperanza is currently in the Pacific
defending the pockets of international waters
we call the Pacific Commons from greedy
fishing fleets. These industrial fleets
have decimated and almost destroyed their
own fisheries and are now determined to
exploit the Pacific as much as possible.
The Western and Central
Pacific Fisheries Commission is supposed
to responsibly regulate fishing in this
region. But last December Japan and Korea,
together with Taiwan and mainland China,
blocked conservation measures advocated
by Pacific island countries to protect these
stocks for the future. This happened despite
strong scientific advice that yellowfin
and big-eye tuna catches be reduced. The
ability for the Pacific island countries
to make decisions about tuna in their region
is continually being undermined by the interests
of distant countries. It’s a stalemate that
will see tuna disappear from sandwiches
and sushi across the world unless some serious
changes are made soon.
With an international
crew including citizens from Fiji, Kiribati,
the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea,
we have taken to the high seas to defend
the Pacific ourselves.
In 2005, 24 percent
of all tuna caught in the Pacific was caught
in international waters. Creating marine
reserves in these areas would go a long
way towards protecting tuna habitat and
future fishing. Within marine reserves the
tuna populations can recover and help to
replenish stocks outside the reserves. Pirate
fishing vessels will no longer be able to
steal from Pacific Island nations' waters
by claiming their catch is from the high
seas.
United the people of
the Pacific can stop their future from being
fished to death, by halving the fishing
activity in the region and declaring the
Pacific Commons as marine reserves, off
limits to fishing.
We cannot allow the
fishing industry to destroy the last tuna
stocks in the name of consumer demand. Greenpeace
is also asking retailers to act as gatekeepers,
ensuring that fish sold on their shelves
is not stolen from the people of the Pacific,
or overfished to the point that a consumer
buying fish today becomes complicit in that
fish disappearing tomorrow.
