Greenpeace UK - Oceans

Governments fail bluefin in Doha

Willie — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:13:05 +0000

The breaking news today is that governments at the CITES meeting at Doha have voted AGAINST a trade ban on Atlantic bluefin.

Words cannot express how frustrating this is. The science and scientific backing is incontrovertible. The public will and pressure is immense. The species could be commercially extinct within just a few years. The managing body for the species is an international joke.

Yet here we are. It's business as usual after the proposal by Monaco, and the ‘compromise' proposal by the EU to list Atlantic bluefin on CITES Appendix I have been defeated. A vote was no certainty today, and it was pushed forward by Libya, one of the Mediterranean bluefin fishing nations.

You should be angry about this, you are not being represented, and the interests of a small number of fishing interests are calling the shots on species of international importance.

Seriously, if we can't get it right on a species as unarguably in need of protection as Atlantic bluefin - what chance have we got for the rest of them?

We now need to find other ways to protect Atlantic bluefin, by stopping demand, stopping fishing, and protecting spawning grounds.

Today is a huge setback for Atlantic bluefin, but it's proof - if we needed it - that we need to do more to make the people making decisions make the right decisions.

For Atlantic bluefin, this may have been the last chance.

Fishy focus at CITES meeting in Doha

Willie — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 09:44:58 +0000

The CITES meeting is now well underway in Doha, Qatar. Greenpeace is there, as are many other NGOs, and it’s clear that there is a very fishy focus for this meeting. As well as proposals to protect sharks and corals, Atlantic bluefin is the species on everyone’s mind. For a meeting concerned with the international trade in endangered species, it’s amazing how much of it could boil down to simple horse-trading.

This meeting, of course, is the chance to get an international trade ban on Atlantic bluefin, a measure that should protect the species from imminent commercial extinction.

Make no mistake though. This is not a ‘done deal’. It’s not just conservation-minded folks assembled in Doha for two weeks and there are seriously-resourced efforts to oppose the listing of fish species generally, and bluefin tuna in particular. Just to put that in context, the Japanese delegation at this meeting is rumoured to be ten times bigger than it normally is. They, clearly, are on a mission. And that mission is evident already, they are trying to undermine the bluefin proposal at every opportunity: scaremongering lobbying of developing nations; proposing a ‘compromise’ of Appendix II listing (which is pretty much pointless), and; some angst about the impending end of sushi and Japanese culture as we know it.

There’s a huge irony staring Japan in the face of course, if bluefin truly is a fish you want to continue to be able to eat, why would you fish it to extinction?

The meeting in Doha runs until 25th March, and it could well be close to the end that we know whether the campaign to achieve an international trade ban on Atlantic bluefin has been successful. In the meantime we have seen a number of countries nailing their colours to the mast. The main fishing nations, US and EU support a trade ban, as do the proposers Monaco, and Norway (much to Japan’s displeasure). Lined up in opposition are Japan, China, Korea, Canada and Australia. As with many of these international meetings though, there is frantic lobbying underway, and equally-frantic tallying of numbers happening on an hourly basis by both sides. So far, not all the party countries have turned up. When it comes down to voting, who is ‘in the room’ can make a crucial difference.

Given that it’s the survival of species that’s at stake – there truly is all to play for.

We’ll keep you up to date with the news from Doha, and if you want to check out the blogs from journalist Charles Clover and others at the meeting – then keep an eye out here.

Click here to read Greenpeace's While Stocks Last CITES briefing on the key marine species proposals.

Tokyo Two trial: stage two

jossc — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:57:36 +0000

Tension is rising as round two of the Tokyo Two trial starts today in Aomori, Japan, where Greenpeace activists Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki are on trial in Japan for their role in exposing major corruption in the government funded whaling industry. This week they get to give evidence for the first time, and the whistleblower who alerted them to the embezlement scandal will also take the stand. Watch the video above for an update on the story so far...

There are still concerns over the fairness of the trial, however, as the members of the whaling crew who received the stolen whalemeat look as though they may be able to avoid giving evidence. Apparently there is no mechanism in Japan's legal system to enforce defence witnesses to attend!

It's decisions like these that caused a division of the United Nations Human Rights Council to rule recently that the Tokyo Two's human rights have been breached by the Japanese justice system. This is the first ever such ruling of its kind for Japan.

Junichi and Toru have put their freedom and rights on the line to defend whales - please pledge your support for them. Tell the Japanese government that it is whaling that should be on trial, not those who oppose it.

We will ensure that your pledge is communicated to the government of Japan as we show the strong level of support behind Junichi and Toru during their trial.

You can follow updates from the trial on our Facebook page, or by following the Twitter list @Greenpeace/whaletrial or #whaletrial.

Support Toru and Junichi: sign our petition »

Why Greenpeace supports a Marine Reserve in the Chagos

Willie — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:00:01 +0000

Greenpeace believes that there is an overwhelming case for giving full protection to the waters of the Chagos as a no-take Marine Reserve and has now formally responded to the UK government's consultation on the Chagos Islands Marine Protected Area.

But the UK Government consultation does not address everything that needs to be addressed in the Chagos Islands: The Chagossian people, who were removed from the islands prior to the creation of the Diego Garcia military base, are still fighting for justice. Early Greenpeace campaigner Rex Weyler tells that sorry tale in his blog here.

Greenpeace wants to see justice for the Chagossians, and believes that on their return to the archipelago they must be fully involved in managing their waters and protecting their seas. Our submission points to some successful models whereby careful zonation has enabled small-scale sustainable fishing to be incorporated into large-scale Marine Reserves.

Moreover, Greenpeace is of course fundamentally opposed to the existence of the Diego Garcia military base.

You can read our full submission here.

In the submission we set out the rationale for why Marine Reserves are more effective than other kinds of marine protected area (MPA) and the need for large-scale protection.

Establishing a Marine Reserve would immediately start delivering tangible benefits to the environment and prohibit destructive fishing practices.

Some key points from our submission:

Greenpeace supports the creation of a no-take Marine Reserve in the Chagos archipelago. This type and scale of protected area is what we have been campaigning to establish for many years, and what globally our oceans desperately need. If created, this would be the largest no-take Marine Reserve in the world, but even then we would still be a long, long way off what we need, which is a global network of large-scale, fully-protected Marine Reserves covering some 40% of our oceans.
Creating a no-take marine reserve would not only allow exploited stocks to recover and thrive, but also give sanctuary to species likes sharks and turtles, as well as help make the coral reef system around the Chagos Islands more resilient to the impacts of climate change.
The Marine Reserve should be established without prejudice to the rights of the Chagossians or the sovereignty claim of Mauritius. The Chagossians have experienced an egregious and historic wrong for which the UK government should make full amends. Indeed, we believe another important rationale for the creation of a full no-take Marine Reserve is to put an immediate end to the ongoing commercial exploitation of these disputed waters prior to the resolution of the dispute.
Upon the return of the Chagossian people, Greenpeace would be happy to engage with them on how they can best develop small-scale, low-impact, sustainable fishing practices whilst continuing to ensure the effective protection of this globally-important ecosystem.
Greenpeace is of the view that the Diego Garcia nuclear-capacity military base represents a threat to the local and global environment, as well as to world peace, and should be abolished.

The establishment of a Marine Reserve is a first step towards securing a better and sustainable future for the Chagos Islands, a future which must include securing justice for the Chagossian people and the closure and removal of the military base.

Esperanza featured on 'From Our Own Correspondent'

jossc — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:44:15 +0000

For those of you who missed Saturday's edition of one of Radio 4's most popular programmes, 'From Our Own Correspondent', you missed a great piece on the desperate plight of Pacific tuna. Focusing on overfishing by EU and Asian nations around the Cook Islands, it covered the story of our very own ship Esperanza busting a Japanese purse seining vessel which was fishing illegally in Cook Island waters.

You can listen to it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/fooc.

Either download the latest episode of FOOC from the left hand menu (dated 20 February), or listen directly to the highlighted 'recent episode' on the right hand menu that begins with the text "Arab/ Israeli tensions surface in Dubai.

Although it's not listed in the written menu, the Pacific item comes up at 18' 28" on the player and lasts about five minutes.

I'm biased of course, but it's well worth a listen...

A run on salmon?

Willie — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:38:50 +0000

It's worth stopping to think about the true price of the salmon you eat. And there's quite a lot to think about.

Salmon is one of the biggest international seafood commodities, and in the UK it's easily one of the most consumed and most conspicuous species in our supermarkets and restaurants. But the vast majority of the salmon you'll find on shelves or plates these days has been farmed rather than fished. Partly that’s because there's hardly any wild Atlantic salmon left, but it's also because salmon's popularity has grown and it has gone from being a delicacy to become more of an everyday food in the past few decades.

Today sees the online launch of a short film exposing some of the more unpleasant side of the global salmon industry, called Farmed Salmon Exposed - watch the first instalment above.

Internationally, the UK (and Scotland in particular) is a big salmon farming country, producing proudly branded products that are sold worldwide. But the reach of this industry flows around the world the other way too – in particular with the demand for feed fish, small species like anchovies that often come from places like South America, where they are caught in vast numbers and rendered down to fishmeal. Alternative options could be palm oil or soya, which of course bring their own set of concerns.

Perhaps surprisingly for some people, salmon farming generally uses many times more fish - weight for weight - than it produces. From that perspective alone it's questionable whether farming salmon and other carnivorous species of seafood can ever be truly sustainable.

Lately there have been some quite hard-hitting criticisms of the impact that fishing for feed fish has on the oceans, with the mighty Dr Daniel Pauly equating this as "robbing Pedro to pay Paul". There are others trying to change the system from the other end, and at the SCA Seafood Summit in Paris I was happy to meet the dynamic Patricia Majluf who is working tirelessly in her native Peru to convince people to cut out the middle-fish, and eat anchovies rather than feed them to salmon!

As a result of Greenpeace USA's work, the retailer Target recently announced it was to stop selling farmed salmon, and would only stock wild-caught certified salmon from the Pacific instead. This is great news, but slightly marred by the huge concerns being raised by many groups in Canada about the alarming state of Pacific sockeye salmon, which, confusingly seems about to be recertified by the MSC.

The irony here is that even if you, as a conscientious consumer, want to avoid that particular species then it's likely to be very difficult to do because a number of different species are just called 'Pacific salmon'.

Some parts of the industry have already had to change because of catastrophes and bad news stories – up until last year, for example, Chilean farmed salmon was readily available on UK supermarket shelves. A string of disease outbreaks and bad PR means you won't find it there today. Elsewhere the bad news stories just keep coming, like the escape of thousands of non-native salmon just a few weeks ago.

Over here in the UK there are clearly better options for salmon if you do choose to buy it, including the salmon from Scotland which has organic certification and is overall, a much lower-impact option.

But please do stop to think of the overall price you may be paying.

Tokyo Two court case starts, but it's whaling that's really on trial...

jossc — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:32:50 +0000

The trial of Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki, the brave anti-whaling activists who exposed corruption within the Japanese whaling industry in 2008, finally begins today in the whaling city of Aomori.

There's little doubt that this is a politically motivated prosecution designed to silence the Toyko Two, as they've become better known, and to crush all opposition against whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

Junichi and Toru have continued to make their voices heard despite facing intimidation by the Japanese authorities and up to 10 years in prison. They need your help now more than ever. Tell the Japanese government that you stand beside them as co-defendants.

Take action

Sign our petition to put whaling on trial - not the people who oppose it »

Read the full dossier of the whaling scandal and the Tokyo Two here »

THANKS, from all the fish!

Willie — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:44:34 +0000

It’s been a busy week, for the fish.

There was the news that the UK’s biggest seafood suppliers have decided to stop supplying European eel and North Atlantic halibut. Both of these species are already listed on the IUCN’s redlist, but the fact that suppliers and retailers are increasingly delisting such species is testament to ongoing campaigning by the likes of Greenpeace, the Marine Conservation Society, and Fish2Fork – making sure that they know that serving up endangered fish species is simply no longer acceptable.

Then the European Parliament voted to support the listing of Atlantic bluefin on CITES, effectively backing a full international trade ban on the species. The growing support for this trade ban makes it look increasingly likely that the EU will put its full weight behind the proposal, and it has an increasing chance of delivering the protection Atlantic bluefin so desperately needs at the CITES meeting in Doha.

This morning we also received a rather detailed letter from the UK’s fisheries minister, Huw Irranca-Davies. Huw was specifically responding to my blog questioning why the UK had gone quiet on the issue of bluefin, and to the thousands of Greenpeace supporters who wrote to him to demand that he backed a full trade ban on the species. The good news of course is that the UK has now publicy reaffirmed its unconditional support for the CITES Appendix 1 listing of Atlantic bluefin.

In it he explicitly acknowledges that the fisheries management body responsible for Atlantic bluefin has not taken effective measure to protect the species, so:

“ … it remains our view that the CITES Appendix I listing is not only fully justified but also necessary.”

He goes on to assure us that “… the UK will work very hard to see that the proposal gets adopted in Doha.”

It’s not often we at Greenpeace get to congratulate a minister. So, well done Huw!

… and thanks to you, too, if you helped make this happen by writing to the minister.

You can read Huw’s letter in its entirety here.

GUILTY! Japan's justice system "breached human rights of Greenpeace anti-whaling activists"

jossc — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:39:54 +0000

Toru and Junichi at the 2008 press conference where they first exposed the corruption scandal

When two of our activists were detained after exposing major corruption in the Japanese whaling industry - we knew the Japanese authorities breached internationally guaranteed human rights. Now, as these two activists prepare to take the stand and have their day, or more in court, the violation of their human rights has been confirmed by a UN working group.

Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki, known as the “Tokyo Two”, are due to stand trial on February 15th - charged for theft and trespass. But over the past two years it has become clear that much more is now under the legal spotlight. Corrupt government practices, censoring public information, Japan’s adherence to international law, freedom of speech and the right of individual protest together with the commercial killing of thousands of whales are all under the spotlight. And before the verdict has even been rendered, a working group of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has already ruled that, in the defendants' attempts to expose a scandal in the public interest, their human rights have been breached by the Japanese justice system.

Bluefin trade ban bandwagon

Willie — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:30:55 +0000

It’s like déjà vu, but hopefully this time it will be for real.

Several months ago the UK jumped eagerly on France ’s coat-tails by announcing it’s support for a trade ban on bluefin. Amidst the ups and downs since then our friends at Defra have been noticeably unforthcoming of late. Getting any straight answer out of them on bluefin was like setting up a black pudding factory on Mount Everest. That’s why we encouraged supporters to make sure Defra did the right thing and publicly supported a trade ban.

And guess what? They just did. Hot on the stacked heels of Mr Sarkozy’s government, our own fisheries minister, Huw Irranca-Davies, issued a statement supporting a full trade ban for Atlantic bluefin at the end of last week. Notable highlights were:

“…As such, we maintain our long held position that Bluefin be given the highest protection available by listing it under CITES Appendix 1.” [that means a full international trade ban, not just restrictions on trade]

and

“…The UK will work tirelessly to secure the adoption of the Appendix I listing in Doha.”

Well, good on you Huw, and good on you, too, if you helped us by sending a message to Defra in the past few weeks. Thank you!

However, not wishing to rain on Huw’s parade, but there has since been an even more significant announcement since – by CITES themselves. Or, rather their secretariat and scientific advisory group. They have said that Atlantic bluefin qualifies for Appendix 1 (a full trade ban) and that they hope that it should be listed.

There seems now no credible doubt that the species meets the criteria, and should be subject to an international trade ban. (CITES say so, Governments say so, hey – even ICCAT say so!) … the only doubt is what will drive the politicians when it comes to the CITES meeting in Doha, where there will be all manner of horse-trading on everything from corals to polar bears.

Will they listen to the clear and impartial advice from the scientists? Will they heed public opinion? Will they listen to the growing band of famous names backing bluefin? Will they listen to the chefs eager to drop the species?

We still have to make sure that they do.