Blog: Oceans

Oceans campaigner Oliver Knowles, Greenpeace delegation lead at the recent ICCAT meeting in Paris, sums up his feelings about the rather poor outcome.

This year, ICCAT had the opportunity to do two things: rescue bluefin tuna from the edge of commercial extinction and salvage its reputation for inaction. It has now failed on both counts.

Once again, ICCAT's 10-day meeting has resulted in a new fishing quota for bluefin, this time of 12,900 tons - a tiny reduction on last year's quota of 13,500 tons. Come May, sanctioned by the very organisation which is supposed to "conserve" tuna, destructive purse-seine fishing vessels in the Mediterranean will cast their nets again on this hugely depleted species.

Let's put a marker down here and now - the governments and delegates at this ICCAT session must be noted in history as those people that have failed this magnificent species.

The tunamobile makes its debut at the ICCAT tuna meeting in Paris (c) Chauveau/Grenepeace

Oliver Knowles, oceans campaigner at our international office, wrote on Making Waves last week about the start of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT meeting) in Paris.

I'm on my way to Paris right now, where some important days for bluefin tuna are going to be taking place later this week and next. Fisheries managers and representatives from countries around the world are about to come to together at the annual meeting of ICCAT - the body that is meant to manage tuna populations in this area of the world. The challenges facing bluefin tuna have never been more plentiful and more serious.

The big question that will soon be answered - can those meant to protect bluefin tuna deliver meaningful change after years of mismanagement?

Nathalie Rey (pictured above briefing journalists) is an Amsterdam-based Oceans Policy Analyst who led Greenpeace's delegation in Nagoya for the CBD. She is the proud mother of two daughters, an avid coffee drinker and a surprised fan of Japanese food.

After two weeks of negotiations, this Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has concluded and not without some last-minute drama. Unsurprisingly, a lot of the contentious issues were left to the last day. Delegates, media and observers were told that the Friday afternoon plenary discussion was to begin at 3pm. That meant that the 197 nations gathered here would have to agree a new Protocol, decide the future of protected areas on land and at sea and sign off on a new Strategic Plan for the CBD all in less than three hours.

For all of you out there who haven't sat through these talks for the past two weeks, I assure you that this seemed like an impossible feat when they announced it on Thursday.

Richard Page is an oceans campaigner with Greenpeace International, focusing on marine reserves and polar ecosystems. He currently has the pleasure of attending the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Japan. 

So today is my last day in Nagoya doing my bit to try and make sure that the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) gathers momentum and that governments create a global network of marine reserves.  It is good to be in Japan again - the people of Nagoya seem especially friendly and helpful.

Two years ago, I was lucky enough to visit the Tokyo fish market at Tsukiji with Callum Roberts, the scientist with whom we worked to design the Greenpeace proposal for a global network of marine reserves and Daniel Pauly, who has done much to raise awareness of the dire consequences of overfishing.