Destructive Fishing

Celebs threaten to boycott Nobu over unsustainable fish

Posted by Willie — 8 June 2009 at 3:13pm - Comments

Sugababes star Amelle Berrabah helps to promote our 'Endangered Sushi' message outside Nobu London © Dennis Gill

The End Of The Line has certainly been getting the rich and famous agitated on the often-overlooked issue of fish. The film's narrator Ted Danson has been a long time campaigner on oceans issues but in the past couple of weeks many more famous faces have been getting interested in fishy things.

Article tagged as: bluefin, destructive fishing, end of the line, oceans, overfishing, tuna

The end of the line?

Posted by jossc — 5 June 2009 at 3:32pm - Comments

The End Of The Line author Charles Clover talks to us about his book, the film and the plight of the ocean.

What's the film about?

It's an adaptation of my book, exploring how fishing is currently the most destructive human activity on 70 per cent of the planet's surface.

Fishing with modern technology is wiping out whole ecosystems we have barely started to understand. It's driving species such as the bluefin tuna towards extinction, undermining the food security of billions of people and damaging the oceans ability to act as a sink for carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – all to provide us with delicious things to eat.

Article tagged as: destructive fishing, end of the line, oceans, overfishing, tuna

Imagine a world without fish...

Posted by jossc — 13 May 2009 at 3:59pm - Comments

Hot on the heels of The Age of Stupid comes The End of the Line, a disturbing and powerful film about one of the world's most shockingly ignored problems - overfishing.

For centuries people have viewed the seas as an unlimited resource which can be tapped into at will, and one that will rapidly replenish itself regardless of how much we take from it. But the more we learn about what's happening in our oceans, the more we realise that this is no longer true, if it ever was.

Article tagged as: charles clover, destructive fishing, end of the line, oceans, overfishing, videos

One fish, two fish, red fish…

Posted by Willie — 26 January 2009 at 1:11pm - Comments

Red fish alert!

Red fish alert! Guppies hit the slopes to help promote 'End of The Line' © Greenpeace / Mackenzie.

Update: guppies go skiing - watch the video »

Park City during Sundance is crazy busy. The Main Street, hotels, and carparks are all chockablock, and everyone has a film to sell or see. So, clearly we needed something to attract a bit of attention and make obvious Greenpeace's support for the End Of The Line film. If you've read my previous posts, you'll be aware that part of the solution (after some complicated logistics) involved five Greenpeace US volunteers plus two red fish suits from Greenpeace Netherlands (thank you guys!).

Article tagged as: destructive fishing, end of the line, films, marine reserves, oceans, overfishing, sundance

Save the fish, save the world!

Posted by Willie — 23 January 2009 at 4:41pm - Comments

Orange roughy - live ones can make an unusual contribution to stemming climate change

Orange roughy: live ones can make an unusual contribution to stemming climate change © Greenpeace / MacKenzie

Dramatic title perhaps, but maybe not quite so far-fetched. Here in sunny Sundance, one of the questions that has been coming up repeatedly at showings of the End Of The Line movie is, "What about climate change?", assuming rightly that a warming planet will have implications for our fish populations too. Well my practised response to this before I got here was simply that the effects of climate change make all of the issues of rapacious overfishing all the more important. They make the need for precaution when it comes to fishing, and the need for fully protected areas essential.

Article tagged as: bycatch, destructive fishing, end of the line, oceans, orange roughy, overfishing, sundance

'The End Of The Line'? Imagine a world without fish...

Posted by Willie — 21 January 2009 at 10:54am - Comments

Imagine an ocean without fish. Imagine your meals without seafood. Imagine the global consequences. This is the future if we do not stop, think and act.

Imagine an ocean without fish © endoftheline.com

So, what's the movie we're here at Sundance with about? Well, it's an adaptation of Charles Clover's brilliant book on overfishing, The End Of The Line, which is an evocative and shocking portrayal of what we have done and are doing to our oceans – just to put seafood on our plates.

Article tagged as: bycatch, charles clover, destructive fishing, end of the line, overfishing

What's Greenpeace doing at the Sundance Film Festival?

Posted by Willie — 19 January 2009 at 12:53pm - Comments

Guppy goes to Sundance

Oi - Oishi, No! (to bluefin tuna on the menu, that is). Guppie spreads the word at Sundance © Greenpeace / MacKenzie

I'm writing this from Utah, a landlocked state in the US, which hosts the Sundance Film Festival each year. Sundance is known as the place for new independent films, and we're here to support a great new documentary movie called 'End of the Line', based on former Daily Telegraph environment correspondent Charles Clover's book about what overfishing is doing to our oceans.

Article tagged as: destructive fishing, end of the line, films, marine reserves, oceans, overfishing, sundance

A fishy 'heads up' to France over tuna

Posted by jossc — 19 November 2008 at 4:11pm - Comments

Heads will roll: Tuna piled up outside the French Fisheries Ministry in protest against continued over fishing

OK so I'm a day or two off the pace with this story (courtesy of a long weekend - well even we need a day or two off once in a while), and didn't find out about Monday's tuna direct action in Paris until I showed up at the office again today. So what did I miss? Well, our French colleagues took the opportunity to protest against France's leading role in decimating Mediterranean bluefin tuna stocks by dumping five tonnes of tuna fish heads outside the door of the French Fisheries Ministry.

Timed to coincide with coincide with the opening of the annual meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), in Marrakech, the action targetted France (as opposed to Italy or Spain, the two other worst offenders) in this instance because French Premier Nicholas Sarkozy currently holds the EU presidency. He has been using it to shape the EU position in favour of the short-term interests of his fishing industry above the need to save the Mediterranean bluefin tuna stock from collapse.

Article tagged as: bluefin, destructive fishing, icatt, marine reserves, oceans, tuna

'Green' grocer caught red-handed with redlist fish

Posted by jossc — 7 November 2008 at 12:55pm - Comments

Loblaws: caught red-handed selling unsustainable 'red-list' fish

Greenpeace Canada exposed the country's largest grocery store chain's claims to be a 'green' grocer as false this week, after an investigation into how they source their seafood. Loblaws, whose stores account for nearly a third of all groceries sold in Canada, were found to be selling 14 of the 15 species on Greenpeace's 'Redlist' - made up of those species that are most destructively fished or farmed.

To get 'redlisted' a species must be in serious trouble, usually defined as facing a 90% reduction in numbers. Currently top of the Canadian list are Atlantic bluefin tuna, Atlantic cod, sharks, skate, shrimp and orange roughy - all of which are sold by Loblaws.

Article tagged as: bluefin, canada, cod, destructive fishing, loblaws, sharks, shrimp, skate

Marine reserves can save our seas

Posted by jossc — 17 October 2008 at 2:07pm - Comments

Apo Island Marine Sanctuary, Philippines

Latest updates from the impressive ProtectPlanetOcean web site provide convincing support for Greenpeace's long-held contention that marine reserves provide the best long-term solution to the problems of overfishing and pollution which threaten the world's marine ecosystems. In case you've forgotten marine reserves are protected areas, national parks at sea where no fishing or other extractive industries (such as oil, gas or gravel extraction) are permitted.

The site has pulled together studies of 124 marine reserves around the world - scientific peer-reviewed research published in academic journals - to provide a clear picture of what has happened where reserves have been established.

Article tagged as: destructive fishing, marine reserves, oceans, overfishing, pollution

Greenpeace UK