Overfishing

Tell the government to buy sustainable fish

Posted by Willie — 9 March 2011 at 5:46pm - Comments

Hugh and Jamie during filming of the Fish Fight series

Hugh and Jamie during filming of Fish Fight outside Westminster

"Greenest government ever." That’s the phrase that’s already been used to slap the current UK administration a fair few times. It’s an ambitious claim, but it seems even on the black-and-white issues UK ministers can’t quite bring themselves to go green.

Article tagged as: bycatch, government, overfishing, sustain, sustainable fish

Fish discards are indefensible, but will the EU ban them?

Posted by Willie — 2 March 2011 at 6:23pm - Comments

If yesterday’s news is supposed to be today’s fish and chip wrappers, then today we have an odd scenario: your fish supper is probably wrapped in a hefty helping of column inches on fishing.

Article tagged as: CFP, discards, EU, fishing, fishing quotas, overfishing

Skipjack tuna is cheap and plentiful... or is it?

Posted by jamie — 1 March 2011 at 11:41am - Comments

Tuna and bycatch caught in the east Pacific

Of all the tuna species, skipjack is seen as the most plentiful and the most sustainable. The speed with which it reproduces and matures has meant stocks are more resilient to our industrial fishing fleets than its bluefin and bigeye cousins, and has guaranteed its place in the sandwiches and baked potatoes of the nation. Or at least, that has been the case until now.

Article tagged as: bycatch, IATTC, overfishing, pacific ocean, skipjack tuna, tinned tuna, tuna

Defending Pacific tuna in Taiwan

Posted by jamie — 31 January 2011 at 4:07pm - Comments

Ron with activist alongside the MV Lung Yuin in Taiwan

While in the UK we're focusing on Princes and the consumer end of the tuna trade, in Taiwan the Rainbow Warrior has been exposing the problems with tuna fishing. Last week, the crew prevented a fish cargo ship from leaving port...

Article tagged as: illegal fishing, oceans, overfishing, pacific ocean, taiwan, tuna

EU fishing quotas are about to get a bit more exciting (if that's possible)

Posted by jamie — 13 December 2010 at 6:41pm - Comments

German agriculture minister Ilse Aigner walks past Greenpeace's trawler in Brussels, Belgium

Every year, it’s the same. Despite evidence and advice from marine biologists that really there aren't plenty more fish in the sea, European fishing quotas are set way above what's required to halt and reverse the downward spiral of many commercial species. As Willie pointed out this time two years ago, it's a pantomime farce which comes along like clockwork in the week before Christmas. But that may be about to change.

Article tagged as: brussels, CFP, common fisheries policy, dirfect actions, EU, oceans, overfishing

A big day for bluefin tuna approaches

Posted by jamie — 23 November 2010 at 1:22pm - Comments

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?

Article tagged as: CITES, iccat, oceans, overfishing, paris, tuna

The trouble with tuna

Posted by Willie — 25 August 2010 at 12:01pm - Comments

Is removing salade nicoise from the menu better than searching out sustainable tuna supplies? (Photo (c) FotoosVanRobin)

When you get a bit close to a subject, you get geeky. Before you know it you are scoffing at how other people could possible not know something, because you do. Yet of course it's true that the vast majority of the public are very much in the 'don't know' camp.

Article tagged as: hilton hotels, oceans, overfishing, sustainable seafood, tuna

New reports question if there are plenty more fish in the sea

Posted by Willie — 4 August 2010 at 10:57am - Comments

If you're reading this in the UK, you ran out of fish today.

Basically, the UK eats more fish than its waters produce and, thanks to some nifty fish-counting from the clever folks at NEF, that equates to the 4th of August being the day we use up our year's fish supply. In comparison to the EU as a whole, we fair a month better but then we are a country with quite a lot of seas, certainly in comparison with, er, Austria and Romania. Yet, for almost five full months we are relying on fish from somewhere else. And that might be okay, if there was plenty of it to go around. But of course, as the old saying should go, there aren't plenty more fish in the sea.

Article tagged as: common fisheries policy, DEFRA, fish stocks, marine reserves, oceans, overfishing, seafish

The day the fish ran out

Posted by jamie — 12 July 2010 at 2:55pm - Comments

I was gearing up to write something on the interesting new report by the New Economics Foundation (Nef) on how the EU is becoming more reliant on fish from other parts of the world, when my attention was drawn to a piece by the BBC's Richard Black who explains far more eloquently than I ever could what 'fish dependence day' is.

Nef has compared the amount of fish caught within the EU with the amount we consume to find out when - if we only ate our own, EU-caught fish from January 1 - we would have to start using fish supplied by other countries. This year, that day was last Friday 9 July or 'fish dependence day' and, like the global ecological debt day which Nef also computes, it's getting earlier each year as we import more and more fish. Or eat more. Or both.

Like I say, Mr Black covers all the main points and more on a sobering thought exercise.

Article tagged as: fish, fishing, NEF, oceans, overfishing, sustainable seafood

Taking action to free bluefin tuna

Posted by jamie — 14 June 2010 at 4:08pm - Comments

The crews of the Arctic Sunrise and the Rainbow Warrior have once more come to the aid of Atlantic bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean. Although the fishing season has ended early because the quotas have been reached, there are still large cages out there filled with fish caught over the past couple of weeks. These cages are bound for tuna 'ranches', where the fish will be kept and fattened up, before being slaughtered.

Yesterday afternoon our activists again tried to free the endangered tuna from one of these cages.

Article tagged as: bluefin, direct action, mediterranean, oceans, overfishing, purse-seining, ships, tuna

Greenpeace UK