Overfishing

Purse-seining season closes early for Mediterranean bluefin tuna

Posted by Willie — 9 June 2010 at 4:58pm - Comments

Greenpeace ships step in to stop bluefin tuna being fished to extinction © Hilton/Greenpeace

Today, or at 11.59pm tonight, to be exact, the purse-seining season for bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean is being closed. A week early.

I'm back on land now, having left the Arctic Sunrise in the Med. In London, we've had a flurry of media calls, excited by what they think is the "good news" that "bluefin fishing is being banned" in the Mediterranean.

So I thought, as well as putting the record straight with any journalists who'll listen, that I should maybe explain to everyone else what exactly is happening. And whether it is indeed "good news".

Article tagged as: bluefin, EU, fishing quotas, mediterranean, oceans, overfishing, purse-seining, tuna

Missing: bluefin tuna, last seen heading for extinction

Posted by Willie — 26 May 2010 at 4:16pm - Comments

We're out here in the middle of the Mediterranean. But at the moment, the bluefin tuna don't seem to be here.

The fishing boats are here. The tugs and support vessels are here. The French navy ships which are monitoring/protecting the fishery are here... but the fish aren't.

Perhaps it's just not warm enough yet. Perhaps they're looking in the wrong places. Perhaps the fish are late.

The worst possible scenario for everyone is that the fish have gone.

Article tagged as: bluefin, mediterranean, oceans, overfishing, tuna

Tinned tuna industry polices itself, and it smells so fishy

Posted by Willie — 24 May 2010 at 4:17pm - Comments

There's a well-known model of how dodgy big business deals with campaigns against them. To summarise, it goes a bit like this:

Company X gets some bad press for doing something wrong, especially bad press if it kills lots of charismatic megafauna;
Company X initially retaliates saying, 'It's all lies, honest';
Company X then admits it isn't all lies, but comes up with some way of kicking the issue into the long grass, usually some commission or foundation (ideally with a word like 'conservation' or 'sustainable' in its title) or some interminable period of gathering research, in the hope it all blows over and people forget what they were upset about.

Article tagged as: bycatch, oceans, overfishing, princes, tinned tuna, tuna

Purse-seining: when fishing methods go bad

Posted by Willie — 18 May 2010 at 3:41pm - Comments

When good things go bad: a purse-seine in action

Greenpeace is not against purse-seining, which may surprise some people. Sure it's a big industrial-looking fishing operation, involving huge nets and catching lots of fish. But that's not always a bad thing.

If we are to assume we're still going to catch and eat fish, then purse-seining as a method is probably going to be something that continues. Purse-seining involves setting a large circular wall of net around fish, then 'pursing' the bottom together to capture them. Where purse-seining is best used is with large single-species schools of fish, that shoal tightly together. Examples like herring or mackerel spring to mind. These can be caught relatively 'cleanly' by purse-seining.

Article tagged as: bycatch, FAD, fishing, oceans, overfishing, purse-seining

Esperanza featured on 'From Our Own Correspondent'

Posted by jossc — 22 February 2010 at 6:44pm - Comments

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.

Article tagged as: bluefin, destructive fishing, overfishing, pacific

John West – changing their tuna?

Posted by Willie — 16 December 2009 at 3:36pm - Comments

It’s nearly Christmas …. And as I write this it's even snowing outside the Greenpeace office, so maybe it’s time for a little goodwill and some good news.

Way back in 2008 we published a league table ranking the major tinned tuna suppliers in the UK on a number of environmental criteria. Back then big brands John West and Princes were languishing at the bottom of the pile. When we updated that league table in June 2009, we reported some significant process from many of the UK's big retailers – with Sainsbury’s, Co-op, M&S, Waitrose and Asda all increasing their commitments to more responsible sourcing of the tuna in their cans.

Article tagged as: john west, league table, overfishing, tuna

Backing down on bluefin?

Posted by Willie — 16 December 2009 at 2:57pm - Comments

You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere someone decided to name a roller-coaster 'bluefin'. The ups, downs, twists, and turns are certainly hard to follow in this fish's political fortunes, and at the end it could end up making us all feel quite sick.

Post the farcical ICCAT meeting we have seen a follow-up meeting of ICCAT’s Pacific counterparts, whose jolly gathering in Tahiti showed a similar lack of ability and spine when it comes down to making useful or necessary decisions.

Article tagged as: big eye, bluefin, EU, icatt, oceans, overfishing, tuna

Subsidising extinction

Posted by Willie — 4 December 2009 at 11:39am - Comments

Bluefin tuna - sometimes you just can't believe how absurd the story gets.

News today from WWF and a Green MEP show that over an eight-year period the EU bluefin tuna fishing industry received subsidies totalling €34.5m. Yes folks, your tax helped fund the overfishing of a species now teetering on the very brink of extinction. A species that 21 out of 27 EU countries now think should be subject to an international trade ban.

Article tagged as: bluefin, EU, oceans, overfishing, tuna

Could bluefin tuna fisheries be closed? Our man in Brazil reports...

Posted by Willie — 12 November 2009 at 2:46pm - Comments

So, here in Brazil, the game is on. At the end of yesterday’s session the parties around the table at the ICCAT meeting were asked what their priorities were for conserving bluefin tuna. One by one they made positive murmurings about wanting to 'follow the scientific recommendations', and enforce compliance with them. They all pretty much said they want to see illegal fishing tackled. No rocket science there, and you would be forgiven for wondering why they have not done those things already!

Article tagged as: atlantic, bluefin, brazil, iccat, overfishing, tuna

How to cook jellyfish...

Posted by jossc — 30 October 2009 at 4:04pm - Comments

In this, the second instalment of the 'Our Ocean Wonderland' animations, Stephen Appelby considers the culinary seafood options likely to be open to us once we've emptied the seas of edible fish.

Article tagged as: animations, destructive fishing, oceans, overfishing, stephen appelby, videos

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