Tuna

Princes changes tuna labels but not its policies

Posted by jamie — 14 January 2011 at 6:44pm - Comments

So, what's been going on since our tinned tuna league table was released on an expectant world at the weekend? Quite a bit as it happens and already you've helped us score another small but vital victory over the worst of the tuna companies, Princes.

Article tagged as: fish fight, princes, tesco, tinned tuna, tuna, tuna league table, videos

Tesco escapes last place in new tinned tuna league table with spectacular policy u-turn

Posted by jamie — 9 January 2011 at 10:40am - Comments

Tesco was bottom of our tinned tuna league table before a nifty u-turn

Update, 9 March 2011: both Princes and Asda have committed to removing tuna caught using fish aggregating devices in combination with purse seine nets from their supply chains by 2014. Read more >>

Having got wind of our new tinned tuna league table (see below) and the fact that it was going to come last, Tesco has done a spectacular u-turn. After being the subject of a Greenpeace investigation, it has radically improved its policy on the fishing methods it will permit for its own-brand tuna.

Article tagged as: bycatch, fads, oceans, princes, purse seining, reports, successes, tesco, tinned tuna, tuna, tuna league table

ICCAT fails to protect bluefin tuna

Posted by jamie — 29 November 2010 at 5:00pm - Comments

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.

Article tagged as: iccat, oceans, paris, tuna

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

Princes' tuna policy doesn't do what it says on the tin

Posted by Willie — 15 October 2010 at 10:15am - Comments

Two whole years in the making, Princes' new 'sustainable seafood statement' was supposed to address many issues. Specifically it was supposed to be explaining just what the company intended to do to drag itself from the bottom of our tinned tuna league table by explaining the measures they were implementing to ensure they were sourcing their tinned tuna responsibly.

Article tagged as: fishing, mitsubishi, oceans, princes, sharks, sustainable seafood, tinned tuna, tuna, turtles

Turning Japanese retailers onto sustainable seafood

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

Handing out sustainable seafood guides on the streets of Tokyo (c) Sutton-Hibbert/Greenpeace

There's a common comment in this part of the world, often repeated on the internet especially, about sorting out the seafood problem: namely, we have to change minds in Japan.

Whilst it's a simplistic generalisation, there is a lot of truth in that. Seafood is a global commodity and a global problem. The big markets for seafood are (perhaps unsurprisingly) North America, Europe, and Asia.

Article tagged as: bluefin, global, japan, oceans, sustainable seafood, 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

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

Purse-seining season closes early for Mediterranean bluefin tuna

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

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

Another attempt to free bluefin tuna from fishing nets

Posted by jamie — 7 June 2010 at 5:24pm - Comments

Earlier today, the Greenpeace team in the Mediterranean made another attempt to free bluefin tuna caught by the purse-seine fishing vessels. The good news is nobody got hurt this time, but the bad news is that - despite a brilliant effort - they weren't able to release any tuna.

As you can see in the slideshow above, the Arctic Sunrise got close to a Tunisian tugboat towing a net cage, into which caught tuna are transferred and towed to a tuna 'ranch' where they're fattened up ready for slaughter. Lowering a cutting grapple from the deck of the Sunrise, activists tried to cut through the netting; meanwhile, the towing rope between the tug and the cage was cut by the crew of an inflatable.

Unfortunately, the fishing crews reacted quickly, launching their own inflatable and managing to put guards on the cage. So no bluefin tuna freed this time but the fishing season still has a week to go...

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

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