Bearing witness to Pacific plunder
Here's some video footage I took during one of our recent actions out here in the Pacific - when we found the world's largest tuna fishing vessel, the Albatun Tres. Helena, a deckhand and boat driver from Australia and Daniel a volunteer activist from Fiji and Kiribati talk about their experience that day. We made this video together in my cabin last night so that you can see what it's like to be part of a Greenpeace action at sea and bear witness to overfishing in the Pacific. Daniel has also written about his experience below.
Seeing the world's largest tuna fishing vessel – the Albatun Tres was the most horrific experience I have had since being on board the Esperanza.
For the first time ever - I got the opportunity to be part of the action team involved in a peaceful protest. It started off as a bit of a bumpy ride as the sea was quiet rough and I was literally bouncing up and down on the inflatable boat. I was surprised that I managed to get onto this small boat from Esperanza but I made it and off I went to bear witness to the reality of industrial tuna fishing.
What completely amazed me was the massive size of the ship, She is 115 metres in length and so wide and so big that we felt like ants next to a giant. I watched angrily as they hauled in tuna of various sizes as well as other fish caught in the net.
We we able to get footage and pictures of the fishing activity as well as stage a banner protest. It was an incredible moment to watch Raoul, one of our engineers on board Esperanza, do his thing with the jet ski as he pulled the big banner we made, into the huge tuna net (the banner suddenly didn't seem big at all then!).
I watched emotionally as they pulled sharks of which one was a baby hammerhead. The sharks that were caught in the net were pulled right up to the top of the crane and dropped to the bottom which I am sure would have caused the poor thing an instant and painful death. This image will haunt me for the rest of my life.
I was feeling all sorts of emotions at this point. I can't comprehend why our governments (Pacific) go ahead and issue fishing licenses to these fishing companies, giving them all the freedom to help themselves to the Pacific fish, while many of our people suffer from starvation. This sort of activity does not help our countries and I know this for a fact from my past experiences as a volunteer in community services as well as recent visits to family and friends in Kiribati.
I live in Fiji, but my family originally come from Kiribati, which is a big part of me and I am very proud of many of her accomplishments. However today I watched and bowed my head in shame for the first time. I hope that Kiribati will stop giving licenses to monster fishing vessels like the Spanish Albatun Tres and I want to encourage all Pacific islanders to stand up and support our cause - to save the tuna and save our future!
[The aerial stills in the video were taken by Paul Hilton, our photographer who was in the helicopter]
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Comments
I think it is a bit deceitful to call your protest 'peaceful' when it is conducted from inside their netted area. You invaded their space. It would be like breaking into someone's house, but doing it 'peacefully.' It's still wrong.
Posted by: Fred Fry | June 6, 2008 12:15 PM
Using sounds captured by advanced hydrophones and beautiful shots coming from “Esperanza” vessel webcam, I had the opportunity to create an original music composition able to express my human feeling to sustain the defending whales.
Posted by: Valeriano | June 7, 2008 1:19 PM
Disgusting. Knowing this boat is partly subsidized, or make that sponsored, with my money (the taxes I have no problems paying, hoping useful things are done with them) makes it even more so.
@Fred Fry: Yeah indeed. It's highly deceitful of them activists to call this a peaceful protest. It's not as if they merely placed a floating banner somewhere in the middle of the high seas without damaging, or even touching, the huge fishing net. Right on man! :)
Posted by: Pepijn | June 8, 2008 7:30 PM
With comments like the above it's hardly surprising the world is in such a sorry state. We rely on heroic organisations such as Greenpeace to defend what little is left of our planet. In the footage of the Albatun Tres it doesn't take much to see where the aggression lies, who the belligerents are. It can hardly be called deceitful to sail thousands of miles across the Pacific to try and do something about overfishing and there is certainly nothing warlike about 'invading the space' of a factory ship busy destroying what belongs to all of us.
Greenpeace are doing a necessary job that should be the responsibility of us all.
Posted by: Stephen | June 11, 2008 6:54 PM