MENU
Categories
Archives
Oceans
April 26, 2010There's more than meets the eye in our oceans
One of my favourite webcomics, xkcd, put this image online a few days ago. It speaks for itself: there's more than meets to eye in our oceans.
Want to help protecting them? Sign the marine reserves petition.
(image used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license)
Championing extinction
Willie, from Greenpeace UK, wrote this wrap up of the CITE meeting. Remember this is the year of biodiversity.
I've tried several times to write a 'wrap-up' blog for this year's CITES meeting. But usually I end up just banging my head against the keyboard in despair.
This CITES meeting was a turning point – the governments in the room decided that they weren't there to restrict trade to protect species, but rather there to protect trade as best they could. Nowhere was that more evident than the marine proposals.
Cutting the Arctic cake
The politics of the future of the Arctic Ocean are way too important to leave them to politicians. That is, unfortunately, exactly what is happening. Despite hopes of multilateralism which had been brought by the Arctic Council, the five Arctic coastal States are meeting behind closed doors in Canada to decide how the oil cake is going to shared between the five of them. No observers are invited. Not from other States, not from Arctic indigenous communities, not from NGOs.
The wildlife flies away
This is the last update by John Frizell from the CITES meeting that has just ended. You can read the first here and the second here.
The bird is back. Yesterday there were two very small ones flying around the room. Today a larger one, that looked like the one seen last week, made a brief appearance. It looked well fed and active. Perhaps it is not lost at all. Perhaps it has a nest or burrow amid the ceiling fittings 12 meters above our seats.
Below, on the floor of the meeting, the final hours of the meeting played out. Last ditch attempts to gain protection for the hammerhead shark were defeated in the name of economic need. And the one small victory, the listing of the Porbeagle shark was overturned. Not a single marine species got any protection despite being depleted to 20% or even 10% of their natural abundance.
What is the economic value of exctinct species?
Following his last blog on the tragedy of bluefin tuna, here is John Frizell's lastest commentary on the mockery that governments are making of this year's CITES meeting.
Just as rivers have rapids and smooth stretches, so does CITES. When the meeting returned to work on Sunday, after the Friday/Saturday weekend, the ferocity of the bluefin tuna battle was forgotten and debate flowed smoothly again.
When Honduras put forward a species of iguana for listing, comments were calm and favorable. After all, there was a strong scientific case and evidence of a sharp decline which is clearly being driven by international trade. The same countries which on Thursday had said that a strong scientific case and evidence of a sharp decline which is clearly being driven by international trade did not matter in the case of bluefin tuna, joined in a consensus to list the species and others that followed.
A Convention for the Protection of Inexpensive Species
John Frizell is part of our oceans team currently in Doha, Qatar, for the CITES meeting. following the disaster for bluefin tuna yesterday, he sent this bittersweet update.
There is a small gray bird flying around the main conference hall. Just before the vote which rejected protection for polar bears it landed on the bar which supports the transmitters for our simultaneous translation headphones, prompting the Chair to say ‘The wildlife has arrived.’
Bluefin Tuna Disaster
Willie from Greenpeace UK's biodiversity team wrote this after the latest (bad) development in Doha.
Governments at the CITES meeting at Doha have voted AGAINST a trade ban on Atlantic bluefin.
Words cannot express how frustrating this is. The science and scientific backing is incontrovertible. The public will and pressure is immense. The species could be commercially extinct within just a few years. The managing body for the species is an international joke.
Yet here we are. It’s business as usual after the proposal by Monaco, and the ‘compromise’ proposal by the EU to list Atlantic bluefin on CITES Appendix I have been defeated. A vote was no certainty today, and it was pushed forward by Libya, one of the Mediterranean bluefin
fishing nations.
You should be angry about this, you are not being represented, and the interests of a small number of fishing interests are calling the shots on species of international importance.
Seriously, if we can’t get it right on a species as unarguably in need of protection as Atlantic bluefin – what chance have we got for the rest of them?
Nonsense and stupidity
Garabed is an oceans campaigner with Greenpeace in Lebanon. He is part of our team in Doha, following the CITES meeting that could save or fail bluefin tuna
Perplexity was the word of CITES Day 5. The morning had started with reporters roaming the corridors of the Sheraton asking environmentalists their reaction to the sharks proposal being defeated in the closing hours of Day 4. Oliver was interviewed by Al-Jazeera to clarify the fact that the proposal in concern was put forward by the CITES Secretariat to try and provide greater transparency in the shark fishing industry and conduct further research into its impacts. The conclusion was indeed disappointing but on no account affects the proposals of listing several endangered shark species on Appendix II, which are still to be discussed next week.
Saving bluefin tuna in Doha
Olly Knowles is an oceans campaigner with Greenpeace. He is currently in Doha, Qatar, following the CITES meeting that could save or fail Atlantic Bluefin Tuna.
CITES COP 15 is now properly up and running and it’s a veritable quagmire of lobby and counter-lobby, I can tell you. The big issue on the table is of course bluefin tuna – and not just for Greenpeace. It’s a key item for the CITES secretariat as well which means it's very high profile. Most of the other NGOs here are also working very hard on the issue – all of this combined is making bluefin a big media story, not least in the national Qatari press, which is useful because delegates are getting free copies every morning.
Last chance for Atlantic Bluefin Tuna
CITES, the Convention of International Trade of Endangered Species, is meeting this week in Doha, Qatar. The star of this meeting is Atlantic Bluefin Tuna - and the big question is whether or not CITES will be able to give this species the protection that regional fisheries management organisations (RFMO) have not been able to give.
Some major fishing nations, like Japan (who also happens to be the main consumer of the species) have been saying that CITES should not be managing fish stocks, that this is a job for RFMOs. They're right. CITES isn't going to be managing the stock, it's going to try to save it.
Marine reserves and whale sanctuaries are there for good reason
Good news this month for marine species in protected areas! Well - at least for the smaller ones. If you're a big oceanic animal - even an international sanctuary might not be as safe as you think!
This month the US National Academy of Sciences released a special report on marine reserves and several scientists revealed their findings at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Diego. It's no surprise to us that everyone's now talking about the effectiveness of marine reserves for the conservation of ocean lifer and valuable fish stocks.
We've been campaigning for a global network of marine reserves that protects 40% of the world's oceans for nearly a decade now. It's about time this solution to the over-exploitation of our oceans got some serious attention - especially given the additional threat to our oceans from rising carbon dioxide levels.
The tuna on the other side of the world
I once asked my mother what was exactly across the planet from where we lived (Lyon, France). She told me that was New Zealand, and as a seven year old, I was as impressed as it gets. I imagined a country completely different, with people standing on their heads and doing everything backwards. As far as I was concerned, New Zealand must have been the exact contrary of France, in everything.
It turns out, as I found out a few year later, the only thing on the other side of the planet is a lot of water and less and less fish, (I also found out New Zealanders do not, in fact, stand on their heads) but for the purposes of this story, we'll pretend my Mom was right.
Vegemite or Marmite - definitely NOT tuna...
On the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, in the heart of the Pacific ocean, we have witnessed one of the titanic struggles of our age, an issue that can divide communities and and often times dare not be spoken.
I am of course talking vegemite or marmite?
If we can resolve the politics of that thorny issue, we could save the tuna!
Okay, that's not true - but it make you look. Take a look at this too: Channel 7 News from Australia was on board the Espy during our recent Defending the Pacific tour. They saw for themselves the overfishing of the tuna stocks and have now made sure that most of Australia has seen it too.....you can check out their news report here.
Jellyfish sushi, anyone?
One of the weird consequences of overfishing is the very real possibility that the niche left by fish species will be replaced by jellyfish. It makes for nice scary pieces of news ("Jellyfish invasion! They have stings, and they're dumb!"), pretty photos, but the real question for all seafood lovers out there is: does jellyfish and chips taste any good?
British cartoonist Steven Appleby tried to find a way we could cook it at how we could cook it:
Victory in the Kattegat
Photo: © Greenpeace / Christian Aslund
Back in August, our activists sailed to Sweden to drop 180 enormous granite blocks into the sea. It was an odd sight, to be sure, but the action effectively protected an environmentally-rich area called the Kattegat from bottom-trawling, a fishing method in which nets are dragged across the ocean floor, haphazardly scooping up everything in their way.
Esperanza wraps up marine reserves tour in Pacific
Here's the latest from Mike, on board the Esperanza, as the oceans team arrived in the Cook Islands this week.
Our tour is wrapping up. We steamed into port here in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, on the 19th. We spent the last few days of the tour in high seas pocket number 3 (see a map of the high seas pockets here), looking for fishing vessels that are threatening the future of the Pacific. And let me tell you, we had absolutely no problems finding them.
On Thursday, the 15th, we found a Taiwanese long-liner, Kai Jie No. 1, that had no license to fish in the waters of any Pacific island countries. This does not make it illegal for them to be fishing on the high seas, since these waters belong to no particular nation, but this is one of the main ways fishing fleets get around the regulations that Pacific island countries are introducing to better manage their tuna stocks.
We spoke with the captain of the vessel and explained that what he was doing was decimating the tuna stocks that Pacific island nations rely on and asked him to pull in his line. When he refused, we took action. We went out and, using a special contraption designed by our fitter from the first leg of the tour, Jono, to hold the line up out of the water, we went down the long-line and removed the bait from their hooks.
I shot this video of the action, in which our resident marine life expert, Gabe, explains more about the process:
Longline action on the high seas from Mike G on Vimeo.
Keeping our ocean wonderland wonderful
A common idea to deal with the various resource crisis hitting the planet is not to reduce our consumption, but just find technical fixes. We don't need to adjust, we just need to have brighter ideas!
This principle has been used and reused in fisheries. Industrial trawlers have been encouraged by governments; more modern fleets are a staple of speeches. How has that been working so far? Not so well. Stocks of bluefin tuna are on the brink of collapse. Some fisheries have been wiped out. What are we doing with the stocks that haven't collapsed yet? This:
Voices of Pacific Activists: Tereapii Mauriaiti
On the Esperanza, Tereapii, or Tere as we call him for short, is the bosun - one who supervises the deckhands and helps the first mate in maintaining the ship. He is from the Cook Islands, where they depend largely on ocean resources for food and livelihood. He is one of the four Pacific activists on board.
Tere grew up on a Rarotonga Island, a place of beauty with a clean environment, which he proudly calls home.
He joined Greenpeace 11 years ago.
“My journeys and travels took me to all the corners of the world. I was able to see amazing places but sadly also saw a lot of environmental destruction."
"I joined the Esperanza 2 months ago and for the first time I saw the effects of climate change right at my doorstep. We have fallen victim o sea level rise, our home is sinking along with everything else, now I am campaigning against illegal tuna fishing im my own region.”
Powering the plunder, fueling the fire.
In Chinese culture, the number 8 is considered a lucky number, as the word for eight sounds similar to the word meaning ‘prosper’ or ‘wealth’ . I am pretty sure the Chen family network of companies had this in mind when naming their fuel tanker, the MV Fong Seong 888. For them, it means good fortune and prosperity.
However, on the high seas the tanker means bad fortune and poverty for the Pacific nations.
© Greenpeace/Paul Hilton
The fuel tanker Fong Seong 888 refueling the purse seiner MV American Legacy. Both are owned by the Taiwanese Chen family network of Companies.
Marco Ferraz: ´The optimism of the action is much more valuable than the pessimism of the thought´
For Marco Ferraz, being a crew member of the Esperanza is a dream come true. He had always wanted to work for Greenpeace and by a stroke of good luck, he was able to join the ship in Cairns just in time for the first leg of Defending our Pacific Tour. The 29-year old Brazilian took to work on deck like fish to water.
Read on as Marco shares with us how his passion for the environment began and continues to this day.
I used to think that I was passionate for animals, forests, all the beauty we can see and feel in nature. Until I discovered that we are all just one; nature, humanity, planet Earth, are parts of a single thing.
Today, I know that I am passionate about life.
Bluefin tuna action in Turkey
Activists on board the Rainbow Warrior hit the water today to demand immediate action to protect the endangered Mediterranean bluefin tuna from commercial extinction. They deployed buoys marked "Crime Scene" around cages holding bluefin tuna which are being fattened up for harvesting to then be sold for export -- mostly as luxury gourmet Sushi.
The action comes just days after the European Commission announced its support for a ban on trading North Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna, under rules governing the trade of endangered species. That's a great move, long overdue, but why, people, why do we continue to let the threat of extinction be the only really powerful regulator that the fishing industry has to face? What we really need, if we want fish for tomorrow, is Marine Reserves today.
Species We're Killing This Week
Alright, alright, so we've all heard about the polar bears. But now it seems their cousins to the south, the grizzlies and black bears, are also under serious threat.
EU breakthrough on bluefin
From Willie, one of our oceans campaigners in the UK
Breaking news just in from Brussels - despite all the doubts and concerns some of us have harboured over the past few weeks, it seems the EU Commission is throwing its weight squarely behind the call for an international ban on the trade of Atlantic bluefin tuna!
This is big news - actually let's make that BIG NEWS.
It means that for once, the interests of fishing have been trumped by environmental concerns in the EU. If the member states agree to support this proposal (which they will need to do by a ¾ majority at a meeting of the CITES* Management Committee on September 21st), it means that a block of 27 countries will have voted both for a ban on international trade, and to have the species officially listed as 'threatened with extinction' at the next CITES meeting in Doha, in March.
The Tale of the Broken Freezer at Sea
Three days in the high seas, and the Esperanza has already made some disturbing discoveries:
A black dot.
Peering through the binoculars, that's how the Taiwanese fishing vessel appeared - a black dot silhouetted against the horizon.
In the past few days, activities have been like tricks from a magician’s hat – you never know what the hand will pull out. Just yesterday, we fished out a banned fish aggregating device (FAD). Today, during a routine reconnaissance, we chanced upon two fishing boats transferring tuna from one to the another.
FAD Watch (and its not about trendy fashion)
They have only been out on the high seas for a couple of days and already they are taking action to defend the great fish of the Pacific. Here's the latest from Mary Ann, on the Esperanza.
We arrived a few days ago in the High Seas of the Pacific. Since yesterday, we have been on constant watch, scanning the horizon by day, the radar by night, diligently on the look-out for FADs and fishing boats.
Up in the bridge, Gabriel was the first to go on FAD watch at 8 in the morning.
And lo and behold …you guessed it…he spotted the very thing we were looking for, a FAD!
For the unfamiliar, FAD stands for Fish Aggregating Device, designed to attract tuna then caught by industrial purse seiners. But these devices not only attract tuna but also a host of other species, such as sharks, turtles and other fish. These FADs float at sea until they have attracted a sizable enough population of tuna. After which the tuna and all other accumulated marine life is scooped up in a huge net, in one fell swoop. It’s a very wasteful way of fishing.
The irony of the situation is that we have found this FAD right in the middle of a two-month ban, from August 1 to September 30. The ban was declared by the Pacific Tuna Commission, which manages tuna fishing in the international waters of the region.
So there I was walking around, a sleepy zombie, however I snapped awake when someone informed me that we had found a FAD. There was a general hubbub going on around me. Deckies were by the inflatables, getting ready to launch them. The divers were checking their dive equipment and gearing up in the wet room. Breakfast was a distant memory of wolfing down one buttered toast as I hurried to catch the action. It was the same general excitement when I went up the bridge, the campaign team were complete and two binoculars were trained on the bobbing FAD,
The African Queen (one of the inflatable boats) sped to the bobbing FAD. Our divers soon discovered that schools of fish have already gathered around it.
We're back in the Pacific - defending the fish!
>> Sign the petition for a global network of marine reserves NOW!
>> Sign up to receive updates about our work in the Pacific and other campaigns around the world.
>> Tag along with our crew in the Pacific through the Esperanza's webcam
Greenpeace gives ‘paper park’ real protection
Action update from Richard, one of our oceans campaigners
Yesterday we began work to stop trawl fishing in two sensitive marine areas in Sweden, called the Lilla Middelgrund and Fladen. Given that the Swedish government and the European Union has written laws on paper that protect these two sites since 2003, you might think that measures have been put in place to stop fishing and other damaging activities, but this is not the case.
Check out the video on BBC news
Using a specially equipped barge, our team is carefully placing a number of large boulders on the seafloor to create obstacles and thus stop fishermen from ploughing up the strangely named, but wonderful, sensitive and rare habitats of maerl bottoms and bubble reefs. Bottom trawling is a highly destructive type of fishing. Fishermen drag a net across the seabed, which indiscriminately catches everything in its path. This decimates stocks of popular fish, such as sole and plaice, and results in a large amount of unwanted bycatch – which is thrown back into the sea either dead or dying. In fact, most European countries have done little to protect the sites they have designated by law. This situation is clearly ludicrous. Libraries full of scientific evidence points to the need for fully-protected marine reserves - areas where all extractive use including fishing is prohibited - to ensure real protection of marine ecosystems.
For this reason it is not the first time we have used stones as fishing obstacles inside a protected area.
Making waves in the Mediterranean
© Greenpeace/Parsons
Nathalie usually works in our video department at Greenpeace International in Amsterdam, but this week she's been an ocean defender on board the Rainbow Warrior in the Med. Here's the latest from her as the expedition comes to an end
The Sicilian Channel is that part of the Mediterranean Sea between Sicily and Tunisia; for me - experiencing my first ever voyage on a ship, it’s just the middle of the sea. In this respect, I feel like a migratory fish - free in the middle of the waters without boundaries.
This area is famous for the richness of its biodiversity and it is important as a breeding ground for the threatened bluefin tuna. This is why we are advocating for its protection as a marine reserve.
At first glance, the beautiful video footage shot by our dive team leads me to believe that the underwater world beneath is healthy. The marine life appears lively and colorful…but scientists have noticed that some fish are dramatically missing.
Fabio, is a marine biologist at CNR (Centro Nazionale di Ricerca) in Italy. When he knew that our ship was coming to patrol this area, he immediately volunteered to join the team and support our campaign with his expertise.
Mediterranean pirates discovered by Rainbow Warrior
© Alain Combemorel/ Greenpeace
Last weekend - Greenpeace found and reported a pirate fishing vessel off the coast of Sicily
Since July 22nd and until the 31st, our team on board the Rainbow Warrior is back in Sicilian waters to raise the alarm over illegal drift netting and to document seamounts in international waters and other areas that could be rich in biodiversity in the Sicilian channel. To do this they are diving and using a deep submersible drop camera. The results will be used to highlight the need for a marine reserve in this area.
This is how the crew of our ship woke up in the morning of the 26th of July and this is how Alain, a member of the on board campaign team explains his day; a day that started slow and easy and suddenly turns out to be exciting day for the campaign...
Yesterday we had a bit of weather; a dive was scheduled for this morning so the decision was made to look for shelter. The Rainbow Warrior was drifting on her engines around Pantelleria Island (South of Sicily) for the whole night.
I was on watch from 4am to 8am, we were sitting close to some amazing cliffs, (well that's what I could see after sunrise) and 2 other boats were sitting close to us, probably for the same reason: sheltering themselves from the bad sea conditions. Around 8 o'clock the diving team was waking up, starting to get ready for their dive, and Alessandro our on board campaigner, came to the bridge to organise the coming activity. Looking around he saw the vessels, and out of curiosity had a look through binoculars to the fishing boat. He noticed that she was carrying what looked like drift-net gears.
We decided to launch one of our inflatable boats to have a closer look and made our way to the fishing boat. While we were approaching them we didn't get any reaction from the crew, they watched us coming and in the meantime our videographer and photographer shot footage of the boat, getting pictures of the illegal drift-net gear and the name of the vessel.
Once they realised who we were, they started their engine, heaved up the anchor and started to run away from us. One of their crew threw a wooden crate at us and gave us some international signs of diplomacy....
Not only for love
Sent from Nathalie onboard the Rainbow Warrior in the Meditteranean
As we were traveling to the Mediterranean sea yesterday morning, one colleague told me this story as a joke: “Heaven is where the police are British, the cooks are French, the mechanics German, the lovers Italian and it's all organised by the Swiss”…
We were on our way to join the Rainbow Warrior for the second leg of Defending Our Mediterranean Tour and it was a long day waiting to gather all the new comers: an English cameraman and a photographer, a Turkish deck mate and finally our Italian campaigner and a scientist volunteer diver, all here to document the sea life and damages of this specific area between Sicily and Tunisia called the Sicilian channel.
Japanese criminal justice system is like a bottle of rancid milk
A guest blog by Junichi Sato:
While Japan’s Criminal Justice System may look OK from a distance once you get close enough to smell and taste it for yourself, it becomes repulsively clear just how curdled and rotten it is.
Thanks to the way the police and the prosecutors treated us, Toru and I have been forced to smell and taste the foulness of the Japanese Criminal Justice System for the alleged “theft” of US$500 worth of whale meat. To expose large-scale embezzlement within the Japanese whaling industry, Toru and I intercepted the box and handed it in to the Tokyo Public Prosecutor as evidence of a crime, asking for an investigation. However, the embezzlement investigation was quickly dropped and we were arrested instead, detained for 26 days and finally charged with “theft”.
So it is now, with much first-hand experience, that I can tell you exactly how badly the system stinks.
A black eye for Emma and a step forward for bluefin tuna
John Hocevar writes from the Rainbow Warrior:
Today things got ugly.
We are in Valletta Harbor in Malta. We learned that there were two vessels here owned by Fuentes, the tuna tycoon who controls over half the bluefin catch in the Mediterranean. We decided to board the vessel to inspect the cargo and documentation. Three women, Emma, Rita, and Liz, were the first to volunteer.
After the vessels refused our polite request to allow us access, Emma stepped on board to press the point. She was immediately attacked – they punched her, pulled her hair, picked her up and threw her overboard. One person hurled a large wooden pallet which whistled by our heads, and another tossed a full bucket of paint into one of our boats. If either of those had hit their intended targets, someone could have been seriously injured, but fortunately no damage was done.
Greenpeace is not known for taking no for an answer. For us, the violent response to a simple request to inspect the vessel reinforced our belief that they had something to hide. And even if they did not, greater transparency is essential to ensure that vessels are not able to obscure the kinds of illegal activity which have contributed to the bluefin’s decline.
We climbed onto the pier, where Emma again tried to board one of the Fuentes vessels. She was viciously assaulted by a burly sailor twice her side, holding her down and punching her repeatedly in the face. (We brought her to a clinic here for treatment, and she has a black eye and her neck is swollen but she’s ok.)
Take care of our tuna
John Hocevar writes from the Rainbow Warrior:
The Rainbow Warrior is patrolling the waters of the eastern Mediterranean. We spent most of yesterday listening to fishermen. We also carried out a lot of inspections, ensuring that boats were legally licensed to fish, but mostly… we listened. Since few fishermen would be willing to speak openly over the radio, we visited their boats with our inflatable Zodiacs. The first challenge was finding a suitable language. Here in the eastern Mediterranean, we have already had conversations in Spanish, Italian, French, Arabic, English, and Maltese. Then there is the fact that many of the fishermen are pretty angry – about the disappearing fish, and about the regulations that have been put in place to try to stop the declines.
Sigourney Weaver gives UN the bottom line
Yesterday in New York, actress Sigourney Weaver presented some hard facts about the practice of bottom trawling during the UN Consultative Process on the Law of the Sea (ICP). Namely - it is killing deep sea ecological systems and they may never recover. She did this through the latest Greenpeace documentary 'The Bottom Line' which she narrates and which outlines just what is at stake if action against bottom trawling is further delayed.
An Inconvenient Tuna
Here in the UK, bluefin tuna has suddenly become the posterboy for overfishing, largely thanks to the new film The End of the Line. I was at the premiere screening of the film (a documentary based on the book by journalist Charles Clover) here in London, and boy, it took me back. It was like Defending Our Oceans: The Movie. After seeing it, Pret-A-Manger, a sandwich chain, announced they were removing bluefin tuna from their menus and reassessing their fish policy, and Marks & Spencer has announced their fish will now only come from pole-and-line fishing. And then naked pictures of celebrities holding fish started appearing in even the tabloid newspapers. Celebs are also protesting against posh sushi restaurant Nobu refusing to remove bluefin from its menu even in the face of Sienna Miller's boycott. (The nerve, eh?)
World Ocean Conference gets it
The state of the oceans was bad enough when all we had to worry about was overfishing, pirate fishing, whaling, shark finning, dumping, mining, and oil exploration, (there are a lot of etceteras here, but you get the idea). When you add global warming to the threats, you face the prospect of acidification, of coral reefs dissolving like alka-seltzers, of messing with the chemistry of the source of half of the world's oxygen, of glacial melt altering ocean currents, and the possibility that instead of sucking down 30 percent of the world's carbon dioxide, the oceans could flip to become net carbon emitters, and you've got the kind of screaming nightmare scenario that could wake up even a politician to the need for action, not words.
Tata and turtles - an India drama
Check out what the folks at Greenpeace India are up to. They've taken on one of the largest companies in the country - all to protect endangered Olive Ridley Sea Turtles.
Full story: Tata and the turtles
Antarctic Treaty 50th anniversary meeting
Here's a note from Karli, oceans campaigner at Greenpeace New Zealand, who is has been in in Baltimore, attending the 50th anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty.
My first impressions arriving to this historic meeting of the Antarctic Treaty parties was the urgency of the task ahead. Scientists who have been working on International Polar Year projects gave truly alarming descriptions of climate change impacts already being felt at the Poles.
In the oceans, the impacts of climate change (warming and the loss of sea ice) and ocean acidification (the evil twin of climate change) coupled with increased whaling and fishing activities spell trouble for this fragile marine environment.
Being land mammals ourselves, we humans tend to be a little biased in protecting our planet and the animals and plants we share it with. While the continent of Antarctica is protected (no-one’s been out there shooting penguins or killing seals for a good few years) there seems to be a blind spot when it comes to the oceans. Hello – whales are still being harpooned, krill literally vacuumed out of the ocean and toothfish being plundered by rampant fishing fleets with a fair few pirates amoung them (like the fish-thieving Paloma V and the drug-smuggling Banzare ). Does that sound like a "natural reserve dedicated to peace and science" to you?
Here there be pirates
Here's a blog from John Hocevar, our US oceans campaign director
Ahoy!
As Somali pirates have captured the world’s attention over the past week, I’ve been up to my neck in pirates of a different sort. Greenpeace got a tip that several Spanish owned vessels blacklisted for engaging in pirate fishing were en route to Singapore to offload illegally caught Chilean sea bass, or Patagonian toothfish. We alerted U.S. authorities at NOAA, the Coast Guard, and the State Department, each of which deals with pirate fishing. All three agencies were helpful and responsive, sharing the information we provided with other governments, updating databases, and even contacting the Singapore Navy Maritime Operations Center.
The investigation is still unfolding, but it looks like at least one or two of the vessels offloaded a considerable amount of illegal sea bass before local authorities were able to respond. In fact, it is not clear that local authorities planned to respond at all – Singapore is a party to CCAMLR, the Antarctic treaty under which the vessels were blacklisted.
While these pirate fishing vessels may seem to have little connection with the pirates plaguing ships passing through the Gulf of Aden, these issues are in fact tied together by more than a word most of us associate with eye patches and parrots. In all oceans of the world, vessels flying under flags of convenience – registered to countries with little or no concern for what the ships are used for – and owned by shady operators based in countries such as Spain, China, or Korea, pirates illegally catch enormous quantities of fish.
Somalia is a prime example of where pirate fishing thrives – a poor country with weak governance and no capacity to manage or patrol their own waters.
Report from Baltimore: 50th Anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty
Here's a on the sport report from Richard Page, defending Antarctica this week from Baltimore USA!
There are as many facets to the work of a Greenpeace campaigner as an iceberg; and like an iceberg, much of the work is unseen. This week saw Karli, New Zealand oceans campaigner and Southern Ocean veteran and myself ‘suited and booted’, attending the Antarctic Treaty meeting in Baltimore, USA – a week crammed with meetings, side meetings, presentations, receptions and ad-hoc corridor encounters.
This is an historic meeting, in that it marks the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Antarctic Treaty. There has consequently been much fanfare, and indeed there is much to celebrate. Of huge significance was the securing of a fifty-year moratorium on mineral extraction and the agreement of the Madrid Protocol on environmental protection – achievements that Greenpeace played a key part in bringing about with its World Park Antarctica campaign.
Even with its elevated status as a natural reserve devoted to peace and science, Antarctica is still not safe from a whole slew of damaging human activities, and like the Arctic at the other end of the earth, is at risk from the ravages of climate change.
If feeding fish to cows is the answer, somebody's asking the wrong question...
Moo-moo, poo-poo and fish! Following on from our little rant last week about the absurdity of claiming that ocean fertilization could save blue whales, Willie has posted a fantastic little blog over on the Greenpeace UK site about something that could have comes from pages of Swift's Gulliver's Travels (remember trying to get sunlight from cucumbers?). Willie, take it away:
Sometimes, you are a bit dumbfounded by stories that make the news. Seriously, you couldn't make some of it up, could you? I couldn't let this one pass (so to speak) without comment.
Today's belter is the new study suggesting that feeding fish to cows will help climate change. Yes, you read that right. The theory is something like this – cows, which we farm for milk, meat and leather, produce methane. Most of this is by burping, not flatulence as the comics would prefer. Methane is a bad, nasty, evil greenhouse gas. And we want to cut those down, don't we?
Continue read: If feeding fish to cows is the answer, somebody's asking the wrong question... »
Oil industry threatens world's first protected cold water coral reef
Another post and video from the Rainbow Warrior.
Norwegian Coral - Sula reef threatened by Oil Exploration from Greenpeace in Nordic on Vimeo.
We all know that environmental concerns tend to lose out when pitted against big commercial interests. But when it comes to Norwegian waters right now this thing really takes the cake!
Among the thousands of known cold water coral reefs in the Norwegian Sea is the worlds largest of these vulnerable bottom habitats called the Sula reef. Located just a few hours north of our current position on the Rainbow Warrior the Sula reef is wonderfully diverse and also one of the few protected coral reef areas in the Norwegian Sea. But this protection might be meaningless now that the oil industry has received a license to explore the area.
Last chance to protect deep sea habitats
Here's another post from Frida, oceans campaigner on the Rainbow Warrior in Norway and a short video interview with a coral scientist about the reefs they are documenting there, why they are so threatened and what needs to be done to save them.
Norwegian Coral - Jan Helge Fosså, IMR Norway from Greenpeace in Nordic on Vimeo.
The deep sea is home to some of the coolest and unique marine creatures, from the strangest looking fish to the ancient cold water corals that we are currently on a mission to document.
These still largely untouched communities are typically thousands of years old and represent one of the planet's last remaining undiscovered realms. We humans are only beginning to discover and understand the deep ocean ecosystems, but at the same time we are destroying them at an unprecedented rate by industrial bottom trawlers that kill and maim almost all marine life in the path of their trawls.
Yesterday was the first day of the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) meeting in London. How the international waters are regulated is a complicated ordeal but the NEAFC is one of the most important bodies for governing the waters in these northern parts around Norway, Ireland and Great Britain. How this meeting plays out will decide much of the fate of some of the most precious marine environments we have. This is the last chance for NEAFC to save fragile deep sea habitats.
Deep sea research on the Rainbow Warrior - it's not easy!
Here's another post from Frida, oceans campaigner on the Rainbow Warrior (see her previous post here).
Sometimes when you depend on someone it is easy to become very annoyed and disappointed with them, even when they are not really to blame for the thing that does not go exactly as planned. For me, one of those characters here on the ship is Lars. Lars (Launch and Retrieval System - L.A.R.S) is the hydraulic crane that launches and retrieves the so far unnamed drop camera rig we are using to document the cold water corals in the deep waters below us - here off the coast of Norway.
On Thursday night it all started off so well. We caught a lucky break and got a nice window of clear and relatively calm weather. We quickly devised a scheme in order to be able to work with the camera through the night, making sure we hade enough people to handle Lars, operate the camera controls and log the video material. Getting the people together was a fairly simple task, but as it turned out getting the cooperation from both Lars and the drop camera was another matter.
We did our first test drop of the camera during a beautiful sunset and got some great images from our 'training grounds' - mostly sandy bottom, fish and occasionally - corals. It was when we started to move to the more densely populated coral areas that our luck started to run out. First Lars developed an electrical short circuit that made it impossible for us to launch the camera for our first drop over the bigger coral structures. Annoying!
But, taking in to consideration that Lars is a very old mechanical beast and that he did come around after we lovingly re-wired and re-isolated his electrical components, I did manage to forgive him after a few hours. But the problems did not end with Lars.
TATA make nanos, threaten turtles
The campaign to stop TATA from wiping out an important habitat for Olive Ridley Turtles in India is growing. Over 1,000 blogs are campaigning for the survival of the olive ridleys, and Greenpeace activists are battling against all odds to try and save the precious little sea turtles.
We've blogged about this campaign before, but if you haven't heard of TATA, their little cars, or the enormous port they are building at Dhamra, watch this video and get involved today.
Saving Norway's cold water corals
Here is a post from Frida, one of our oceans campaigners, on the Rainbow Warrior - currently off the coast of Norway.
Did you know that there are thousands of beautiful and diverse coral reefs in the northern seas, outside of Scotland, Norway and the Bearing Sea? Most people are not aware that the cold and dark waters up here are teaming but that's because they haven't had the chance to look close enough. I am on the Rainbow Warrior to do just that. Specifically what we are looking for is a lovely named creature called Lophelia pertusa. It is this cold water coral that dominates the coral areas of the Northern deep sea. It lives at depths between 200 and 1000 meters. We are now documenting the presence and status of a reef in an area called Breisundsdypet.
Just add water
Yesterday a new version of Google Earth was launched which now includes two thirds of the planet that was previously left out - our oceans!
After renowned marine scientist Sylvia Earle noticed the serious lack of aquatic information in Google Earth she sarcastically asked one of the creators "why don't you call it 'Google Dirt'?". Her comment actually inspired them to make "Google Ocean". Thanks to their collaboration with over 100 organisations - you can now dive in and explore the big blue without even getting wet.
Of great interest to the oceans geeks here at Greenpeace - is that you can find marine protected areas across the globe. Sadly - only 1% of our oceans are protected but we need to protect 40% in order to ensure that they stay healthy. It will be interesting to watch this area grow (hopefully really quickly!) on Google Earth as governments take steps to declare marine reserves in the coming years. Click here to help speed this up!
Marine conservationists are excited about new possibilities with this powerful tool since they can use it to identify important areas that need protection and illustrate them easily for policy makers.
Download the new Google Earth and let us know which parts of the ocean you'd like to see protected by leaving a comment below. You can even check out the research we've been doing in the Bering Sea (just search for "Greenpeace").
What sort of fisheries manager are you?
As the delegates at the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission meeting in Korea negotiate tuna into extinction. Our oceans team over there have been asking them to fill out this survey:
WHAT SORT OF FISHERIES MANAGER ARE YOU?
Your scientists tell you to end overfishing by reducing effort by 30%. Do you:
a) thank your scientists and reduce fishing effort by 30%
b) say “nya-nya-nya I can’t hear you” and continue fishing at current levels
c) pretend you’re being responsible while in fact negotiating another year of 20% overfishing
You watch another fisheries commission fail miserably to save their stock from collapse and instead head towards commercial extinction. Do you:
a) learn from their mistakes and end overfishing immediately
b) follow them blindly in ignoring their scientists
c) imagine that you are different, your oceans are different and somehow you can continue overfishing without the same thing happening here
You discover that part of your fishing area is riddled with pirates and they are stealing fish from your legal fishing fleets. Do you:
a) ban fishing in those areas to flush the pirates out of your ocean
b) put in place even more complicated measures to create loopholes for the pirates to exploit
c) negotiate on behalf of your pet pirates and stop any measures being adopted that might upset them
What proportion of your delegation has vested interests in the fishing industry?
a) 0-40%
b) 40-60%
c) more than 60%
Where would you advise your fishing industry to invest their profits?
a) sound science and a sustainable management plan
b) more boats and bigger boats
c) parrots, eye patches and wooden legs
Tuna tales: a freezing Fijian reports from Korea
Photo ©Greenpeace/Hilton
Lagi Toibau posts this update from Korea:
For someone coming from the tropics, not used to putting on four layers of clothes every day, and having never seen snow before, working here in Korea has been a lifetime experience. Oh it is cold!
I'm here travelling in Seoul, the capital, and Busan the second largest city in Korea, to launch our campaign to save the Pacific tuna stocks from overfishing. We're working jointly with the excellent support and leadership of our partner organisation – the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement (KFEM), the biggest environmental Non-Governmental Organisation in Korea.
What was really interesting for me is the limited understanding and how buried the tuna issue is in Korea. I came here with an expectation that most Asians including Koreans loved seafood so it would be easy for them to relate to the problems tuna are facing.
We've had a lot of attention and curiosity from people we've encountered about just how their government could be so heavily involved in the plunder and overfishing of this important fishery that belongs to a wide range of Pacific island communities.
I would have thought that Koreans would be more aware of its Pacific neighbours given our geographical placements, but there's quite a bit of surprise when I mention that 20 island countries are shared owners of the Pacific tuna fishery.
Under the sea: cold water reef video
Here's a little-known fact: Norway hosts a majority of the world's known cold-water coral reefs. And if you've never seen what a cold-water coral reef looks like, the stunning video here is unforgettable:
As much as 30 to 50 percent of these fragile reefs are either impacted or destroyed by bottom trawling. Today about 100 EU trawlers, 50 Norwegian trawlers and 250 Russians trawlers hold fishing licences for Norwegian waters, in addition to those in the North Sea.
Join in the call to protect 40 percent of our world's oceans as marine reserves.
Symposium for Sustainable Sushi
© Greenpeace/Masaya Noda
Who would have thought that prominent conservationists and leading members of Japan's fishing industry could come together under the banner "Marine Reserves for Sustainable Sushi? Or that one of the speakers used to represent Japan on whaling issues? Or that Greenpeace Japan would be behind the whole event? It's a strange world we live in.
All this happened just a few days ago - on Friday 17th October, at the International Marine Environment Symposium, held at the United Nations University in Tokyo. Speakers included biologist Daniel Pauly who talked about the "transformation of seascapes by fisheries and the need for marine protected areas"; former Japanese Fisheries Agency officer and whaling commissioner Masayuki Komatsu, who spoke about the future of Japan's fisheries; and Japanese Tuna fisherman, Atsushi Sasaki. Mr Komatsu discussed the ongoing decline of Japanese marine industries, and the reluctance of Japanese fisheries to keep pace with changes
occurring in marine biodiversity. He emphasised that a fundamental reform of Japan's fishing industry is need, if Japan wants to sustain its fisheries.
A most abysmal fish
The world's deepest living fish has been filmed at 7700 metres below the sea. For those of you who, like me, have a hard time picturing how deep that is, think about how high a commercial airplane flies above the surface, and imagine that height as a depth beneath the waves.
They're called Hadan Snailfish and live in the deep trenches of the Pacific Ocean, where pressures of 8,000 tonnes per square metre are common. That's equivalent to the pressure of 1600 elephants standing on the roof of a Mini car.
These snailfish are apparently highly social. Personally, I don't find that surprising. It's gotta be lonely down there.
These critters are yet another reason we need to protect our oceans. Sign this petition asking the UN to set aside 40% of our world's oceans as Marine Reserves.
Blacklist launched to combat pirate fishing
After heaps of work by several dedicated people we've just launched an online database of fishing vessels involved in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, and the companies that own them.
IUU fishing – often referred to as "pirate fishing" - has become a global scourge. It is a multi-billion dollar business that affects many communities, especially from developing countries such as those in the Pacific that can least afford to be robbed of their livelihoods and sustenance. It leaves the marine environment bruised and battered, undermining food security and attempts at sustainable management.
Our blacklist is the first independent record of fishing vessels, support vessels and companies involved in pirate fishing. It includes independent observations from the legal fishing industry, government authorities, and first-hand evidence from Greenpeace and other NGOs who have recorded the activities of these vessels and companies at sea and in ports around the world.
Shark raving mad
Heard today from a friend of mine named Donna. Looks like she's got a new job saving sharks...
Dear friendsAs most of you know I have been working part time with the Shark Alliance for a while now. Dolphins and seal pups may be cuter, but sharks need some loving too!
Sharks have been around for more than 450 million years, but in the last one hundred of those we have managed to make some species extinct and today, one third of European species are threatened with extinction. The loss of more species will inevitably cause yet more harm to the marine ecosystem.
The cause of this recent unnecessary damage is overfishing and finning and Europe is a particularly bad offender here, with some of the weakest finning regulations in the world. After nearly ten years of dithering, the EU will finalise a plan of action to protect sharks at the end of this year. Please sign the petition on the link below to ask fisheries and environment ministers to support the EU plan for stronger protection for sharks. And please forward to your friends and contacts.
http://www.sharkalliance.org/petition08/
Sorry for the round robin and hope you are all healthy, happy and enjoying the Autumn sun
xx
Donna
Get your own fin! Sign the petition.
Showdown off the coast of Kenya
A few days ago, Somali pirates hijacked a Ukrainian ship off the coast of Kenya. It seemed to be pirate business at usual, until they realized that they were in command of a ship carrying about US $30 million worth of weapons. The cargo ship was headed for Kenya and is carrying everything from rocket launchers to soviet tanks (about 13 of them.) They're still off the coast of Kenya, surrounded by US warships and the Russian navy isn't far behind. I don't know about you but just rereading that sentence scared me enough to give me chills.
A spokesperson for the pirates (yes, they have a spokesperson) claims they had no idea the ship was carrying weapons when they boarded it on the high seas. He's claiming they are misunderstood and that they are in the pirate game "to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters." It turns out piracy became a popular career among Somali fishermen following the collapse of the Somali government in 1991. Somalia's waters were left full of tuna but with no authorities to protect them. International commercial fishing vessels began flooding the waters and the Somali fishermen took to the waters and started demanding payment for the stolen fish.
The pirate industry from Somalia seems to have strayed pretty far away from collecting money for stolen tuna. However, I can't help but wonder what would have happened if these fishermen had never taken to the ocean to protect their tuna stocks in the first place. Would pirates from Somalia, 20 hostages and 30 million dollars worth of weapons still be in a stand off with American warships off the coast of Kenya? Maybe, but I'm still thinking about how this all started with the stolen fish.
For fish’s sake, Commissioner, what’s it gonna take?
From Saskia, one of our political advisors in Brussels
Last week the EU Commissioner for Fisheries and Maritime Affairs, the EU’s top official on all things fishy, had one of those naked moments, when he had to admit that the EU is not only doing bad, but doing worse than any comparable country, including the USA, Australia and New Zealand, in managing its fisheries.
I suppose none of us needed any further proof of this governments’ failings when it comes to managing European fisheries, but just in case you have missed some of the recent news:
-- The official figures of the European Union’s statistical office report that 80% of fish stocks are fished outside sustainable levels.
-- Last year, an expert study commissioned by the European Commission, the body charged with overseeing fisheries management in the EU, called the EU’s fisheries policy “an archaic form of governance […that has] allowed the satisfaction of demands by the present generation to compromise the ability of future generations to meet their needs from the living resources of Europe's seas."
Japan calls off longline fishing
Every year since 2001 scientists have been calling for reductions in the amount of big-eye and yellowfin tuna caught in the Pacific. But every year big fishing nations such as Japan, Taiwan, China and Korea have refused to pay attention to the warnings.
Now they have announced a suspension of ALL their longlining vessels. These target yellowfin and bigeye tuna.
atuna.com reports:
Tuna Japan Suspends Tuna Fishing Operations For All Vessels
Japan, September 4, 08In an extraordinary meeting, the Japan Tuna Fisheries Cooperative Association (Tuna Japan) decided to suspend fishing operations of all its 233 member vessels...
... the duration of the suspension would run from 2 months to 2 years depending on each vessel's fishing plan. The majority of the distant water tuna long line operators in Japan belong to this association; the two other organizations for distant water longline fisheries also decided to follow suite.
...Mr. Masahiro Ishikawa, President of Tuna Japan confirmed the decision saying "we cannot make profit at all from our fishing operations because of the prohibitively high fuel prices" adding that it is also intended for tuna resources to recover. Mr. Masahirto Ishikawa called on tuna purse seiners to take concrete steps to reduce their catches to an appropriate level.
So this is good news for Pacific tuna but ideally we'd like to see Japan seriously cut back on their purse seiners too. The ever increasing purse seine catches - with fish aggregation devices - continue to wipe out the yellowfin and bigeye tuna because these fish get caught inside the huge nets that are set to catch the more common skipjack tuna.
Scientists are now calling for a 30 percent reduction for big-eye and 10% for yellowfin but this does not account for the amount taken illegally or the number of unreported catches. So, we're calling for a total effort reduction of 50 percent.
How to launder tuna...
MaltaToday has been served with seven libel suits for daring to publish the facts about one of the great fisheries scandals in the Mediterranean: tuna laundering.
Last year, Malta exported 12 million kilograms of tuna to Japan -- the world's most lucrative market for prized tuna belly meat. There's just one wee little accounting problem, in that MaltaToday reports that's about 6 million kilograms more than the country's licensed tuna ranchers could actually produce.
The North Sea ROCKS!
Here's an update from Richard Page, one of our oceans campaigners, on what's going on in the North Sea.
This week work to protect the Sylt Outer Reef resumed so that now over 100 stones have been strategically placed in order to deter what is nominally a protected area from bottom trawling and sand and gravel extraction.
The method is one which has been effectively used to protect important seagrass habitats in the Mediterranean from being trawled. Our goal is to establish a fully-protected marine reserve that will deliver real conservation and fisheries benefits and do what the German Government has failed to do - despite its international commitments to stop biodiversity loss and create a network of marine protected areas including marine reserves.
Does the tuna you buy mean death for sharks?
Greenpeace in the UK has just released a ranking of Tuna brands based on a wide set of environmental criteria, including the way their fish is sourced. In some cases, the fishing method can mean death for large numbers of sea turtles and sharks, or threaten the long term future of tuna itself.
The worst of the worst is Britain's top selling brand, John West.
Sainsbury's came out tops, with only one red mark -- for their failure to express public support the concept of Marine Reserves to protect our oceans.
Mediterranean eye candy
We've all been "ooh-ing" and "aah-ing" over the latest pics taken by our photographer on the Arctic Sunrise in the Mediterranean Sea.
For desktop wallpaper - click here.
You can read more on what this Greenpeace ship has been doing in the Med here and here.
Images © Greenpeace/ Paul Hilton
Protect the Bonifacio Strait!
This cool protest photo just in from our ship, the Arctic Sunrise, currently off the coast near the boarder of France and Italy. Photographer is Paul Hilton. From our press release:
Activists in inflatable boats escorted the Panamanian-flagged Hyundai Supreme from the Strait, highlighting the ongoing threat posed by shipments of hazardous cargo. The Hyundai Supreme was carrying around 560 tonnes of dangerous substances. Activists carried a banner reading "stop dangerous cargo".The Bonifacio Strait, lying between Corsica and Sardinia, is an area of high marine biodiversity. Although the French and Italian governments agreed in 1993 to protect the area and ban their own vessels from carrying dangerous substances through Bonifacio, this has not resulted in any real protection for the area. Every year, around 3,000 cargo ships – including French and Italian vessels - cross the Bonifacio Strait, and approximately ten percent of these carry dangerous substances.
Our ship, the Arctic Sunrise in the Mediterranean documenting threats to the sea and promoting marine reserves. It's part of our master plan (yes, we have master plans) for a global network of fully protected marine reserves covering 40% the oceans.
Putting a stop to dangerous cargo in the Mediterranean
Our ship the Arctic Sunrise is in the Mediterranean, in Italian waters. Recently our activists from the ship have been busy highlighting the threat to the Bonifacio Strait from the shipping of dangerous cargo. This part of the Mediterranean Sea lies within the Ligurian Cetacean Sanctuary. Yesterday activists scaled a castle that sits on the edge of the Bonafacio Strait - and unfurled a banner demanding the protection of this vulnerable marine area which is subjected to shipping activities including the transport of hazardous cargo.
Victory for Mediterranean whales and dolphins
A legal action taken by Greenpeace Italy against the authorisation for an offshore liquid natural gas terminal (LNG), inside a cetacean sanctuary, was successful yesterday. Our request to withdraw the authorisation has been accepted and plans for the first industrial marine area within a marine protected area have failed!
The sanctuary is in the Ligurian Sea, which contains one of the highest concentrations of whales and dolphins in the Mediterranean. As many as eight cetacean species live there including the impressive fin whale.
But this sea is severely affected by human impacts, including pollution, heavy vessel traffic and intense fishing activities. So the last thing cetaceans need here is an LNG terminal.
Breaking Waves - The Pirate of the Pacific runs aground in Bali!
We've just learned that the longliner (Ho Tsai Fa 18) - which we recently confronted in the Pacific Commons not once but twice - has run aground on the reef in Bali under suspicious circumstances!
The Sydney Morning Herald reports:
"AN ILLEGAL fishing ship whose captain is rumoured to have been murdered has thrown plans for the World Surfing Championship in Bali into chaos by running aground on the island's best surf break.Mystery surrounds the arrival of the Taiwanese vessel Ho Tsai Fa No. 18 off Padang Padang beach. Locals woke on Saturday to see the 30-metre-long vessel foundering on a reef, and reaped a barbecue bonanza by emptying its holds of tuna and shark.
Police are still trying to find the boat's Indonesian crew and its Taiwanese captain, Tsai Wen-chen. Taiwanese authorities had requested Indonesia's assistance to locate the boat several weeks ago after it failed to return from a fishing trip off Papua.
Three weeks ago it was spotted by another Taiwanese vessel but sped away when approached, prompting concern it had been taken over by a mutinous crew.
Fishery officials said the Ho Tsai Fa's monitoring system had been turned off since May 13, and it had refused to answer radio messages. Several Balinese said the ship's dozen Indonesian crewmen had thrown their captain overboard and tried to return home, but had lost control of the vessel approaching Bali and fled after it foundered."
..."Central Java's coast guard chief, Sutrisna, said a search was under way for the crew members. He would not comment on allegations the captain had been murdered. "We have just found the ship - we cannot say or conclude anything till we investigate further," Commissioner Sutrisna said."
Image © Greenpeace/Paul Hilton
Huffington Post on the Tokyo Two
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Brendan DeMelle do a regular feature called "Unearthed: News of the Week the Mainstream Media Forgot to Report". The Tokyo Two made it into last week's edition. They noted:
Instead of investigating the crew or bureaucrats in charge of the program, Tokyo police raided Greenpeace Japan's office, seizing computers, documents and cell phones, and arrested the two activists. The pair were held for three weeks without charge before learning they are accused of theft and trespass, and face likely convictions under Japan's strict laws.
Seafood industry memo: how to undermine Greenpeace
One of our supporters sent along the following memo which the National Fisheries Institute circulated in the US just before the launch of our Seafood Red List and our supermarket ranking guide, which had the audacity to evaluate the fish purchasing policies of US supermarkets and rank their attention to sustainability. (For those of you not in the US, we also created an international version of the Red List along with several national variations).
Clearly, the idea of ensuring the world has fish for tomorrow by protecting fish stocks today is dangerous anti-capitalist sedition:
GREENPEACE LAUNCHING SEAFOOD SUSTAIANBLTY [sic] CAMPAIGNWho: Environmental Extremist Group Greenpeace
What: Sustainable Seafood Campaign Directed at Grocery Stores
When: Tuesday June 17th
Where: Nationwide (USA)As many of you know, the eco-activists at Greenpeace have been planning a concerted effort to disrupt seafood sales in this country as part of a seafood sustainability campaign.
We have learned from press reports that Greenpeace plans to launch its efforts on Tuesday June 17th. Greenpeace has already contacted grocery stores nationwide and demanded that they remove almost half of all seafood from sale. As part of its campaign, we expect Greenpeace to release a list ranking retailers based on its own assessment of their seafood sustainability practices. We have already warned retailers to be prepared for acts of vandalism by Greenpeace agents in conjunction with this campaign.
Happy World Ocean Day!
As we head towards the Great Barrier Reef on the Esperanza we're busy getting ready to come into port (Cairns). This is our last day at sea and I can't think of a better day to end our Pacific expedition on. It's World Ocean Day!
Everyone is exhausted and eager to get home but we're all very proud of what we have managed to achieve out here on the big blue. Over the past 9 weeks we've been confronting overfishing in the Western and Central Pacific and calling for marine reserves in the Pacific Commons together with a serious reduction in fishing outside these areas. We have confiscated a fish aggregation device, confronted Korean, Spanish, American and Chinese purse seiners, confiscated longlinging gear and freed marine life, escorted several fishing vessels out of the Pacific Commons, discovered and interrupted a transfer of fish at sea, uncovered illegal fishing vessels and documented many fishing activities in an area where much goes on unregulated and unknown.
We told each and every story to the rest of the world and especially pushed for exposure in the Pacific - encouraging all the Pacific island countries to stand together in solidarity against the distant fishing nations (Asia, Europe and the US) so that tuna stocks can be preserved for the future.
The concept of a "World Ocean Day" was first proposed in 1992 by the Government of Canada at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. It is an opportunity each year to celebrate our world's oceans and our personal connection to the sea.
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.
Korean activist - Passionate about the Pacific
My name is Choi Jung and I am a 48 year old Korean. I live on a small island in Korea with my dog, Gom (means 'bear' in Korean). The island is my home town. I came back there in May 1999. The island means everything to me as my job, hobby and my love are all there. I have also been volunteering for an environmental organisation there, called KFEM (Korean Federation for Environmental Movement), since 2001.
My job in the office is focused on the ocean. All my friends know me as a man who loves the sea so much and it is the reason why I am here on Esperanza. But 70 days on a boat is not so short! I am really looking forward to going home now but I have enjoyed my time on board a lot.
Over the weekend we came across a Korean purse seiner in the Pacific Commons. I went over with some of our crew to talk with the captain of the fishing vessel. We handed him a letter about our campaign and I had a long discussion with him over the radio.
Beauty and the beast
Yesterday, having sailed across more than 1,000 nautical miles of beautiful Pacific ocean, I witnessed a very ugly and clinical marine massacre by the world's largest tuna fishing vessel. Since we left the Taiwanese longliners two weeks ago, some of you have probably been wondering why we've been relatively quiet. I wanted to write about it and build up the excitement as we searched for the world's biggest tuna destroyer - Albatun Tres - a Spanish purse seining vessel. But I couldn't reveal anything as we needed to keep it all secret so we could take them by surprise. We found them on the 22nd of May but they took off at high speed and we had to chase them.
Five days later, in the early hours of Tuesday morning we found them again close to the Phoenix Islands in Kiribati where they looked like they were fishing. As soon as the sun started to come up we got into the inflatable boats and headed off to catch them and try to prevent them from netting any tuna. Our photographer and videographer went up in the helicopter to document the action from the sky and I was entrusted as the photographer on the water. This placed a huge responsibility on my shoulders as I would be the only one on the water taking pictures but I rose to the challenge with enthusiasm, duck tape and sandwich bags (official camera waterproofing issued by Greenpeace!).
TunaTV - Episode 2
Students from the Solomon Islands talk about the impact of overfishing on their country and their lives.
Looks can be deceiving
Many of us are filled with a great sense of wonder and awe when we have the opportunity to experience the ocean. It can excite and calm, mystify and inspire. The ocean stimulates all of our senses. We can see it, hear it, touch it, smell it and taste it. We can completely immerse ourselves in it.
As much as I love tramping through rainforest, admiring mountain views, watching rivers meander through impressive landscapes and discovering all kinds of plants an animals on land... there's something about the ocean that grabs me every time I'm near it.
This boundless blue life force seems mostly unaffected by the passing of time although it is always being pulled towards the moon on one side and pushed out by the rotation of the Earth on the other. The land may undergo frequent changes at the hands of man but the ocean remains reassuringly constant - at least on the surface. As a result most of us are unaware of just how much the ocean has deteriorated in the last hundred years.
I have never liked boundaries that prevent access to places where I have wanted to explore but out here on the ocean there are no fences or walls, no locked gates or signs saying "Keep Out!"... "Trespassers WILL be Prosecuted". Out here you can go for many miles in any direction without coming across anything that is man made. Out here on the high seas there is no ownership, nobody telling you where you can and can't go, nothing to get in your way. Out here you can be truly free. Yet the very reasons why these areas of the planet are so appealing are the same reasons why they are being so tragically abused. International waters belong to nobody and everybody at the same time.
Why are we defending the Pacific?
Written by Lagi, our Pacific oceans campaigner.
Our work reaches out to the 20 Pacific Island countries in this region to move towards a sustainable and equitable fishery. I am from Fiji and as a Pacific Islander allow me to point out that the Pacific is about to hit a catastrophe with the global tuna industry that could see an end to our poor countries' economy and most importantly the livelihoods of my fellow pacific islanders.
Let me give you some shocking facts about the Pacific and I will tell you a bit about why Greenpeace is here in the Pacific and why we do what we do best and that is confront the truth, tell the world by bearing witness and speak the unspoken.
The Pacific contains the last relatively healthy tuna fishery left in the world. Most of our island countries have nothing else but their huge ocean resources to survive on both as an economic need and an important livelihood that most of our people depend on for survival. The ocean for us defines and makes us who we are and I see that this is slowly being taken away from us.
Kezoko
Written by Dean our communications officer (from Aotearoa/ New Zealand) on board the Esperanza.
When I was in the Solomon Islands an old man came up to me with a bag made out of an old yellow sack strapped around his neck. "I have a carving, very cheap for you," he said.
“Here we go…” I thought, "How am I gonna get rid of this guy?" I told him I had no money on me but I’d be around in the afternoon. I don’t know why I said that because I’d already bought Honiara out of carvings.
Anyway, he turned up later and pulled a stone carving out of the sack. It was a figure of a man's body with a frigate bird's head, holding a spear in one hand and a fish in the other. It was Kezoko, god of the sea and fishing from his tribal area.
The old man’s name was Sali and he emphasised it was a very special price and that it took him 6 weeks to make. I thought, “What the hell… but I don’t know how I’ll get that one home. It's the heaviest one yet.”
And as soon as I accepted he was hugely relieved and grabbed my hands with both of his and started crying. “Thank you so much for saving our tunas. I am worried for our children and the next childrens. I want them to have tunas too,” he said looking deep into my eyes.
I realised he wanted to give me his carving for free but he was too poor and couldn’t. We held hands and looked into each others' eyes for ages. It was a really emotional moment, his carving meant so much more and would be one of the treasures of my life.
I’m told that when Kezoko takes aim with his spear he always hits his target.
After days of not finding any fishing boats, I put Kezoko up on the bridge. The next day we found a huge mothership accepting catches from other boats, a fish aggregation device and two pirate fishing vessels. The following day we came across a fleet of Taiwanese longliners. I'm thinking that maybe Kezoko would like a few days holiday in the wardrobe because we all need some sleep.
Image: © Greenpeace/ Lisa Vickers
Chasing rainbows and longliners
A bigeye tuna on a Taiwanese longliner in Pacific international waters
Over the past three days we have discovered and taken action against overfishing by six Taiwanese longliners in the Pacific Commons. One of these was the Ho Tsai Fa 18 that we met eleven days ago and released marine life from her hooks. Having previously agreed with the captain that they would leave these international waters we were very disappointed to find them again but we managed to prevent this boat from fishing for three days.
Another vessel we boarded (the Yu Jaan Shang) had nine tonnes of tuna, sharks (including sacks of fins and tails) and marlin. We came across one longliner that was actually fishing (the Chin Yu Chun) so we hauled in what line they had in the water and confiscated 2 of their radio beacons (they need these to find the ends of their lines). Last night we escorted this vessel out of the international waters, where we returned the beacons. We asked all of the longliners to leave the Pacific Commons and they agreed. We are also writing an official letter to the Taiwanese Government asking them to withdraw their entire fishing fleet from the Pacific Commons so that tuna stocks here will be able to recover in this ecologically important area.
Two of our activists who were involved directly with these vessels have been lovely enough to write about some of their experiences.
By Rose - our Chinese translator from New Zealand:
We talked to three boats on Saturday, and surprisingly all of them were from Taiwan. They were not from the same company, and each experience was totally different.
Fish laundering in the Pacific
Today we caught an illegal tuna purse seiner (Queen Evelyn 168) in the Pacific Commons between Papua New Guinea and the Federated States of Micronesia. This Philippines-flagged vessel was close to the transfer of tuna between her sister vessel and a refrigerated mothership. It is likely that a transfer of fish at sea involving an illegal vessel was about to occur, but upon our arrival the vessels immediately separated and fled.
Transfers of fish at sea are known to facilitate pirate fishing around the world and now we have seen it with our own eyes in the Pacific. For years tuna have disappeared unreported on motherships like this.
One of our volunteer activists from Fiji boarded the mothership and has written about her experience.
---
My name is Ana and I am a Fijian volunteer. I am the assistant cook on board the Esperanza . Today, I was an activist for the second time since I have been on the ship. Early this morning at about 5.30am I was woken up by a phone call from the bridge, telling me that they had spotted a fishing boat and that I must get ready because the boat was launching at 6.00am. Little did I know that the real action would not start until about 11.00am, so back to the galley I went to help prepare lunch. That's just the way it goes sometimes. The helicopter came back and we began to chase a reefer (a vessel that takes the tuna catch away from fishing vessels so they can keep catching more fish without coming to port) out here in international waters.
NAFO wakes up to deep sea destruction
Last time I was on the Esperanza we were on the Grand Banks off the coast of Nova Scotia, exposing the destruction of bottom trawling in 2005. We were asking the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) to wake up and start protecting deep sea life.
Well guess what! Yesterday they reached a groundbreaking agreement in Montreal and adopted a blueprint for action to protect the high seas from bottom trawling. NAFO members include Canada, the European Union, Norway, Iceland, Russia and the US.
The agreement reached will implement a United Nations General Assembly resolution adopted in 2006, which called for urgent action to protect deep-sea corals and other vulnerable ecosystems from the impacts of bottom fishing in international waters. NAFO has now agreed that all high seas bottom fishing will be subject to impact assessments by the end of 2008, and that fishing areas should be closed or fisheries prohibited where damage to corals, sponges and other deep sea species cannot be prevented.
Short video briefing from the Esperanza
Langi, on board our ship the Esperanza, with an update on destructive fishing in his part of the world, and what we're doing about it.
Pacific Activist
Written by Daniel Loo on board the Esperanza
I was born in Fiji and have lived there all my life although my family emigrated to Fiji in the early 50s from Kiribati. I have a really interesting heritage as my Dad is Chinese while my mother is Gilberteese (Kiribati) with ancestors from Tuvalu, Ireland and Germany.
When first approached to write something about my experience onboard Esperanza the first thing that came to my mind was whether I had to write something from an activist point of view or as a deckhand. Well to start off, this is my first time to work on a ship and these three weeks have been some of the best in my entire life. Its been truly amazing!!!
Being out at sea as a volunteer has been an exciting experience, and I take my hat off to the dedicated hardworking crew who give one hundred percent effort including their lives for a cause they believe in. By doing this we are able to raise global awareness about the decline of our precious marine resources currently overfished today by hungry money making tuna fishing companies.
Saving sea life from the Pacific to the Mediteranian
[Photo copyright Jiri Rezac / Greenpeace]
This morning, the crew of the Arctic Sunrise found an illegal drift net in the Mediterranean. Our crew went into action, seizing the net and releasing the sea life trapped in it. Now our ship's followed the fishing boat back to Sicily, where it's being met by the coast guard. (Full story with video.)
Lisa's posted here a few days ago about the Esperanza crew's direct action to stop a dodgy long liner in the Pacific commons.
This is the kind of thing I love to see Greenpeace doing. These aren't the first Greenpeace ship tours to either region. We've been there before, talked to the governments, talked to the industry, talked to the scientists. At some point you've got to stop talking and do something.
Great work by both of our crews.
Update (8 May): "Turtle's demise greatly exaggerated" The Arctic Sunrise also saved a turtle from the driftnet. I didn't mention it in my first post because I'd seen the video here and thought it was dead. This morning I got news that the crew was able to revive and release the turtle. Hopefully it will recover from its ordeal.
TunaTV - Episode 1
An ex-fisherman from the Solomon Islands speaks out on overfishing in the Pacific.
I shot this video using a little digital hand held camera and edited it on my laptop - so sorry about the background noises of the ship and the wind
Taking tuna and turtles offline
We've just confiscated several kilometres of tuna fishing gear, freed marine life and sent a Taiwanese longlining vessel out of Pacific international waters and all before lunch! The 5am wake up call today came way too early for some but the dark, surly morning quickly turned into a dramatic action-packed wildlife rescue operation. Last night we spotted a longliner in one of the areas of international waters just north east of Papua New Guinea.
We researched the vessel and discovered that it was previously involved in shark finning in Costa Rica. We stayed with it until first light this morning when we launched inflatable boats. I helped to navigate the Esperanza alongside the fishing lines and later went out in a boat as safety crew in case anyone ended up needing help - but I wasn't out on the water for long and didn't get to see most of the action so I have bribed Sari, one of the campaigners on board, with chocolate to write an update for you.
The following is from Sari
We first tried to radio the vessel from the ship but got no response so our Chinese translator went over to speak to the vessel. We handed over the letter which explained our campaign and the captain nodded whilst reading it. We asked him to stop fishing and leave the area and he agreed but wanted to haul in his line first. We told him he had to free all marine life on his line and then we branded the hull of the ship with "PIRATE?" in red paint because it is impossible for any authority to know if this vessel is fishing legally as it is very difficult to regulate fishing in international waters.
Sayonara to Solomons
Here's a blog from Dean, our Kiwi communications officer on board the Esperanza
OK, so I admit it, I didn’t want to leave Honiara. Land itself had been such a welcome relief for me – but the big smiles, the new food, the busy markets, the curious people, the artistic talent - particularly obvious in weaving and carving), the smells – both intriguing and horrible, the multiple languages and tribal groups, the history and the sense of humour of local people had an unexpected intoxicating effect. I loved Honiara. And also it was quite a shock to be in a town that was incredibly poor with bad sanitation and air pollution (especially for 50,000 people) and to know that the ocean wealth and potential wealth of the country was disappearing. In fact, you could watch it happening from town, the wharf and along the foreshore. From there was my strongest first and last impressions of Honiara: the massive cargo motherships, with a smaller purse seiners each side with cranes lifting the tuna catch into the expansive hold of the motherships.
At night they looked like brightly-lit floating casinos. Then of course, the motherships leave, destined for the fish markets of Tokyo or another huge city. And in return, Pacific Island nations get 4-5% of the US$3 billion generated from catch in the region. There is obvious unemployment and they must to pay for their children to go to school from the time they are 8 years old. HIV/AIDs transmission has exploded as a result of increased contact with foreign fishermen and prostitution.
Defending the Pacific - Part 2
The Esperanza has just left Honiara in the Solomon Islands where I joined the ship so that we can keep you up to date on all of our adventures in the Pacific. I have replaced Jess, the webby from the Greenpeace USA office, who has reluctantly returned to her desk in Washington DC. If you've missed whatś been going on in the Pacific over the past few weeks you can check out her blog here.
The ship spent 6 days in the Solomon Islands and I arrived on Saturday morning just 2 days before we left and yet it feels like I´ve already been here for a long time. Memories from being on board before came flooding back as if it was just yesterday but it's nearly 3 years since I left the ship in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
I have not sailed with most of the crew on board before and it's always a great pleasure to make new friends and hear new stories (speaking of stories, the photographer keeps trying to have me believe he has a chicken in his cabin!). There are people on the ship from every corner of the world and many from this particular region. But it's funny that I often I hear claims that only western folks sail around on Greenpeace ships telling other countries what to do with their environment.
Tuna trading CLOSED!
“Ladies and Gentlemen your attention please: the Dong Won, Mitsubishi, Moon Marine, Azzopardi and Ricardo Fuentes stalls are now closed.” And they were. It felt great knowing that the ever so slightly familiar voices coming airport style over the audio soundsystem were speaking the truth. We did it. Shut down the stalls of 5 companies – including the world’s biggest tuna supplier (Mitsubishi) - driving the global tuna crisis.
So it was business closed for these tuna suppliers. Not just that but the ensuing chaos – including overwhelmed police blocking the way meant entire halls stopped trading for much of the day.
Esperanza arrives in the Solomons
Last night, as the sun was setting, I got my first glimpse of land in 3 weeks. When I woke up, I could see that we were passing islands. The Esperanza pulled into Honiara, Solomon Islands this morning. The ship and crew were greeted with a traditional welcome, which if I hadn't gotten a head's up earlier probably would have scared me, a little. In the challenge part of the welcome, island warriors wave long spears around and scream at you.
The entire crew were led by the captain off the ship and the warriors continued screaming and waving the spears. The proper response to this challenge is to hold still and stare straight ahead without a reaction. After a few minutes of challenge, the warriors all walked to one side and the captain walked forward. We had passed the test. There was some press there and a group of men playing pan flute drums to greet us.
U.S. purse seiner confronted in the South Pacific
At 8:30 this morning, I stood on the deck of the Esperanza staring out at a ship in the distance. We had spotted a fishing vessel in international waters and had sent a team to see if they were actually fishing. As the information came in, we learned that it was a purse seiner from the U.S. and it just started to pull in the net. Purse seine vessels surround schools of fish with curtain-like nets to catch tuna. A rope along the bottom of the net is pulled like a drawstring and the whole catch is hauled onboard. A purse seine net can be over one hundred meters long and catch up to 3000 tons of fish in one trip.
Greek fishermen hungry for a cause
Some exciting news from the Mediterranean... On Monday, after a day of demonstrations by Greek fishermen, against a government decision to allow trawling in near-shore waters, 19 fishermen started a hunger strike outside the ministry building in favour of sustainable fisheries and marine reserves!
As a result of the demonstration, the Greek Fisheries Minister had to cut short his attendance at yesterday's EU Council meeting and fly back to Greece. He arrived at his Ministry at 1 in the morning, accompanied by the Deputy Minister of Fisheries and a national TV crew. The negotiations lasted until 4am, when he admitted that he was unwilling to revoke the decision on trawling but announced a reassessment of fisheries management as part of the development of a new strategy.
He offered to come out with a public statement and letter to the European Commission explaining that his earlier decision to allow trawlers in near shore waters is in fact only temporary and that he is inviting the fishermen to a meeting to decide on a new National Fisheries Strategy!
The coastal fishermen stopped the hunger strike and are hoping for a better deal in the meeting after Greek Easter (next 15 days). They are considering this a victory.
Pacific Marine Reserves
Well let me tell you, August in the district ain't got nothin' on an afternoon on deck in the South Pacific. It is hot as anything here. We've been sailing for 4 days now and we've spent most of it preparing for our tour through the South Pacific. The days are long, sometimes starting as early as 5 am for some and often going past our last meeting of the day at 7:30 p.m.
A few times a day, I catch myself staring out into the South Pacific in amazement. At night, the stars here are unbelievable, seriously it feels like you are inside of a planetarium. When my neck starts to hurt from looking up, I look down and stare at the water that is pushed out of the stern propeller of the ship. It sparkles almost as bright as the sky, the plankton shines bright with phosphorescence and every few seconds a bright globe of a jellyfish passes thorough and shines for about 10 seconds as it moves away from the ship. The sunrises and sunsets are remarkable and the water is a color between sapphires and aquamarine. We've seen dolphins, flying fish, tuna jumping, birds and my personal favorite; a little baby black tip reef shark.
Pacific Ocean may be nearing a tipping point
In a related story....
Peering into the murky depths, Jane Lubchenco searched for sea life, but all she saw were signs of death.Video images scanned from the seafloor revealed a boneyard of crab skeletons, dead fish and other marine life smothered under a white mat of bacteria. At times, the camera's unblinking eye revealed nothing at all -- a barren undersea desert in waters renowned for their bounty of Dungeness crabs and fat rockfish.
"We couldn't believe our eyes," Lubchenco said, recalling her initial impression of the carnage brought about by oxygen-starved waters. "It was so overwhelming and depressing. It appeared that everything that couldn't swim or scuttle away had died."
Upon further study, Lubchenco and other marine ecologists at Oregon State University concluded that that the undersea plague appears to be a symptom of global warming.
That's from today's LA times. Also a good story on it in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Ocean impacts mapped
Maps of the world usually have lots of lovely blue to show where the oceans are. This map, showing damage to our oceans, is all yellow, oranges and reds with only small bits of pristine blue. It's hardly the first warning from scientists about the state of the oceans, but it's the most thorough and graphical. From the Baltimore Sun:
In one of the most comprehensive looks yet at the oceans, researchers say that humans have "strongly" fouled 41 percent of the high seas with everything from storm water runoff to shipping waste and that only small polar regions are still untouched."Almost half of the oceans are in a fairly degraded state, based on what we found," said Benjamin Halpern, the report's lead author and a marine biologist at the California-based National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis. "There isn't a spot on the planet that hasn't been touched by humans."
The report was published today in Science Magazine (subscription). There's a Google Earth layer for the map (and an animated flyover) here, and another animated flyover on NPR's website. See Science Daily for more info.
And as Benjamin Halpern, the report's lead author, says, "There are things people can do". Ask questions about where the fish you eat comes from, avoid fertilizers and pesticides (buy organic), cut down on your carbon footprint and sign our marine reserves petition.
Greenpeace ship struck by flying whale
We have just been informed that our ship the Rainbow Warrior II has been seriously damaged by a whale that reportedly fell from the sky. A police spokesperson said that they have reason to believe the Hollywood actor Will Smith was involved in the incident. However, he could not be questioned at the scene due to severe intoxication. All of the ship's crew have survived unharmed but sadly, Walter the grey whale was pronounced dead on arrival.
The following video has been sent to us by a member of the public who was at the scene.
Sea cows win legal battle against US Department of Defense
Some great news from Okinawa in Japan!
A final ruling has been issued requiring the US Department of Defense to consider impacts of a new airbase on the endangered Okinawa dugong in order to avoid or mitigate any harm.
Local communities and conservationists are concerned that a 1.5-mile-long
runway, proposed to be built over seagrass beds, would destroy the remaining
habitat of the endangered Okinawa dugong, a cultural icon of the Okinawan
people.
The U.S. airbase expansion at Henoko Bay would involve destroying large areas of seagrass -- home and feeding grounds for the 12 remaining dugongs in Japan. Hopefully, the court-ordered review and public airing of the impacts of the project will cause the US and Japanese governments to halt the base expansion plans and avoid driving the Okinawa dugong further toward extinction.
-- Read the full press release from the Center for Biological Diversity
A vision and a challenge
Image © Lisa Vickers
A Vision and a Challenge
2007 was not a great year for our oceans. Overfishing, marine pollution and climate change now jostle with one another in the struggle to see which can do more harm to marine life more quickly. Combine the three, add in a healthy dose of self-interest inspired by short-term profits and supported by major fishing nations, and things do not look good for the myriad of life that inhabits our oceans in 2008.
At Greenpeace, we have a different vision for our oceans: a vision of clean and healthy oceans abundant with life. Some people call us radical. Since our oceans cover three-quarters of our planet and play host to some 80% of all life on earth, we don't think there is a choice about what has to be done to defend our oceans, and we are prepared to do it. What if 2008 were different?
How about this vision for change in 2008:
Drowning Islands & Stolen Fish - is this THE END?
After a week of negotiations at the WCPFC with over 360 people from many corners of the planet you would think that we would be able to come to at least SOME agreements on how we're going to save the Pacific yellow fin and big eye tuna stocks right? Perhaps it was just me being naive but I was really expecting SOMETHING to happen. After endless days inside a huge room without windows and lots of serious people in suits, the two most valuable tuna species in the Pacific are no closer to recovery than they were before. The reduction in fishing effort that the scientists were recommending was totally ignored by Japan, China, Taiwan and Korea with Japan leading the pack and earning themselves not one but two "tuna destroyer" Greenpeace awards.
Yet again shortsighted economics continue to rule the day putting the environment, fish stocks, Pacific Island economies and the fishing industry itself at risk. This fisheries commission is now failing miserably just like all the others and as you can tell, I'm pretty frustrated about it! I came here with high hopes and of seeing measures get adopted that would ensure the sustainability of the last tuna frontier in the world. Tuna is very important to Pacific island economies and the last thing they need in addition to dealing with the effects of climate change is to have their fish stocks crash!
I have actually been dreading writing this update because it felt like all I had was bad news but there is a light shining at the end of this tunnel because the Greenpeace oceans team, as usual has a few tricks left up their sleeve :-)
The good, the bad and the fishy
Early Monday morning I arrived at the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission meeting not as a human but as "SheSeeMe" the bigeye tuna. I passed out leaflets that laid out clear solutions to the increasing problem of overfishing in the Pacific and made it clear to the Commission that the world was watching. Within a matter of minutes nearly every one of the 360 or so delegates was holding one of these little pieces of wisdom. Even the Governor of Guam took one and patted me on the fin, thanking me. Being a fish out of water actually turned out to be fun and with my task complete I transformed back into human form and returned to the meeting to observe the proceedings along with the rest of the Greenpeace delegation.
The opening kicked off with a warm welcome from the Governor of Guam who noted the importance of fisheries to Guam and and to Pacific identities. He also reminded everyone in the room that "the world was watching". The Chairman of the Commission then gave a speech where he challenged the countries represented here to take the action and responsibility required to protect and maintain the tuna stocks. His compelling words left a lump in my throat as we moved into the official proceedings. I glanced around the room and felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of people here from across the world. There are Pacific nations and also nations that have or want to have fishing fleets here.
Video: Overfishing threatens Pacific tuna
Just found this excellent little news piece by Al Jazeera on Pacific tuna specifically shot in Guam this summer. Check it out!
The Big Eye is on Guam
Not too long ago I remember reading that fish stocks in the Pacific were relatively healthy and that it was the only region in the world where tuna was not being overfished. But a lot has changed in just a few years and scientists are now saying that Pacific tuna stocks are severely threatened from overfishing and that the situation is critical. The Pacific countries are now faced with a very difficult challenge and the fate of many economies is at stake.
I am in Guam right now at the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) meeting where more than 20 nations will be negotiating agreements on the region's fisheries, which mainly consist of 4 tuna species (yellow fin, big-eye, skip jack and albacore). The greatest concern is over the decline in yellow fin and big eye stocks which are the tunas that are sold to the sushi and sashimi markets.
Planet Ocean - the book
Got some good news. I heard from Toby, our publications guy, that the first print run of our Planet Ocean book has sold out. The book grew out of the Defending Our Oceans expedition, and tells the story of the oceans through amazing photos. Great that it's been a hit.
Better news - there will be a second printing. I've already bought my copy (of course), but if you haven't there is a second chance. To get the book that is. When it comes to saving the oceans, we only get one go.
Accidents will happen
Last weekend there were two oil spills. One took place in the Black Sea, where a Russian tanker split in two, releasing 2000 tonnes of oil. The other took place in the San Francisco Bay, where 58 000 gallons of oil were spilled after a cargo ship collided with a bridge.
Neither of these accidents should have happened. It has been reported that the oil tanker was a soviet era vessel designed for use on rivers which found itself facing eight meter high waves in the Black Sea. In San Franciso the LA times report that
"There were skilled enough individuals on board this ship," said Rear Adm. Craig Bone, the Coast Guard's top official in California. "They didn't carry out their missions correctly."
and there's the thing. In the first case safety rules either didn't exist or were ignored, in the second case it seems that something just went wrong.
This kind of thing happens all the time. In developed western nations we're used to most things working almost all the time, but no-one is really too surprised by events like this. In the developing world it's the other way round. For some reason though the notion that accidents will, and do happen often evades policy makers. They don't consider it when thinking about how to manage nuclear power stations, they don't consider it when looking at whether Genetically Modified Organisms can be released into the wild and they don't consider it when deciding whether or not it's a good idea to transport massive quantities of oil through pristine wilderness.
The moral of the story? If you do enough risky things sooner or later you'll get caught out. However good your processes and practices are.
Follow the Great Whale Trail!
Today we launched the Great Whale Trail, following the migration of humpback whales from the warm tropical waters of the South Pacific, where they breed, to the icy Southern Ocean around Antarctica, where they feed. And we're doing it via satellite tracking and Google Maps. Nifty.
It's a collaboration between Greenpeace and scientists studying humpback whales in the South Pacific. We provided the financial support, while the humpbacks have been tagged by the Cook Islands Whale Research, and Opération Cétacés (New Caledonia). Why are we doing this? Well, it's simple, really: whales must not be allowed to die in the thousands for needless, discredited "research," - like that carried out by the Japanese whaling fleet. We're satellite tracking whales in the Southern Ocean to prove that non-lethal means can be used to do some real research!
Every year, more than 300,000 whales and dolphins die from just getting caught in fishing nets. The one place you might think that whales would be safe is in a whale sanctuary like the Southern Ocean. Alas, not so. Once in Antarctic waters they face the one threat that ended most easily - whaling, under the guise of "research" - whaling that is in reality a commercial operation.
Track the whales, on Google Maps »
30,313 people say "Save the Dugong"!
Thanks to all 30,313 of you, from 155 countries who took part in recent our "Save the Dugong" capaign. Last week, the Japanese Defense Ministry in Naha, Okinawa, received 30,313 letters from you, delivered by Greenpeace Japan and the crew of the Esperanza (some of whom dressed up as dugong!).
They also took part in a sit-in by local activists which has been taking place for more than three years now, and the messaeges were also delivered to the Ministry of Environment in Tokyo.
The above video shows the sit-in and delivery - even if you don't speak Japanese, you can still understand what's going on!
The Esperanza also sailed to Henoko, the area threatened by the airbase expansion, and where the dugongs live. About 30 fishing boats and kayaks welcomed the crew. While the Esperanza was at Henoko, one construction worker told local people that "while Greenpeace is in Henoko, we will not do any construction" - proving that sometimes, just showing up can have the desire effect.
Jun Hoshikawa, the ever-eloquent executive director of Greenpeace Japan, said that "the best Samurai can win the battle without using his sword. This is what the Esperanza did here in Okinawa".
Catch of the day
From PR Watch
Yellowfin and Bigeye tuna are in big, big trouble. The solution is a global network of Marine Reserves: 40% of the oceans as no-take zones, so these creatures can recover.
Yesterday, our own Karen Sack made the case at the UN in a presentation which was webcast live from a meeting of the G77. The video is here. Marine bioligist Callum Roberts, author of "The Unnatural History of the Sea" does a presentation in there at about the 40 minute mark. Callum presented at our recent Oceans meeting and blew the room away: his story of an ocean once teeming with life, the devastation of industrial fishing, and how no-take marine reserves are already restoring some areas was a tour de force of hope. "The fishing industry doesn't realise that Greenpeace is its best friend" was one of my favourite lines.
We've recently set up a call upon the UN, regional fisheries bodies, and national governments to let the seas recover by setting aside 40% as fully protected, no-take zones: Sign it here! There's a Facebook cause as well: push it out there!
Deadliest Catch: The game
It's rough in the Bering Sea - storms, ice, fishermen... Get a taste for a fishes life with Greenpeace USA's new game, The Deadliest Catch.
Game wise it's pretty old school. (Reminds me fondly of those Atari 2600 times.) The sea lions are pesky, but the nets are the real nightmare. Almost inescapable, just like real life. When you're done playing, don't forget to sign the petition asking the North Pacific Fisheries Council to take better care of the pollock.
Pollock don't have the charisma of dolphins, but they're vital to the Bering Sea ecosystem. Marine mammals, predatory fish and seabirds are already starving to death because pollock stocks have dropped so low. More than half of the US fish catch also comes from Alaska - meaning, a healthy pollock stock is needed for long term economic (as well as ecological) sustainability.
Video: Save the dugong of Okinawa now!
[I'm posting this, but Eoin wrote most of it. I'm just the messenger! - Dave]
Important developments have unfolded in Japan since we wrote earlier this month about the threatened dugongs and plans to expand a U.S. military base on Okinawa's coast. The large marine mammals and their habitat on the north-east coast of Okinawa Island can be saved, but our window of opportunity to act is closing fast.
Shinzo Abe's recent resignation as Prime Minister of Japan, and the discovery of precious colony of blue corals in the airbase construction site have improved our odds of success.
The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the proposed airbase site is open for public comment throughout September. After that time, the authorities will tell us "you've had your chance".
Can you send a message to the Japanese government right now, or forward this message to your friends by email and on facebook, myspace and hi5 to join our call to save the dugongs and stop the airbase. (There's heaps of background information you can blog about too!)
Stop the airbase - save the dugongs of Okinawa
© Roberto Sozzani
So what does a dugong do? Not much, except wander coastal areas from the east coast of Africa to Australia, and beyond, grazing on the seagrass of coral reefs.
Dugongs living on the coast of Japan's Okinawa island are threatened by the proposed expansion of a U.S. military base there. Construction of the airbase would destroy local coral reefs, the habitat of the dugong, and thousands of other creatures, including three species of threatened turtle.
Time is short, but we can still stop the airbase - throughout September, the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the airbase site is open for public comment. We're using this opportunity to let the Japanese government know what the people of the world think - by delivering a petition of thousands of names to the environment and defence ministries, and calling on the government to establish a marine reserve in the area.
This wouldn't be the first time that construction at Henoko, in north-eastern Okinawa, has been stopped. In 2005, after a sustained protest by local people, and following the arrival of the Rainbow Warrior, plans for an airbase was shelved. If the military machine can be stopped once - through the voice of thousands worldwide, and through peaceful protest in Okinawa, then it can be stopped again.
You know what to do:
Call on the Japanese government to save the dugong and stop the expansion of the military base in Okinawa »
Earlier:
01 March 2005: Save the dugong - stop the US airbase »
10 March 2005: Greenpeace joins local activists to occupy test drilling platforms in an area where a proposed American military base would be built across important dugong habitat. »
12 March 2005: Greenpeace calls for dugong rescue in Japan »
National Geographic: Rare Japanese Dugong Threatened by U.S. Military Base »
The Great Fish Rip-Off
Global activism group Avaaz is looking for help in pushing the World Trade Organisation to stop the plunder of our oceans. As a recent mailing puts it:
Often, the issues that affect the most lives don't make the headlines. This month, we have an opportunity to do something big about one of them: the global fishing crisis.Fishers in developing countries are catching fewer and fewer fish--because of massive overfishing by industrialized fishing fleets from rich countries, fleets subsidized with tens of billions of Euros every year. As a result, fish populations are now collapsing around the globe, and could soon be pushed beyond recovery.
But our oceans don't have to die. This September, the World Trade Organization will release a new proposal for global fishing rules--and right now, trade ministers are deciding what those rules should be. If enough of us urge our trade ministers to support a better system, we preserve our oceans for future generations--and for the one billion humans who rely on fish for protein today. Click here to send your trade minister a message in support fairness and sustainability:
Ultimately, we believe the answer to the problems of pirate fishing and overfishing would be a global system of rigorously enforced Marine Reserves -- areas that would be protected from destructive human activity until they can recover. You can read more about the problems of overfishing and pirate fishing, as well as the Marine Reserves solution, at our main website. But take action with Avaaz first.
Stop the slaughter of sharks in Ecuador
If you've ever eaten the Chinese delicacy, shark fin soup, you've had a taste of ocean destruction.
Sharks are greatly valued for their fins which are sold for high prices in Asia. Shark fin soup is served at Chinese weddings and banquets to symbolise wealth and prestige.
The market demand for this one part of the shark has given rise to shark 'finning,' a practice in which the fins are cut off a captured shark and the rest of the animal is then dumped, often alive, back into the sea. Sharks (unlike most other fish) have only a few young at a time and so take a long time to recover from exploitation.
Of tuna and turtles
The Rainbow Warrior is currently on a three-month expedition in the Mediterranean, calling for the creation of marine reserves in the region, as part of a global network of protected areas covering 40% of our seas and oceans.
Sebastian Losada filed this report:
The bluefin tuna season doesn't seem to have started yet in the waters that extend off the Libyan coasts. Some catches have already taken place, yes, but just a few compared to the levels we will possibly witness in the coming weeks. Two-hundred purse seiners will try to take as much tuna as they can from the Libyan fishing ground before the fishery is closed on July the 1st. That's why they come to these waters: the last refuge in which an important subpopulation of bluefin tuna still survives.
Save the Dugong!
Karli, our oceans campaigner just back from leading our Southern Ocean Whale Expedition, writes:
Two years ago, the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior visited Henoko in Okinawa, Japan. The purpose of our visit was to support a local protest against the construction of a new airbase for the US military. The proposed airbase was to be constructed over a coral reef, the home of the last remaining dugong population in Japan.
This is the 21st century. It is mind-boggling that anyone still considers that it is OK to destroy a coral reef with the construction of anything, and to add insult, the proposed construction is an airbase for the military – in a community that is deeply concerned with peace. The habitat of Japan’s dugongs, as well as abundant reef and seagrass species, should be the site of a marine reserve – not a reserve for marines.
With the Rainbow Warrior, we helped to raise the issue to a new level with international media attention helping the cause of local protesters, who had occupied the drilling platforms day in, day out for over a year already. Shortly after, the original proposal was scrapped. But a new proposal, still impacting the marine area that the dugongs depend on, replaced it.
Now, the protest against the airbase construction has reached a crucial point. The Naha Defense Facilities Administration Agency is about to begin an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the proposed airbase. We are demanding that this EIA is a sound and transparent assessment, and involves the local community.
The local protest groups are taking this opportunity to gather international support to stop the airbase and save the dugong. They have set up an online petition, giving you a chance to have your say on this issue.
© Roberto Sozzani
Please read and sign the petition, and help spread the word.Thanks in advance!
Tell your government that you vote NO to commercial whaling!
Posted by Dave (in Ireland)
The future of the whales will be decided in Anchorage, Alaska, in a couple of weeks time.
As a committed Whale Defender, we need you to make your voice heard once again. The key governments in the debate need to hear from you that you demand that the International Whaling Commission works to protect whales.
"The 59th International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting has begun its preliminary meeting in Anchorage ahead of the key decision making week from May 28th - 31st. Your delegation will be representing not only your government, but your electorate. We ask that you ensure that your delegation is briefed to vote for whale protection at this important meeting."Tell your government that you vote NO to commercial whaling »
Defending Whales
As you'll have noticed:
- The Defending or Oceans trip has come to an end, and so has the blog
- Since the end of the expedition in Sydney, the Esperanza sailed all the way to Sydney.
Well, in case you don't know, Andrew got a new blog rolling - Defending whales, where you can keep up with the Esperanza's activities in Tokyo, as well as the wider whaling campaign. Of course, Andrew has also shunted the responsibility on to me, so I'm gonna be Mr. Whale for the next few months. But now is not the time for blubbering - there's work to be done!
The Esperanza was initially stopped from entering Tokyo, but has since arrived into Yokohama, in Tokyo Bay.
Defending whales Blog
Defending whales main site
Amazon.com stops selling Shark Fin Soup
Shark fins drying on the upper deck of longline pirate vessel in the South Atlantic.
Earlier this year an issue was raised over on our Ocean Defenders Blog concerning the sale of Shark Fin Soup on Amazon.com. Greenpeace has since contacted Amazon and requested that they remove all products containing shark fins from their website.
It is with great pleasure that we can now tell you that Amazon has taken all of these products off their website! This is a great response from Amazon and we'd like to commend them on taking such a bold step.
The shark finning industry kills up to 73 million sharks per year and continues to threaten the survival of these cartilagenous critters. Additionally It has recently become evident that the disappearance of sharks has detrimental effects to broader marine ecosystems. We hope that other companies will follow Amazon's lead and stop selling Shark Fin Soup.
NYT - Whaling: A Japanese obsession with American roots
That's the title of an article in today's New York Times. From the article:
Historically, fishermen in coastal towns, like Taiji in southwestern Japan, hunted whales in nearby waters. But things changed after the Commodore Perry’s so-called Black Ships forced an isolationist Japan to open up in the 1850s. Back then, the United States used whale oil lamps, and part of Perry’s mission to Japan was to secure the rights of American whalers in the Pacific.As whaling became knotted with Japan's traumatic opening to the world and its subsequent drive to modernize, the Japanese adopted American and Norwegian whaling vessels and techniques. Some coastal towns were transformed into whaling stations, including Ayukawa, when the Toyo Whaling Company started operating here in 1906.
The Blacklist of Illegal Fishing Vessels
A while ago I wrote about how I'd been learning all about IUU fishing. That's Illegal, unregulated and unreported fisheries. It's one of the biggest threats to the world's fish stocks, which is why it's better to refer to it by the less bureaucratic name of 'Pirate Fishing' or just 'Stealing Fish'.
Well now I can tell you why I was doing all this research. Greenpeace has just published a consolidated global blacklist of fishing vessels who have been sanctioned for breaking fisheries regulations.
Google News: Greenpeace to continue whaling
A little blog for my fellow nerds... Nick in New Zealand sent me this amusing link this morning. As the faithful Googlebot dutifully tried to gather up news about The Esperanza arriving in Sydney (yay!) and our intention to return to Tokyo, it accidentally truncated the headline to read "Greenpeace Ship Heads to Japan to Continue Whaling". It seems that perhaps robots can't entirely replace the human race after all... Asimov can rest in peace.
Fishing vessel blacklist/whitelist
For years, the fisheries regulators have met at international meetings and talked about clamping down on pirate fishing industry. One of the things everyone knows is needed is a global database of suspect fishing vessels - an industry blacklist. But somehow years went past and no one got around to setting it up.
So we went ahead and did it ourselves. It took about 10 weeks and cost about 5,000 euros to set the site up. We launched it today in Rome at a biannual UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's Fisheries Committee meeting. Apparently it caused quite a stir. : )
To go with the blacklist, we also set up a spoof site: fishing-vessel-whitelist.org, to point out that the world also needs a list of legitimate/legal fishing vessels. Our team at the meeting is passing out bookmarks with the blacklist address on one side and the whitelist on the other.
You can find the site at blacklist.greenpeace.org.
And read more here. Story behind the photo is here.
The work goes on
With the Nisshin Maru seemingly en route back to Japan whaling will probably be dropping out of the headlines in the next few weeks. Meanwhile though the campaign goes on, and as you can see here there's always a lot of interest in the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission and campaigning is a 24/7/365 business.
For the ICR it's going to be a busy year. They've got a ship to repair and refit (although we'd rather they recycled it), nations to 'aid', a court case to fight and a pile of frozen whale meat to get rid of.
If I was them I'd be wondering if it was worth the effort...
World won't forgive whalers for disaster: NZ PM
According to AAP and various other news sources, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark called on Japanese whalers to deal with their damaged vessel in Antarctic waters or face international outrage if it caused an environmental disaster (especially considering we are right there with an appropriate vessel to help!)
Clark says she is not prepared to offer the ship port facilities in New Zealand, saying no request has been made for the ship to stop here, and that she expects the ship to be towed all the way back to Japan. However maritime law expert Duncan Currie also told New Zealand press that international conventions meant it should be towed as soon as possible to the nearest port (which would be in New Zealand) to mitigate the pollution risk.
In general the media seems pretty supportive of our position, however, according to some sources, the Esperanza is in fact called the Ezmerelda, and is captained by one Karli Thomas, who last time I checked was none other than our expedition leader. I wonder what Captain Frank is doing these days... considering starting a Southern Ocean towing business perhaps?
Amsterdam Whale Love
Some members of the Amsterdam whales cyber team and some staff hit the streets today - passing out roses and Valentines Day cards to Japanese tourists. Each card had a whale friendly Valentines Day poem written by Greenpeace supporters here in the Netherlands (but in English) and a link to the Whale Love Wagon site. Thanks to Naomi, Genevieve, Eoin, Giona, Marcio, Page and Aida for turning out.
It rained the whole time, so tourists in general were pretty scarce. At first, the going was pretty tough. The tourists probably thought we were selling the flowers (you get a lot of that here).
But after we put on Greenpeace jackets things got easier. Once they realized what we were doing most were curious and friendly. These two told me they had eaten whale when they were very young, but not any more. It's just not popular.
They also told me flowers are not popular gifts on February 14th in Japan. Chocolate is best.
There were Whale Love activities in 28 countries today.
Read more. See the photos. A few more from from Amsterdam...
 Genevieve |  "Peace" |  Page |
 |
And happy Valentine's to you too, Mr Branson!
Well you never know who you'll bump into when you pop out in Washington DC, particularly when dressed as a giant red heart. This just in from our round-the-world Valentine-o-rama for the whales -- Karen reports that the giant love hearts walking (or dare I say, waddling) around Washington got a little message from none other than Richard "Billionaire with heart" Branson himself (more than we can say for George Monbiot ... then again, I assume Monbiot wasn't cruising around in a limo.) Karen says:
"With Washington almost closed down following what is called a 'major' snow storm in this part of the world, a number of huge red hearts went to visit the Japanese Embassy this morning. The security guards at the embassy were not very happy to see us, but they did finally send someone down to accept our Valentines Day card for the Ambassador -- wouldn't take the chocolates though. The hearts then walked down the huge avenue that the Embassy is on (one of the biggest in Washington), giving out flowers, boarding passes and the Japanese Whale cards (in english). Along the route, a limo pulled over and Richard Branson popped his head out saying, "good on you, keep up the good work".
SSCS and whalers clash
There was an incident a few hours ago where the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ships clashed with one of the ships in the whaling fleet.
You can read everything we know about it in Dave's weblog from on board the Esperanza. Since we weren't there, he only has the conflicting accounts from both sides to go on.
Prehistoric deep-sea shark dies in fishtank
(With thanks to our shark-loving IT guru Mats for bringing this to my attention).
The ancient shark © Awashima Marine Park
You can check out the video of the shark here at Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet's site - look for an article called "Förhistorisk haj hittad i Japan" (Prehistoric shark found in Japan).
Icelandic news: "One-third to one-half of the whale catch is buried"
By Iwona, in Iceland
"We are back in business with about 100 tons of excellent eco-friendly whale meat and blubber ready for the market.", said Kristjan Loftsson to the Telegraph, after concluding his first commercial whale hunt in Iceland in late October, 2006.
The Icelandic one-man-show is back again. Kristjan Loftsson and his rotting whale business (Hvalur hf) has made waves, this time in the Icelandic newspapers. As I sip on my hot tea, I skim through Skessuhorn, a local paper in Borgarnes, a small town about 80 km west from Reykjavik. Inside, on page 4, I see a picture of a cluster of men in orange around a dead and gutted fin whalein a rusty whaling station, an archive photo of the Loftsson hunt in late October, 2006. With the help of my Icelandic friends, I read the headline: "One-third to one-half of the whale catch is buried".
This very headline initiated a spiral of events last week, which eventually led me here, all the way to Iceland. We (Frode, Martin, Ulvar and Iwona) are in Reykjavik to investigate the sensless, inefficient, and highly unsustainable practice of whaling.
Sir Edmund Hillary calls for whale protection
When someone sent me an email titled, "Hillary criticizes whaling", I immediately jumped to the conclusion it was Senator Hillary Clinton. But instead it was the the famed explorer Sir Edmund Hillary who, on what he is calling his final trip to Antarctica, made a point of calling for an end to the Southern Ocean whale hunt:
"I was always prepared to come back one more time," said Hillary, whose comments were reported by New Zealand media traveling with the anniversary delegation. "I don't think it'll ever happen again, but this is a marvelous return."Hillary criticized Japan for its policies allowing whaling for scientific purposes, and for pushing to revoke the international ban on commercial hunting. The Japanese whale hunting season began recently in waters at the far south of the world.
"They just don't seem to have accepted that these creatures, wonderful creatures that they are, should be carefully protected," Hillary said.
More on his Antarctic visit here.
And you can join the defense of the whales here.
We make the list: 59 Smartest Orgs Online
Defending Our Oceans has garnered Greenpeace a place in the 59 Smartest Orgs online as chosen by GetActive, NetSquared and Squidoo (founded by everyone's favourite marketing guru, Seth Godin). They say:
"These are organizations that give their volunteers and members a voice and get out of the way. They're pros at mobilizing awareness online. They're experimentors. Innovators. On a mission. They're fearless....These aren't just orgs that throw up a video or a forum or a MySpace page and stop."
Check it out and vote us even higher on the list!
And while you're at it, take part in some of that innovation - check out the new, improved IGO tools to create your own whaling campaign, the latest episode of Ocean Defender TV, join in the Galley Gossip in our discussion forum, or say hi to the lovely Dave onboard our ship the Esperanza.
Stockpiles of whalemeat are increasing in Japan
From the amount of money and effort the Government of Japan spends on trying to expand their whaling industry and resume commercial whaling you'd think there was an incredibly high demand for whale meat in Japan wouldn't you? However from this graph, created using information from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries of Japan, it's clear that they don't have a high demand since more and more whale meat is getting stockpiled.
© Greenpeace
The last Cod: Gone to meet his baker?
Greenpeace UK holds a funeral for the last Cod.
Europe's Fisheries Ministers are in denial about the Cod's impending death, and are likely to continue setting unrealistic quotas that mean the world's once most important food fish won't have a snowball's chance in a pizza oven of recovering. More from Greenpeace UK.
Whale vomit for Christmas?
Ok, here's a weird whale story for you all, with a season whiff about it, from the New York Times:
"In this season of strange presents from relatives, Dorothy Ferreira got a doozy the other day from her 82-year-old sister in Waterloo, Iowa. It was ugly. It weighed four pounds. There was no receipt in the box. Inside she found what looked like a gnarled, funky candle but could actually be a huge hunk of petrified whale vomit worth as much as $18,000."
"Ambergris begins as a waxlike substance secreted in the intestines of some sperm whales, perhaps to protect the whale from the hard, indigestible “beaks” of giant squid it feeds upon. The whales expel the blobs, dark and foul-smelling, to float the ocean. After much seasoning by waves, wind, salt and sun, they may wash up as solid, fragrant chunks." Please Let It Be Whale Vomit, Not Just Sea Junk »
"Raw ambergris fetches approximately US$10 per gram (as of 2006), with much higher prices possible for particularly high-quality samples.[1] In the United States, buying or selling ambergris- including ambergris that has washed ashore — is a violation of the Endangered Species Act of 1978." Wikipedia: Ambergris »
Phytoplankton and climate change part 2
Someone sent me these NASA images. The top one shows change in surface temperature. The bottom, change in phytoplankton productivity. Overall, warmer surface temperatures meant less productive phytoplankton. True, towards the poles there will probably be some increase in productivity, but the overall effect is negative.
Image courtesy of NASA.Why should we care? From the NASA website:
Every day, more than 100 million tons of carbon dioxide are drawn from the atmosphere into the ocean by billions of microscopic ocean plants called phytoplankton during photosynthesis. In addition to playing a big role in removing greenhouses gases from the atmosphere, phytoplankton are the foundation of the ocean food chain....snip...
“Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere play a big part in global warming,” said lead author Michael Behrenfeld of Oregon State University, Corvallis. “This study shows that as the climate warms, phytoplankton growth rates go down and along with them the amount of carbon dioxide these ocean plants consume. That allows carbon dioxide to accumulate more rapidly in the atmosphere, which would produce more warming.”
That is to say: more CO2 = warmer oceans = less productive phytoplankton = more CO2 and less food for marine life.
US chain stops marketing Icelandic products
Good to see that the pressure is mounting on Iceland:
American supermarket chain Whole Foods Market (WFM) has decided to stop marketing Icelandic products because of Iceland resuming commercial whaling.Minister of Fisheries Einar K. Gudfinnsson told Fréttabladid that the supermarket’s decision is disappointing and said it is possible that other American companies will react the same way.
The minister received a letter from Kenneth J. Meyer CEO of WFM’s East Coast branch in November saying the company could not continue marketing Icelandic products as their clients were opposed to whaling.
Snore...
Ok, so we were asking for this. A YouTube user called thevolleyballman has decided to "spice up" up our 'Breathe' video. Thing is, this particular breather seems to be sleeping on their back...
The original 'Breathe' video »
Plastic plastic everywhere
A seahorse tries to camouflage inside a big plastic bag.
© Danny Ocampo
I caught this on the BBC last night:
Microscopic particles of plastic could be poisoning the oceans, according to a British team of researchers.They report that small plastic pellets called "mermaids' tears", which are the result of industry and domestic waste, have spread across the world's seas.
The scientists had previously found the debris on UK beaches and in European waters; now they have replicated the finding on four continents.
Scientists are worried that these fragments can get into the food chain.
Plastic rubbish, from drinks bottles and fishing nets to the ubiquitous carrier bag, ends up in the world's oceans.
Sturdy and durable plastic does not bio-degrade, it only breaks down physically, and so persists in the environment for possibly hundreds of years.
Echo's our work in the trash vortex.
Mexico: Wetland destruction at Los Cabos
© Greenpeace/Alex Hofford
Here's one of our activists - chained to heavy machinery - talking to a construction worker at the illegal construction site of the 'Puerto Los Cabos' coastal property development in Baja California Sur, Mexico. The construction of a planned 800 hectare marina and hotel complex will damage the surrounding wetlands from and are predicted to heavily impact the local fishing industry and marine environment.
More here on the Ocean Defenders weblog »
I'm an Orca, get me out of here!
Spotted by Lisa - story of angry captive killer whale that kind of misses the obvious:
"Some days, killer whales just wake up on the wrong side of the pool. A 2 1/2-ton orca that dragged a trainer underwater during a show at SeaWorld may have been put out by a spat with another whale, grumpy because of the weather or just irritable from a stomach ache, according to marine mammal experts." Miami Herald: Orca returns to S.D. tank after attack »
... maybe the 5m-long whale, named Kasatka, got a little fed up with living in captivity?
According to one of the trainers,
"the animals perform as many as eight times a day, 365 days a year, 'so this, even though it can be expected because they are killer whales, it is definitely abnormal.'"
Hell, if I was performing at that kind of rate, I might be biting people too...
Defend the whales » (wild ones!)
Counting on phytoplankton to save us? Bad news.
Looks like phytoplankton, things that eat them and things that breathe are likely to suffer from climate change. According to recent NASA research published in the journal Nature, phytoplankton do not fare well when the water heats up even a few degrees.
From the ABC News article:
In a "sneak peak" revealing a grim side effect of future warmer seas, new NASA satellite data find that the vital base of the ocean food web shrinks when the world's seas get hotter.And that discovery has scientists worried about how much food marine life will have as global warming progresses.
...snip...
Phytoplankton are the microscopic plant life that zooplankton and other marine animals eat, essentially the grain crop of the world's oceans.
Washington Post says: "Blame Iceland"
Yesterday, the Washington Post came out with a scathing editorial about Iceland, and how it harpooned a UN agreement which would have protected vast areas of sensitive marine habitat from unregulated bottom trawling:
A tiny country that still hunts whales scuttles an effort to save the ocean bottom.Sunday, December 3, 2006; Page B06
IN A FORM of fishing known as bottom trawling, huge, weighted nets are dragged across the ocean floor, destroying corals and just about everything else in their path. In U.S. waters, the practice is tightly regulated -- and forbidden in certain environmentally sensitive areas. On much of the high seas, however, it's open season. Delicate ecosystems get ravaged with nobody paying attention. The Bush administration, along with several other governments, has been pushing for a moratorium on unregulated trawling on the high seas. Last month, thanks in large part to Iceland, it failed to get that measure.
...snip...
Because the arcane rules of high-seas fishing are largely defined by consensus, even small countries that are genuine moral outliers in world attitudes toward oceans can prevent agreement. The result in this case was a mushy resolution that fell far short of what the administration and environmental groups wanted, which in turn is ominous for efforts to protect marine life in international waters.
Art 4 Oceans - Get involved!
Check this out - over the last few months, the Defending our Oceans team have been asking artists from around the world to become Ocean Defenders and show us how they've been influenced by our oceans.
Not involved yet? Now's yer chance. Go on, have a go...
art4oceans Art Wall »
Forum: Defending Our Oceans art4oceans Art Wall Project »
art4oceans gallery on DeviantART »
art4oceans Community Artists Gallery »
Bizarre deep sea life found off coast of New Zealand
An team of scientists from the United States and New Zealand have found "bizarre deep-sea communities" living around methane seeps off New Zealand's east coast. And no, it's not a colony of sea monkeys. Quiet at the back!
"The 21-member expedition – led by scientists from WHOI, NIWA, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UH) – has spent the last two weeks exploring cold water seeps and other 'chemosynthetic' ecosystems around New Zealand's east coast onboard NIWA's deepwater research vessel Tangaroa."
When sea lions attack!
There's been a spate of sea lion attacks in San Francisco, and in other parts of the US. Scientists are unsure why. Most philosophical explanation:
"People should understand these animals are out there not to attack people or humans. But they‘re out there to survive for themselves," said Jim Oswald, a spokesman for the Marine Mammal Center.
But then aren't we all?
Full story here.
Photos of friendly sea lions here.
Rumors that Samuel Jackson was quoted as saying, "#&#*!! sea lions are #&#*!! #&#^* Everywhere!", and will be staring in the upcoming movie could not be confirmed at this time.
The end of seafood
National Geographic has run a good reality check interview with Scripps Institute oceanographer Dr. Jeremy Jackson. He says, "We will never be able to fish at the level we have been fishing." But goes on to point out that the damage is reversible - if we protect a large portion of our oceans.
I really get the feeling that scientists have done their job on overfishing. They've identified the problem, and ways forward (including the ecosystem approach and marine reserves). But so far politicians and industry have mostly ignored them.
Humpback whales have 'human' brain cells, according to some science folk
© Innerspace Visions / James D. Watt
Well, this may have profound implications for the future of whales - some of them may be smarter than we had previously thought!
Humpback whales have a type of brain cell seen only in humans, the great apes, and other cetaceans such as dolphins, US researchers reported on Monday. This might mean such whales are more intelligent than they have been given credit for, and suggests the basis for complex brains either evolved more than once, or has gone unused by most species of animals, the researchers said.
Patrick Hof and Estel Van der Gucht of the Department of Neuroscience at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York studied the brains of humpback whales and discovered a type of cell called a spindle neuron in the cortex, in areas comparable to where they are seen in humans and great apes. Planet Ark: Humpback Whales Have 'Human' Brain Cells – Study » (Reuters)
OD-TV: Sebastian on the scene at tuna meet
Be sure to check out the latest Ocean Defenders TV clip (called Behind the Scenes at ICCAT, in the Defending our Oceans channel). It follows Greenpeace Spain campaigner Sebastian through the course of a big meeting to decide the fate of critical bluefin tuna stocks.
In under four minutes, it gives a really good feel for what it's like to be at one of these things.
Fisheries failure at the highest political levels
At two major international meetings this past week, officials talked big and did nothing - despite dire warnings from the scientific community in both cases. To me, this shows just how badly the system is broken, and possibly worthless.
From CTV:
Despite intense negotiations that lasted into the early-morning hours, countries seeking a ban on bottom trawling in unregulated international waters failed Thursday to get United Nations support for the proposal.
Actually, we would have been happy enough with a temporary moratorium, giving scientists time to map out areas of vulnerable habitat before we bulldoze them. (A great BBC story on the issue can be found here.)
Blobfish on BoingBoing
Cory Doctorow posted a picture of one of our Seamount Mascosts, the blobfish, on BoingBoing, along with the note that he was "trawled during the NORFANZ expedition at a depth between 1013 m and 1340 m, on the Norfolk Ridge, north-west of New Zealand, June 2003."
Well, Cory, the bad news is that this beautiful and inspiring species could be wiped out because the UN has failed to take action to protect the sea bottom this week. OK, he's not cute, but bottom trawling is indiscriminate and rips up the delicate and disgusting alike. Here's some of the other creatures the UN deemed not to protect:
Iceland harpoons deep-sea protection: Icelandic government says "Muuhahahaha"
You know, sometimes you just want to break Greenpeace's policy on non-violent direction action, and go kick the crap out of the half-broken cabinet under Irene's desk (here in the Stockholm office that cabinet has been the victim of various frustrations including the resumption of Icelandic whaling, pirate fishing boats escaping in the night, and one of our campaigners taking the last piece of chocolate from the euphemistically named fruit bowl).
Today of course, the innocent cabinet suffered for Iceland stuffing up the UN bottom trawling decision.
Meanwhile, at the UN: Karen's finally lost it
Just got an eagerly-awaited email update from our Political Advisor Karen Sack, at the UN, awaiting a decision on the proposed moratorium on high-seas bottom trawling. All it said was "2am, still waiting". But the picture said 1000 more words.
Late night coffee while the UN negotiates about bottom trawling
As I look above me I can see parts of the coral reef hanging over my head. Sponges, encrusting seaweeds, sea anemones and more coral surrounds me. Dolphins hover close by... motionless. To the right of me people are watching the Discovery Channel and as I sit here quietly sipping my cappuccino to the tunes of Bob Marley I am talking to Karen (our Oceans Policy Advisor) in New York on Skype. No, I'm not dreaming! I am in the Dolphin's cafe in Amsterdam, using their wireless connection so I can stay up to date with the UN negotiations on bottom trawling.
Radiohead: Save them Fish!!
I'm a bigtime Radiohead fan. But then I'm an easy mark for any musicians that can master an instrument that less than a hundred people worldwide can play and turn the lyric "I'm a Creep" into an anthem. Here's a recent notice of frontman Thom Yorke's support for our campaign against overfishing, from virgin.net
The enigmatic frontman claims enormous demand from supermarkets for seafood is threatening the future of fish and he backed a Greenpeace campaign calling on world leaders to enforce sustainable fishing.In a post on the official Radiohead website, he said: "Supermarket demand for fish (not that I eat fish or meat) has meant we are fishing to extinction.
"What I find particularly offensive are the enormous nets they use that drag everything up.
"Supermarkets should be made to source their fish responsibly and governments should act in the interest of our future to regulate for sustainable fishing - not this mass production/destruction s***.
See Thom's original post here. Oh, and take action here.
And given Martin's post below, I suggest it's time to wipe out all those glass-half-empty Oasis ditties from your playlists (other than Ryan Adam's better-than-the-original "Wonderwall") and stack up on organic, sustainable, glass-half-full Radiohead tunes.
Philippines oil spill redux
Just three months ago a Petron chartered tanker sank causing the worst oil spill in Philippines history. Now a barge used by the same company as part of the on going clean up has sunk.
From Greenpeace Philippines:
Last night, the barge Harbor Star was carrying 59,000 sacks of oil debris from Guimaras and was bound for the Holcim Plant in Lugait, Misamis Oriental when it encountered strong waves, causing it to sink four nautical miles from Plaridel around 11:10 p.m.As of now, a lot still remains to be answered with regards to this new development in the Petron-oil spill. But whether this most recent incident is caused by gross negligence or plain stupidity, the Philippine government must be hold Petron accountable to the fullest extent of the law.
Petron has yet to fully answer for its disastrous oil spill in Guimaras, but here it is again with another environmental disaster in the making.
News roundup: Bottom trawling / Blame Canada (and Espana)
Our "Blame Canada (and Espana) animation is causing a massive stir. Lots of Canadian newspapers have featured it, and I hear delegates at the UN meeting have been watching it on Karen's laptop. (Karen is one of our policy advisors at the meeting.)
You can watch it yourself here. This whole thing will be over this week one way or another. Help us tip the balance in favour of deep-sea life (and common sense) by sending a message to the Canadian and Spanish governments.
That said, now on to the news...
Blame Canada (and España) - Bottom Trawling by way of South Park
This week will be our last chance for the UN to call for a moratorium on bottom trawling. The world is watching as Canada and Spain threaten to scupper what scientists call an "overwhelming" case. Take action now!
Read More: Blame Canada (and España) »
Send to a friend »
Next whaling nation: St. Kitts-Nevis?
Here's one from the Bizarre Quotes Department. It's from an article entitled "St Kitts-Nevis supports development of whaling industry," and quotes that Caribbean country's Fisheries Minister, Cedric Liburd, as listing the following reason for wanting to whale:
"We have all these tourists coming here, what are we going to feed them with?"
You REALLY need to spend less time listening to those Japanese handlers, Minister. Whatever they might be paying you to sound stupid, it isn't enough.
If you want to do a little independent research on the impact of whaling on tourism, check out our Iceland Whales Pledge site, where more than 100,000 people have promised to visit Iceland if, and only if, that country stops whaling.
Live Webcast: History & Future of Whales
Thursday, November 16, 2006 - 7 PM CT (Unfortunately that's 01:00am on Friday GMT, 02:00am Friday CET, or a far more pleasant Friday 12:00pm in Sydney)
Live Webcast
The History and Future of Whales
by Dr. Stephen R. Palumbi
Professor of Biological Sciences, Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station
What is the Lecture About?
Scientists use new technologies to reveal untold mysteries about whales and provide information on whale history that may be crucial to their survival in the future. Dr. Stephen Palumbi, a renowned marine biologist and professor at Stanford, will discuss how he uses genetic techniques to estimate historic whale populations and how his findings play an important role in decisions of the International Whaling Commission (IWC). He recently published in the journal Science that DNA evidence indicates that before commercial whaling began, whale populations were 10 times larger than scientists previously believed. The IWC guidelines state that there can be no whaling until populations have returned to at least 54% of their historic levels, but their estimates are based on unreliable whaling records kept by ships and dating back to the mid 19th century. According to these previous estimates, many whale populations have nearly recovered to the required 54% of their historic levels, but the new genetic analysis suggests it will take at least another 50 -100 years.
TO JOIN YOU NEED TO DOWNLOAD SOME SOFTWARE. FOR MORE INFORMATION:
http://www.esi.utexas.edu/outreach/ols/lectures/Palumbi/
The Trash Vortex
This piece of plastic was pulled out of the Pacific by the crew of the Esperanza
© Greenpeace / Alex Hofford
Back in August we talked about The Trash Vortex in the Pacific Ocean, where marine debris collects. Now it's back in the news again - our ship, the Esperanza, is currently in the area, and some disturbing images are filtering back...
The North Pacific sub-tropical gyre covers a large area of the Pacific in which the water circulates clockwise in a slow spiral. Winds are light. The currents tend to force any floating material into the low energy central area of the gyre. There are few islands on which the floating material can beach. So it stays there in the gyre, in astounding quantities estimated at six kilos of plastic for every kilo of naturally occurring plankton. The equivalent of an area the size of Texas swirling slowly around like a clock. This gyre has also been dubbed “the Asian Trash Trail” the “Trash Vortex” or the “Eastern Garbage Patch”.
For more, including maps, animations, slideshows and video, see: Disposable Oceans »
Esperanza: The Trash Vortex weblog»
Defending our Oceans: The Trash Vortex »
Earlier article: The Trash Vortex »
LA Times: Altered Oceans (multimedia) »
Stop motion video from Honolulu
Elaine Hill, our resident graphic designer, photographed this stop motion video. She wrote: "I was on holiday in Hawaii and went to welcome the Greenpeace ship Esperanza into port. She was taking a while so I thought I'd take a series of pictures to keep myself busy! It must have taken about 30 minutes (and 100 photos) for her to arrive at her berth. The grey ship dancing with the Esperanza is called the Shinyo Maru, a Japanese training vessel."
Some weird dolphins in the news - four finned and wolphins!
First - the wolphin, or wholphin. Truth be told, when I saw this image on MSNBC, I thought "photoshop job" - not only is it kind of a tacky looking photograph, but the image itself look weird - possibly from being overcompressed. Still, it does seem to be real. These hybrids are known in the wild, but the only two in captivity are in "Sea Life Park". Having observed them so much in the wild, the idea of ceteceans in captivity rankles - but that's just my opinion.
The mother wholpin, according to MSNBC, is called Kekaimalu, whose name means "from the peaceful ocean," was born 19 years ago after a surprise coupling between a 14-foot, 2,000-pound male false killer whale and a 6- foot, 400-pound female dolphin. I think it's a fair assumption that it was the dolphin who got the biggest surprise.
Even some Canadians blame Canada
Here is a great editorial by, Averill Baker, who describes herself as a "live and die" Newfoundlander. It's clear she is genuinely (and rightly) flabbergasted by her government's position on bottom trawling. It starts off:
Not one fisherman alive, or dead for that matter, agrees, or would have agreed, with the position taken by our politicians, and others, concerning bottom trawling on the high seas.
BBC Earth Report goes rock bottom ... literally
BBC's Earth Report has prepared a piece revealing that there are corals in the cold deep ocean. No surprise to us anti-bottom-trawling afficionados of course, but probably most people imagine a sandy, rocky, barren moonscape down there. Now however, scientists using hi-tech remote submarines have found corals at extreme depths in the world's cold oceans. But, as they say, "They have also found widespread damage to reefs from deep sea trawling." Check out the video here.
Sharks in hot water
As many as 73 million sharks are killed for their fins each year, according to new research. But the actual figure is probably much higher because among other exceptions the study doesn't include sharks killed for meat, taken as accidental by-catch, or sold on the black market.
The global trade in shark fins is largely driven by Chinese consumption where shark fin soup goes for up to $100 per bowl. This means bad news for sharks. According to the article in Science News...
A disturbing fact gleaned from the Hong Kong auctions, the researchers say, is that many of the fins being traded come from immature animals. Unlike most fish, sharks may take up to 20 years before they reproduce for the first time. Moreover, sharks bear few young at a timein many cases only two to fourand, typically, only every few years or so. Harvesting sharks before they've reproduced limits the chance that already depleted shark populations will recover.
All over for the fish by 2048
A new study published in the journal Science, finds that unless we reverse a long-term trend, our planets oceans will be largely fished out in my lifetime. Preserving marine biodiversity is the key, and the study calls for improved fisheries management and establishment of marine reserves.
The marine reserve concept should be familiar to all of our Ocean Defenders, since it is the overall goal of the Defending Our Oceans global expedition. We've got a long way to go though. Only a very tiny percentage of the world's oceans are currently protected.
But what we could get THIS MONTH is a moratorium on unregulated high seas bottom trawling. This would buy scientists and regulators enough time to protect vital deep-sea ecosystems.
Here's what Boris Worm, the study's lead scientist, had to say to the BBC about bottom trawling:
"But you also have to have good management of marine parks and good management of fisheries. Clearly, fishing should not wreck the ecosystem, bottom trawling being a good example of something which does wreck the ecosystem."... snip ...
"I'm just amazed, it's very irrational," he said.
"You have scientific consensus and nothing moves. It's a sad example; and what happened in Canada should be such a warning, because now it's collapsed it's not coming back."
Click here to tell the Canadian government to stop dragging its feet on bottom trawling.
Nobody is going to solve this problem unless we insist that they solve this problem.
**Note from Adele: Picture shows co-author of the report Dr Boris Worm dressing up as a tubeworm on Halloween to emphasise his support for a moratorium on bottom trawling**
Icelandic tourist troubles
Apparently, the tourists are starting to be turned off by Iceland's commercial whaling. As the London Times reports, this comes as no surprise to Iceland's whale watching operators:
Dozens have cancelled their holidays in the past fortnight but the real impact is expected to be felt next year.Tourist numbers in Iceland reached record 400,000 this year, 89,000 of whom went whale watching.
Clive Stacey, of Discover the World, one of the biggest operators of tours to Iceland, said that his company organised trips for 7,000 Britons this year, but that in the past fortnight bookings for next year had dropped 25 per cent. The company had expected that bookings would increase by 50-100 per cent.
You have to feel bad for the Icelandic whale watching operators. They opposed Iceland's resumption of whaling from the beginning on sensible economic grounds, and have been largely ignored by their government. Now, as they predicted, it seems the tourism industry is beginning to suffer.
You can help by signing the Icelandic Pledge. The sooner Iceland stops killing whales (both commercially and their so called "scientific" hunt), the sooner Iceland's tourism industry can recover.
Breathing Oceans
Every second breath you take comes from the oceans: Breathing Oceans »
The Simpsons' Carl "Karl" Carlsson is Icelandic?
In even more from the slightly-irrelevant-Iceland-whaling news desk, the Iceland Review has excitedly revealed the shocking news that Homer Simpson's supervisor in Sector 7G of the Springfield Nuclear Powerplant is actually Icelandic (despite the considerable anomalies, as wikipedia points out, of being raised in Cincinatti in one episode, as well as being proudly African American).
Apparently Carl's name is spelt the more Icelandic way "Karl" in the episode where Homer uses a terminator-style system to scan potential husbands for his wife's ill-fated chain-smoking sister Selma. (If my memory serves correctly, Carl is rejected as a potential husband for Selma due to the unfortunate fact that he is not Lenny, his co-worker. Why Lenny is also rejected remains a mystery).
I wonder what Carl would think of his nation's resumption of commercial whaling? He *does* work in a nuclear powerplant, and was a member of the secret powerful sect the Stonecutters, so it's unclear where he'd sit on this one. However Marge is impressed by him and he is also schizophrenic, so you just never know.
If any member of the Simpsons' writers would allow me to interview Mr Carlsson I would be very grateful to pick his brains on the matter.
Icelandic humour: You have to eat this yourselves, every last gram.
Over the weekend I was randomly and socially checking my email ...ok ok I was working... but then so was my Campaign Director, Mads, as was evidenced by a particularly amusing email in my inbox. Our Nordic Oceans Campaigner Frode Pleym has been immortalised in a cartoon in Icelandic daily paper Morgunbladid. (Sources tell me this is the second time this has happened but I have yet to track down the first cartoon, probably Frode has bought them all up and they're stashed under a pile of very boring campaign documents where no-one will ever be brave enough to look).
In the cartoon Mr Pleym is force-feeding fresh (and seemingly raw) whalemeat to the Icelandic Fisheries Minister and his whaling buddy Kristjan Loftsson (they look nonplussed at his choice of cuisine).
The headline says "Whaling for Kristjan" and "Greenpeace says there is no market for whale meat". Frode is apparently saying to the unfortunate dining party "You have to eat this yourselves, down to every last gram". Obviously we've made quite an impact in Icelandic media.
I texted Frode upon seeing the cartoon and told him he'd better get in touch because Billy Idol had called and wants his haircut back. No reply so far.
Piles of meat
When I was sitting through lectures about supply chain management I never thought they'd end up being useful like this. Still business is all around us as they say, so here goes. In a comment below David from Tokyo points to some Japanese figures about the size of their whale meat stockpile. I have a few comments about those but I'd like to start by pointing out that in the year from 1 August 05 to July 31 06, the stockpile grew by 445 tonnes.
Looking at the numbers from 1 September 05 to August 31 06 the growth is 469 tonnes. Or to put it another way, either David's translations are wrong or that stockpile is getting bigger on a year by year basis. If anyone wants to look the original Japanese (which I can't read) is here.
To address his point - that doesn't suggest Iceland will be able to sell them much.
However this movement is pretty minor in the scale of things. For more about the exciting world of supply chain management and all the numbers, read on.
Blame Canada! Blame Canada! ...For high seas bottom trawling!
Canadian Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn admitted last June that, "bottom trawling does damage to the [fish] stocks, and it does damage to habitat". And yet, the Canadian government is one of the few countries blocking a UN moratorium on high seas bottom trawling. (More info and how to help here.)
Minister Hern has even gone so far as to say people supporting the ban (including George W. Bush) are "extreme environmentalists". How weird is that? Bush an environmentalist?
Along with the rest of us, many Canadians are truly puzzled by this turn of events.
Icelandic Whaling : Show me the money
It's widely assumed by many people that Icelanders and other whaling nations want to go whaling in order to make money. I'm pretty sure that there are people in Iceland, Japan and Norway who think this too. So I set about working out whether there is profit in whaling - and how much that might be.
Here's what I've learned
Laws of the Sea
When you work in IT you pick up what's called 'domain knowledge' - which is to say information about whatever industry you happen to be providing IT for. It's why I can tell you about world rally cars, direct mail order businesses, selling servers, the UK hotel market and all kinds of other odds and ends. Since I joined Greenpeace my domain knowledge has expanded into even weirder areas.
Lately I've been expanding my domain knowledge illegal fishing, that's pirate fishing to you and me. Here's what I've learned so far...
Photographs: Whale Killing in Iceland
 |
| © goecco.com |
One of our Oceans campaigners, Sarah, has just pointed out this posting to Galley Gossip. A user called "goecco.com" has linked to their Flickr.com account, with some absolutely amazing but horrifically graphic photographs from the last few days, showing a whale being slaughtered .
Watch the slideshow »
Browse the photographs »
www.goecco.com
Iceland Makes First Kill: Endangered Fin Whale
A living fin whale. © Greenpeace / Aguilar
The slaughter has started - with the senseless killing of a 20m-long endangered Fin whale that its hunter, Kristjan Loftsson plans to land tomorrow - in order to show it off to the world. I don't know what to say, really. Iceland, which appears to have given in into Loftsson's one-man anti-whale lobby, really has thrown the toys out of the playpen on this one. The international communitty is pissed off, Iceland seems intent on making a mockery of its membership of the IWC, and apparently even the Environment Minister acknowledges that the lack of operating license for Kristjan Loftsson’s meat processing plant in Hvalfjoerdur is causing something of a problem. What do do with all the dead whale now that you've got it??
In addition to the other 38 whales that Iceland plans to kill, there's nearly another 1,000 that Japanese whaling ships are planning to bump off in the Southern Ocean - starting from next month.
So far, 84004 people have taken the pledge:
“I would seriously consider taking a vacation in Iceland rather than somewhere else if the Government of Iceland stopped whaling. I would be willing to receive an email about the options available for Icelandic tourism, an email that would be sent to me if the Government of Iceland ends its whaling program.” Take the Iceland whales pledge »
Read on for media coverage of the killing of the endangered fin whale...
Iceland Whaling: A quick roundup
01 January 1986: Dead whale at whaling station, Iceland.
© Greenpeace / Jeff Canin
A quick update - Iceland's plan to return to commercial whaling appears to have backfired a bit, with dozens of nations condemning the move. I've pasted together some media updates, plus details of what's been happening on our blogs.
First tho, the pledge. So far, 82956 people have made the pledge. Have you?
“I would seriously consider taking a vacation in Iceland rather than somewhere else if the Government of Iceland stopped whaling. I would be willing to receive an email about the options available for Icelandic tourism, an email that would be sent to me if the Government of Iceland ends its whaling program.” Take the Iceland whales pledge
There's reports in the Icelandic media suggesting that the return to commerical whaling is already causing problems:
"Already there are signs of whaling affecting tourism in Iceland negatively. Iceland’s government decided to resume commercial whaling last Tuesday. Heimir Hardarson, marketing director of whale watching company Nordursiglingar in Húsavík, northeast Iceland, says tourists have already started canceling trips to Iceland." Iceland Review: Whaling is affecting tourism »
Rebuilding coral reefs
© Greenpeace / Jack Noble
]It's nearly two years since the 2004 tsunami that caused such devastation in the Indian Ocean. After the terrible loss of human life, it's easy to forget the environmental damage, and how it can affect the lives of tsunami survivors who were once dependent on the reefs for food and income. In Phuket, Thailand, divers from around the world are working to restore the ruined coral reefs. And here's how they're doing it.
"The technique requires tiny fragments of coral to be grown in netted cages suspended in the sea, protected from grazing fish and strong currents. This improves the coral’s chances of survival. The first crop has been transplanted onto badly damaged reefs at Koh Phai, a small island near the resort of Krabi on the west coast. The divers will now apply the method to other reefs off the islands of Phuket and Phi Phi, where thousands of holidaymakers died. They have also created an artificial reef and may use specially designed concrete cylinders with many crevices to create beds for coral larvae to grow." The Times(UK): Coral transplants rebuild reefs wrecked in tsunami »
Phuket Marine Biological Centre
Rebuilding the reefs in Thailand »
The End of Cod
Spotted in the British newspaper The Times:
A complete ban on cod fishing is the only way to prevent the species from dying out in the North Sea, scientists said last night. The much-trumpeted European rescue plan for cod is failing, the official committee of European fisheries experts will tell governments on Friday. Stocks of cod — Britain’s favourite fish — are still so depleted in the seas around the UK that there should be a complete ban on catching the fish throughout next year. The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) will also give warning that fishing of other species of fish, including haddock and plaice, will have to be severely curtailed if cod is to be protected.The Times: The end of cod »
Why marine reserves matter
Around twenty years ago off the coast of Inish Mor a basking shark rose up out of the water and terrified an eight year old boy who had been taken fishing by his father. The vast shark with it's enormous mouth was almost the size of the fishing boat, and the boy cried and shuddered and asked to be taken home. Twenty years later the boy has grown up, has children of his own and a rather different problem.
Everybody be cool, this is an action!
Greenpeace International proudly presents
A will Flash for Cash Production
Written, produced and directed by Richard Hanson
Iceland permits hunt for endangered whales
I am so tired. Not because of the long day or the sort of late hour, but because the Icelandic fisheries ministry issued a permit to hunt 39 whales for commercial purposes. It is. Just. So. Frustrating. Why do they do this? You tell me, there is not even a market for it!
I was in Iceland a couple of years ago, where the old whaling ships, the Hvalur fleet, lies in the port of Reykjavik as rusty relics of old times. Across the jetty was a whale watching boat. It was just so obvious: whaling is something of the past! And still here we are… boy was I stupid.
Andrew posted the story here
And hey: sign the pledge will you please? We're never giving up, but for now I'll just go home and… mope.
Tuna: Yes, it really is a fish, no, it's not nice to dolphins, and it's in deep deep trouble
This is tuna:
This is also tuna:
© Greenpeace/Alex Hofford
The current webbie on the Esperanza, Richella, has been writing about tuna today. Funny this, as I'd been thinking about tuna myself the last few days (yes, I think about fish a little too much, but probably not as much as certain people I know in the UK office).
In this modern world of fast food and supermarkets, we live far from our sources of food - both geographically and philosophically. When we sit down and eat a steak, we don't think of the animal that it came from, because we never laid eyes on the poor dumb beast.
Likewise, if I'm with friends and the conversation turns to food, then fish, there's a "Hush! Don't mention fish in front of Dave, he's against us eating them". Well, it's not true - I love eating fish - that's why I'm so concerned about the state of the world's fisheries. I explain this to my companions, and detail what's relatively 'safe' to eat, and what's not.
Later in the evening, someone will sidle up to me; "Dave... it's ok to eat tuna isn't it. I mean, it's not like it's really fish, is it?"
Ocean Defenders: Rockin' in China
A random Ocean Defender moment... while the Esperanza (affectionately referred to from now on as just The Espy) is out battling pirates, Chinese band 'Catcher in the Rye' are Defending our Oceans armed with nothing but an electric guitar. The band performed at a huge concert in Beijing on 2nd October, proudly wearing Defending our Oceans tshirts. Rumour has it they're even writing a song about Greenpeace. You can check out more pics on the Catcher in the Rye blog. Feel free to leave them a message, although it's a tad tricky to figure out in Chinese.
"Global Fishing Fleet Consumes More Oil Annually Than Most Nations"
That's the headline from a SeaWeb article. No wonder the fishing industry is called, "the most energy-intensive food production method in the world today."
According to the study the world's fishing fleets burned 50 billion litres of fuel in just one year at a cost of, "620 litres per live weight tonne of fish and shellfish landed". The study didn't even include freshwater fisheries or illegal, unreported or unregulated fisheries (what we call pirate fishing). So in reality their figures are probably a massive under estimate.
Ironically, climate change is one of the bigger threats to ocean ecosystems.
73 million dead sharks (per year!)
The booming shark fin trade is killing up to 73 million sharks per year - three times more than the official catch numbers. That's according to a new study by Miami University researchers affiliated with the Pew Institute for Ocean Science. (Press release)
Fins are the most valuable parts of a shark and are used in shark fin soup, a delicacy served at Chinese weddings and business dinners in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Rim. Sharks are often still alive when their fins are sliced off, and their bodies are thrown back into the sea.
Mare Magazine: Where have all the tuna gone?
The folks over at German magzine Mare have been publishing stories in partnership with our campaign, Defending our Oceans. The magazines are out in print in Germany and elsewhere - but the English versions are available for download.
"The "Esperanza" sails to the Mediterranean to highlight the plight of the bluefin tuna, which are being overfished to the brink of population collapse. By Elaine Hill and Alexandra Merory".Download the .pdf file from Mare.de
Ocean Defenders: Mediterranean: Tuna »
Walking sharks and kung fu shrimp
Off the coast of Indonesia researchers have found sharks that walk on their fins and shrimp that look like praying mantis, along with a bunch of other new species.
Photos on National Geographic, which goes on to say:
Scientists have clocked the shrimps' arms moving at 23 miles (37 kilometers) a second as they snare small fish and other reef critters. The speed and force has broken aquarium glass.
"That's a lot of power, by the way," McManus said. "These guys are the terrorists of the coral reef ... They are really powerful, dangerous animals."Among the new fish species are several types of "flasher" wrasses, named for the brilliant pink, yellow, blue, and green colors males display to entice females to mate.
All the new species were discovered in less than six weeks, which McManus says is a remarkable feat. That many are sizable creatures like fish is even more impressive.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that all of these cool critters are threatened by dynamite and cyanide fishing by locals and the likely introduction of commercial fishing. What to do? Along with better fishing methods, Conservation International is calling for a network of marine reserves.
Stop those people from stealing our cod!
© Greenpeace/Christian Åslund.
I used to enjoy eating cod when it was still sustainable to do so, but that was quite some time ago now. The cod fishing quotas in the Baltic Sea are far higher than what is recommended by scientists. Then add the illegal catch - as much as every third cod is caught illegally! Despite the desperate situation the industry seems strangely unconcerned. One of the big players is Unilever, who have not yet explained how they will tackle illegal cod fishing. In fact, they don’t do much at all.
Send them a reminder that they should clean up their act.
Right now the Arctic Sunrise is out on the Baltic Sea as part of the Defending Our Oceans project, have a look at the blog.
Forest Fertiliser "Time Bomb"
The Sunday Times and Friends of the Irish Environment (FOIE) have revealed that the Irish government and the state forestry company, Coillte are sitting on a ticking time bomb. It's been discovered that phosphorous and nitrate silt leaked into an Irish river, causing an algae bloom that asphyxiated most of the pearl mussels downstream. Pearl mussels are a protected species under European law, and Ireland has the largest remaining population. This has caused a moratorium on logging in areas near the species, and public exposure of just how much artificial fertiliser is used in growing Sitka spruce trees in bogland.
International Coastal Cleanup Day
I know this is what you have all been looking forward too - cleaning up beach trash! And tomorrow is International Coastal Cleanup Day. Woo hoo!
I'll be honest though. I am far too lazy to go all the way to the beach to pick up garbage. Instead, I'm going to pick up some litter around where I live. A lot of this would get washed or blown into the canals and end up in the ocean anyway.
More about Coastal Cleanup Day.
Defending the deep with Fat Freddy's Drop
Fat Freddy's Drop keyboard player Dobie Blaze and trombone player Ho-Pepa check out an arm piece of a colossal squid - the largest squid in the world. © Phil Freeman 2006
New Zealand band Fat Freddy's Drop has got in behind the bottom trawling campaign this week by doing what they do best. The band has released a funky new video remix of one of their songs cut in with images and footage from the deep sea.
Dobie Blaze, Fat Freddy's Drop keyboard player and a keen recreational fisherman, is particularly concerned about the impact of bottom trawling on deep-sea life and the future of fishing. He and trombonist Ho-Pepa made a special trip to giant squid expert Steve O'Shea's lab to check out the evidence for themselves..
You can help them spread the word by bombing it on videobomb and rating it on youtube.
If you want to grab a copy and email it on you can download it here
But wait there's more!
The band is also auctioning 6 limited edition autographed Protect Deep Sea Life t-shirts online to help raise money for the campaign. You can bid online at this week if you live in New Zealand or Australia..
Crikey! Leave them rays alone
The BBC reports that Steve Irwin fans may be engaging in 'revenge attacks' against stingrays:
Dead stingrays with their tails cut off have been found in Australia, sparking concern that fans of naturalist Steve Irwin may be avenging his death.Mr Irwin, a TV personality known as the "Crocodile Hunter", was killed while diving in Queensland when a stingray's barb stabbed him in the chest. Since then, 10 stingrays have been found mutilated on Queensland beaches.
OK, it could all be unrelated to Irwin's death. But to be on the safe side let me say: Keep your hands off the stingrays. Really, you are an idiot if you think this is what Steve Irwin wanted. It is a shame he died - my condolences to his friends and family. Of all people, he knew the risks.
Rainbow Warrior Update on Marseille Blockade
Following an additional confrontation yesterday morning where tuna fishermen blockaded and boarded the Rainbow Warrior - as well as fire hosing its crew; our ship has been towed out of France's 12 mile territorial zone by the French authorities!
Ocean Defenders TV: Philippines oil disaster
"While the Esperanza visits the Philippines, it becomes witness to the worst oil spill to ever hit the country. The crew assist in clean up efforts and help assess the damage of this disaster for the marine environment and for the people who live there."
Ocean Defenders TV: Philippines oil disaster »
Esperanza flotilla protest over pollution from Lafayette's mine in Rapu Rapu
© Gavin Newman/Greenpeace
The Esperanza is now at the island of Rapu Rapu in the Philippines, leading a flotilla of 70 protesting boats against the Lafayette Mining company's
"There are 67 of them. Wooden outriggers in light blue, pink, green and yellow circle around the Esperanza, flags at their stern: "No to Lafayette! No to Marine Pollution!" Men and women are standing on the ships roofs, dancing, waving to us. We all watch from the poop deck, and no matter who you meet this morning of the Esperanza crew, everybody is smiling. We are leading a flotilla against the destructive Lafayette gold- and silvermine on the island of Rapu Rapu. And we all feel we are on the right side."
Defending our Oceans: Flotilla Power »
Watch Ocean Defenders TV: Undermining Paradise »
Stop Lafayette From Polluting Our Seas!
Lafayette Mining Operations No-Win Situation For Rapu Rapu »
Marseille: Rainbow Warrior Blocked-In by Fishing Boats
© Greenpeace
The Rainbow Warrior arrived in Marseille at aroud 8.15am, as part of it's Mediterranean Tuna campaign- it's anchored currently a mile outside the harbour entrance, and completely blocked in by 25 French fishing vessels! [More on this as we get news]
The harbour authorities had earlier tried to stop the RW from entering Marseille - but the Provence-Marseille District Authority and the the city mayor overturned the decision.
Ocean Defenders TV: Lebanon Oil Spill
Check this amazing - if shocking - underwater footage taken by scuba divers surveying the oil spill in the Lebanon.
"Apart from being a human tragedy, the recent conflict between Israel and Lebanon is also an environmental disaster. This video shows the impact on the marine environment of the massive oil spills resulting from the bombing of a powerplant close to Beirut."
Watch the movie »
More about the oil spill »
Mumrinskiy: Russian Pirate Ship Caught in Amsterdam
© Greenpeace/Karel Zwaneveld. Activists paint 'Stop Pirate Fishing' on the side of the 'pirate' Russian ship Mumrinskiy
This morning, our activists managed to halt the unloading of a Russian ship, the Mumrinskiy at Eemshaven in the Netherlands. On board the ship was a cargo of illegally caught cod, stolen from the Barents Sea, set to be imported into the Netherlands. We want the AID (Inspection team of the Ministry of Agriculture) to investigate the ship and its papers.
Norway Kills Less Whales Than Planned!
Norway - the only country in the world to openly conduct commercial whaling (Japan and Iceland hide behind the flimsy veil of 'scientific whaling'), is failing to reach it's Minke whale quota for this year. Excellent news!
This year was the highest ever quota: 1,052 whales were due for slaughter, up from 797 last year However, since the season started on April 1st, about 500 Minkes have been despatched. The whaling industry that the lack of catch is down to poor weather and rising fuel prices - but we know that it's down to a lack of market demand - people in Norway are losing the taste for whale meat.
Either way - it's reasonably good news for the whale population.
Norway Whalers Land Only Half of Quota »
The Guardian: Norway fails to fulfil whaling quota »
BBC: Norway's whale catch falls short »
Philippines spill witnessed first hand
© Greenpeace / Newman. Activists and fishermen attempting to use oil booms made from local materials to protect beaches from spilled bunker oil.
Of course, as soon as I posted my oil spills roundup, Andrew's posted a more detailed story about what's happening in the Philippines.
"It took Rodolfo Galuna only 15 days to build the small wooden boat he named "Rona". But now the 52-year-old fisherman has no use for it. Black, stinking oil sludge covers the boat’s hull, has crept into Galuna's back yard and quietly destroyed this fisherman's livelihood here on Guimaras Island. "I don't know what we will be living off in the future", said the father of six, "I must find something new". It is day ten of the biggest oil spill in the history of the Philippines."
Philippines spill witnessed first hand »
Oil Spills - The Philippines, India and Lebanon
© Greenpeace/Gavin Newman. Mangrove Roots and new shoots coated with Oil from the sunken Petron-chartered single hull vessel oil tanker in Nueva Valencia, Guimaras Island. Philippines.
The last few weeks has brought a lot of bad news about oil spills - there was the bombing by Israeli forces of oil tanks in Jiyeh, Lebanon.Meanwhile, 5.3 million litres of crude oil was spilled off the coast of India, when the Bright Artemis oil tanker collided with a smaller cargo ship it was trying to assist.
Worst of all, the Solar 1 sank in rough seas off the Philippines, spilling 200,000 litres (53,000 gallons) of bunker oil - with more escaping since - we estimate there's 100 to 200 litres of oil an hour pumping out into the ocean. Lying in deep water, recovery of the ship is unlikely, creating an ecological time bomb - it's got another 1.8 million litres (475,000 gallons) of bunker fuel on board.
Fisheries fraud on a massive scale
Apparently, the Japanese tuna industry has been cheating the system for years - catching well over their scientifically determined quota and pushing the southern bluefin dangerously low levels to dangerously. From the Sydney Morning Herald:
AUSTRALIA'S top fisheries manager has revealed Japan illegally took $2 billion worth of southern bluefin tuna, effectively killing the stock commercially.An investigation into the imperilled fishery found Japanese fishers and suppliers from other countries caught up to three times the Japanese quota each year for the past 20 years, and hid it.
(snip)
The Bureau of Rural Sciences said the most recent estimate by Australian scientists of southern bluefin's parental biomass - the quantity of adult tuna - was that it stood at as little as 4 per cent of its original size.
Sudoku, giant squid, seamounts and railway stations
Seadoku is a little experiment we're trying down here in New Zealand but it may take the world by storm.
Here's the thing. Later this year the United Nations will meet to discuss the fate of deep sea life in international waters. For over two years now Greenpeace, along with a chorus of other NGO's and scientists, has been calling for a moratorium on bottom trawling in international waters.
During those two years a bunch of nations, and I'm ashamed to say NZ is up there with the worst, have been systematially wiping out delicate deep sea habitats in a remorseless search for the increasingly scarce orange roughy. The world needs to know ... and that's where sudoku puzzles come in.
Mutant Three-Clawed Crab
A "mutant" crab with three pincers has been picked up in 100m of water near the Scilly Isles, off the Cornish coast, by a fisherman, and is currently installed in an aquarium in Newquay.
More on the mutant three-clawed crab »
BBC: Three-clawed 'mutant' crab caught »
Ocean threats Power Point
Charlot, our Oceans campaign assistant, passed on this Power Point style presentation (in PDF format) by Jeremy Jackson. When it comes to credentials Dr. Jackson is no lightweight, and he does a great job of making things understandable. Lots of easy to interpret graphics.
Take a few minutes to flick through, and you'll have a good overview of the enormity of the crisis we're facing - or just skip ahead to slides 5 and 6, which speak volumes on their own.
A video version is available on the Harvard University website.
(And yes, I think Dr. Jackson has been giving this presentation for some years now, but I hadn't seen it before.)
Geezer! Climate Change Swimmer Stops off at Downing St
Lewis Pugh - the hardcore swimmer who has completed long distance swims in the Arctic and Antarctic, as well as all the major oceans, pitched up on the doorstep of the UK's Prime Minister, Tony Blair, today.
Lewis, who is currently swimming the 320km length of the river Thames as part of a WWF climate change campaign, had a five minute chat with Blair, before presumably jumping back into the water. Rather disappointingly, he seems to have turned up for the meeting in a t-shirt, rather than dripping wet!
Slime, plastic, acidic water and red tides
Following up on Dave's post about the multimedia piece in the LA Times. It actually covers a whole range of threats to the oceans.
We're still dumping a whole range of pollutants into the oceans - fertilizer run off, byproducts of fossil fuel combustion, etc. At the same time, we're throwing ecosystems out of whack with massive overfishing, destruction of coastal wetlands and global warming. Harm from one cause can keep an ocean ecosystem from bouncing back against another.
[Carbon dioxide] The greenhouse gas, best known for accumulating in the atmosphere and heating the planet, is entering the ocean at a rate of nearly 1 million tons per hour - 10 times the natural rate.Scientists report that the seas are more acidic today than they have been in at least 650,000 years. At the current rate of increase, ocean acidity is expected, by the end of this century, to be 2 1/2 times what it was before the Industrial Revolution began 200 years ago. Such a change would devastate many species of fish and other animals that have thrived in chemically stable seawater for millions of years.
Less likely to be harmed are algae, bacteria and other primitive forms of life that are already proliferating at the expense of fish, marine mammals and corals.
[Photo: Marine life threatend by a mine on nearby Rapu Rapu island, Philippines. © Greenpeace/ Daniel Ocampo 2006]
Marine Debris: The Trash Vortex
Update 9/11/2006:
Disposable Oceans?
The Trash Vortex weblog
Garbage at sea
Plastic Pacific
This horrific article comes from the front page of today's Los Angeles Times:
"On Midway Atoll, 40% of albatross chicks die, their bellies full of trash. Swirling masses of drifting debris pollute remote beaches and snare wildlife.The albatross chick jumped to its feet, eyes alert and focused. At 5 months, it stood 18 inches tall and was fully feathered except for the fuzz that fringed its head.
All attitude, the chick straightened up and clacked its beak at a visitor, then rocked back and dangled webbed feet in the air to cool them in the afternoon breeze.
The next afternoon, the chick ignored passersby. The bird was flopped on its belly, its legs splayed awkwardly. Its wings drooped in the hot sun. A few hours later, the chick was dead.
John Klavitter, a wildlife biologist, turned the bird over and cut it open with a knife. Probing its innards with a gloved hand, he pulled out a yellowish sac — its stomach.
Out tumbled a collection of red, blue and orange bottle caps, a black spray nozzle, part of a green comb, a white golf tee and a clump of tiny dark squid beaks ensnared in a tangle of fishing line."
Save the bacteria!
From Independent Online (IOL):
The oceans are teeming with 10 to 100 more types of bacteria than previously believed, many of them unknown, according to a study released on Monday that has jolted scientists' understanding of evolution in the seas.Using a new genetic mapping technique, United States, Dutch and Spanish scientists said they found more than 20 000 different types of microbe in a single litre of water from deep sites in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
There is a tendency to think of the ocean as mostly empty of life except for a few fish and such, but really it is a complex soup full of interlinked ecosystems. We don't know yet how it all fits together, but we do know it's important.
The trawl's in your court New Zealand
Over the past weekend, Greenpeace activists in New Zealand locked down a high seas bottom trawler stopping it leaving the New Zealand port of Nelson. [Watch the TV footage here] Two activists climbed the mast and made themselves inaccessible and another attached herself to the mooring lines while another team of activists locked metal braces and a large sculpture of a deep-sea coral to the vessel's stern with a banner reading "The Trawl's in your Court NZ" - A clear challenge to the New Zealand Government.
Massive oil spill in Lebanon
This caught my eye on the Mother Jones Blog this morning:
It looks like an eco-nightmare is taking place on the beaches of Lebanon. Reports coming in say beaches are being clogged with oil because five out of six oil tanks at the electricity plant in Jiyeh were destroyed by Israeli bombs.
It sounds like a combined health, economic and environmental disaster. I checked up on it via Google news and found a story by the Lebanon Daily Star:
Activist harassed for taking water samples
Today a Greenpeace Philippines employee named David Andrade, his boat driver and his guide were illegally detained and searched by police while taking water samples downstream from a the Lafayette mining operation on Rapu Rapu island.
The Lafayette mine has only recently been allowed to resume operations after a spill. It's on a 30-day probationary period, and Andrade was investigating local reports of a recent fish kill.
Life, fishing and hypothermia on the Bering Sea
While the Defending Our Oceans and Defending the Mediterranean expeditions continue in warmer waters, Greenpeace USA is about half way through their own research expedition in the Bearing Sea (off the coast of Alaska). They are looking at how the intensive industrial fishing there is impacting the ecosystem and local fishermen alike.
In one hair raising post they talk about how the locals are being forced to go further and further out to fish - with dangerous results...
"We've been here for a few days now, getting to know the people and the place and sounding out what people think of an ecosystem management based fishery. So far it's clear that it's what people want. I met an old guy the other day who started the conversation by saying "I hope you guys make those draggers go 100 miles offshore." The locals are being forced to go farther and further to get fish while the big factory draggers pillage their traditional waters."
No more tuna fish
Great article in the New York Times this week about the alarming decline in Mediterranean blue fin tuna populations. The Esperanza was there a few weeks ago. It's crew found a lot of fishing boats, but not a lot of fish. Recent reports released by Greenpeace and WWF recently both highlighted how bad things were in the Med. From the NY Times article:
"Many edible fish stocks in the Mediterranean and its extension, the Adriatic, have sharply declined in the past decade because of pollution and intensive fishing, including crayfish and John Dory, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. In Croatia, much of the fish eaten at seaside resorts is imported from as far away as the United States."
Pirates of the Caribbean: Real pirates are scary
I'm pretty excited about the new Pirates of the Caribbean. It doesn't open here in Amsterdam for a few more days, but it's already got me thinking about the different types of pirates.
See, you've got your swashbuckling, maiden rescuing loveable rapscallion pirates - and then you've got real life. In real life, pirates are stealing fish as if it were gold from the sea. Officially it's what is known as Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing, and it definitely doesn’t involve Johnny Depp.
This plunder of the fish stocks is serious business. It makes regulating and protecting fish stocks impossible, and takes fish away from legitimate fishermen. If only they at least sang hearty pirate songs, or at least owned a parrot... But sadly no.
There's more about pirate fishing on the Defending Our Oceans site.
And you can read about an encounter with real life "pirates of the Mediterranean" on the Rainbow Warrior crew weblog.
Whale watchers watch whale harpooning
"This really isn't what we came to see" was the reaction of Leontien Dieleman, a Dutch tourist who witnessed a whale killing on a Norwegian whale watch cruise.
The Captain of the whaling ship told reporters he "did not expect the hunters to go after their quarry so close to his vessel".
I suppose this might be the whaling industry's idea of "dual use" resource management. First you get money from folks who want to watch them, then you make money killing them. And you can share all that work spotting the pods and tracking their movements.
Whale reprieve from military sonar
A US judge has temporarily put a stop to US Navy plans to use high powered military sonar during planned multinational war games near Hawaii. From the Honolulu Advertiser:
A California federal judge yesterday blocked the use of high-power, midfrequency sonar during Rimpac 2006 exercises off Hawai'i, saying the court had received "convincing scientific evidence" th