Using Napalm to Hunt Rabbits

Posted by Adele at 09:45 AM, October 28, 2004

Activists get hauled in with the bottom trawl catch

(C) Greenpeace

[RANT ENCLOSED!]

For the last few days, we've been reporting on the physical actions that the crew of the Esperanza have been carrying out against bottom trawlers on the highs seas. Now the weather is deteriorating, and it's too rough to be out in our inflatables. It's time to examine what's been happening on land...

On Tuesday, Sebastian, in the Greenpeace Spain office, had a 25-minute interview on Cope – a Galician radio station. The other guest was the shipowner of the Playa de Menduiña., from a company called Moradiña SA, from Pontevedra in Galicia.

Sebastian explained the our campaign, Greenpeace's demands, and why it was necessary to stop bottom trawling. The shipowner, for his part, said that he did not understand why we were 'attacking the Galician fleet', and their right to fish, and why were 'playing with the food of fishermen'. This last point is an interesting one, in may ways. The commercial fishing community is diverse and varied – from small artisan operations, to huge industrial factory ships. There's plenty of small scale fishermen who do little impact, but there's also big business, for whom profit is king, and whose main focus is collecting as much fish as possible, as quickly as possible. It's sad that they don't realise the damage they're doing to the future of our oceans, and the future of fishing.

Out here on the high seas, bottom trawling is not a romantic practice, carried out by artisan fishermen. It's a romantic notion that has no bearing on reality. It's like when whaling was accepted practice – with some help from books like Moby Dick, there was a prevalent notion that all whales were ferocious creatures, bent on the destruction of puny, heroic whalers, out battling the elements and the highs seas. In reality, modern whaling ships are huge floating abattoirs, engaged in systematically wiping out every whale in sight.

Likewise with bottom trawlers – these boats tend to be owned by fishing companies, interested only in turning a fast profit. This is industry - pillaging of the deep sea ecosystem, a bit like using napalm to hunt rabbits.

Which brings us back to Sebastian's radio interview. The shipowner made some pretty outlandish statements about the effects of bottom trawling. He said that 'trawling was necessary' for the environment – and that bottom trawling has caused an increase in fish in the Hatton Bank area, and that in places where bottom trawling had been abandoned, there had been a decrease in fish stocks.

It seems that the shipowner can't tell his chickens from his eggs – surely bottom trawling had been abandoned due to a decrease in fish stocks, and not the other way round? And as for bottom trawling increasing the amount of fish... it's hard to see the mathematics there. A trawler removes several tonnes of fish from the ocean - and suddenly there's more fish in the sea? Maybe deep sea creatures are flirting with each other, 'hey baby, we're being fished to oblivion, let's reproduce like crazy!'

Anyway – our actions on the high seas have made the media big time in Spain, with lots of TV, Radio and newspaper coverage. The Spanish Institute of Oceanography – predictably supporting the fishing industry, have said that the high seas fisheries are well managed, that bottom trawling is perfectly legal, and that Greenpeace's claims are unscientific.

Well they're right that bottom trawling is legal – the problem is that it is still legal – and that's why we're calling for a UN moratorium – a temporary ban – to allow time to further assess the damage being done. As for our claims being 'unscientific' – it's worth visiting the website of the Marine Conservation Biology Institute, where more than 1100 scientists have signed a petition calling for a moratorium on bottom trawling. There's more good science supporting this moratorium than there was on the banning of drift netting. And the use of drift nets is now banned.

- Dave