February 17, 2006
Roses, blobfish, the RFMO and the Official Information Act
Weve been here in Wellington for 10 days now and a lot has happened. We may not have gotten the outcome we wanted but weve definitely made some ground in terms of getting support for a moratorium on bottom trawling in international waters.
Greenpeaces objective at the RFMO meeting was to push for immediate and comprehensive protective measures for the deep sea to halt the destruction in international waters while longer term discussions continue. As yet it is not to be.
Weve employed a variety of methods to get our message through including papier mache ghost sharks, roses and poems, scientists, voices from the deep, simile, and good old fashioned lobbying.
Outside the meeting our objective has been to make the unseen seen and to provide some way for people to have their say in an international fisheries policy meeting.
Voices from the deep
In the weeks preceding the meeting we provided a conduit into the meeting by asking people to write 'messages for the deep' to the meeting delegates. Then, in the three days leading up to the meeting, we set up a display in Civic Square near Te Papa and invited Wellingtonians to write messages to the delegates on deep-sea creatures.
Our deep-sea life display in Wellington proved a big hit. With the giant gorgonian coral, bamboo coral and black coral along with the ghost shark and blob fish really helped us explain the issue to a lot of people.
The terrible toll of bottom trawling
On day two we released 185 shocking new images of bottom trawling bycatch. We extracted the images from the NZ Government and they show bycatch photographed by Government fishery observers aboard bottom trawlers in the two years since Greenpeace began campaigning for a moratorium on bottom trawling in the high seas. They are just some of the images taken by a small number of observers aboard just some of the vessels.
Roses are red, the high seas are blue, implement strong interim
Since the meeting began on Valentines Day we took the opportunity to make a positive gesture and give each delegate a rose and a poem:
Roses are red
The High Seas are blue
Implement Strong interim Measures
And the world will love you
A side of red herring
On day two there was an announcement by the NZ Government of a fishing industry proposal to protect 31% of NZ waters from bottom trawling. On the face of it this proposal sounds great, and its not all bad, but unfortunately the devil is in the detail. The proposal does show that both the fishing industry and NZ Government now acknowledge the need to protect deep-sea life from bottom trawling and that is a good thing but closer examination reveals some inadequacies and its important to remember that the real problem is in international waters where there are essentially no regulations.
A science event
For day three Greenpeace organised a side event at the RFMO meeting and arranged to have Dr Alex Rogers speak to the delegates about deep-sea life and the impact of bottom trawling. Dr Rogers made a strong case for action, clearly saying that deep-sea ecology is vulnerable and delicate and that the damage done by bottom trawling is absolute and recovery is slow if not impossible. We also took this opportunity to deliver around 2000 of your voices from the deep messages to the delegates.
Submit a simile - making the unseen seen
In much the same way as international fisheries meetings are hidden from view, the impact that bottom trawling has on delicate deep-sea communities is also hidden from view. Weve used simile to adequately describe the magnitude and the wholesale nature of the harm dealt to our hidden worlds by bottom trawling. The best we've come up with is: Bottom trawling is like dragging a massive net across entire fields, cities and forests in the hope of catching a few cows.
To flesh this out more we've been asking people to think up new ones and submit them to our weblog - and we've had some doozies! My personal favourite is this one by Richard - "Bottom trawling is like burning the haystack to find the needle" but theres been many other excellent contributions ranging from the poignant - Bottom trawling is like a slow death...painful but you know that soon there will be only memories of what was - to hilarious - Does my bycatch look big in this? You can read the rest here.
So the result wasn't all good but we're not giving up. keep an eye on developments in New York and you can continue to be involved in this campaign and other ocean related campaigns by becoming a Greenpeace Ocean Defender.
Comments on this entry:
Goodmorning, I speek and write english very bad but I want give you my congratulation because yours activitis are very important and I love you for what you doing.
Excuse me for the bad english:-)
Posted by: Vanessa at February 28, 2006 10:47 PM
