Greenpeace Opening Statement to the first meeting of the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation
Feb 14-17 2006
Greenpeace welcomes the opportunity to address this very important meeting and looks forward to a constructive and positive negotiating session. It is 15 months since UN General Assembly resolution 59/25 called upon States and RFMOs to take action urgently and consider the interim prohibition of bottom trawling on the high seas because of its destructive impacts on the marine environment.
Since that time, a spotlight has been placed on RFMOs and their ongoing failure to protect marine life. Greenpeace believes that for RFMOs to be effective actors they need to be fundamentally changed so that they become ecosystem management organisations, shifting their focus from single-species management to ecosystem management based on the precautionary principle. Greenpeace fully expects that in sitting down to negotiate this new regional organisation, states turn away from discredited single-species management models and commit to the development of a Regional Ecosystem Management Organisation that is based on precaution and takes account of the ecosystem as a whole in its decision-making processes.
It is already a positive sign to see these principles incorporated in the Proposed Elements Document
But if these principles are to be adhered to from the start of these negotiations, then implementing the call from the 2004 GA Resolution is critical. States in this session must act to put in place strong interim measures. Selective area closures are not an effective interim measures. While the evidence of ongoing destruction is clear, Greenpeace does not believe adequate information is available to decide which areas should be protected without sacrificing other vulnerable areas. We must be perfectly clear: a network of marine protected areas is a mechanism for allowing the destruction of other areas of marine biodiversity. It is in no sense an adequate response to the calls from the UNGA and CBD.
An immediate interim prohibition on bottom trawling in the area to be covered by this RFMO while negotiations are under way will effectively protect vulnerable ecosystems and adequately respond to the UNGA resolutions.
In the past, in leading the world to ban driftnets, the Pacific has led the way in bringing real and lasting conservation for marine life. It is time for this to happen again: for this meeting to adopt a decision for an interim suspension of high seas bottom trawling in the area under negotiation so that by the time the full RFMO has been developed, there is a wealth of marine biodiversity in the area left to protect.
