Greenpeace vessel targets Taiwanese, US and Korean tuna fishers
Updated
Greenpeace's vessel Esperanza is due to arrive in Honiara, after two weeks campaigning in international waters to the north of Solomon Islands. During the voyage the Esperanza took action against Taiwanese, United States and Korean tuna vessels, daubing them with slogans and ordering them out of the area. It's all a part of Greenpeace's campaign for a 50% cut in tuna fishing and the creation of a Pacific high seas marine reserve where tuna fishing would be banned.
Presenter:Jemima Garrett
Speaker: Lagi Toribau, Greenpeace's Pacific Ocean's Campaigner
TORIBAU: On Sunday, Greenpeace activists boarded the Taiwanese long line, the Niang Sheng No 3, to inspect the contents of its hold . As well as tuna, the activists discovered a dozen sets of hundreds of frozen shark fins and tails on board and our activists held the banner reading "Marine Reserves Now In Front of the Long Line" before the greenpeace the Esperanza escorted the vessel out of international waters.
GARRETT: You also met up with a United States vessel. What happened with that?
TORIBAU: The United States perseine vessel, the Olympus, Greenpeace came apart a couple of days ago that was fishing inside the international waters of the Pacific. Greenpeace, the Esperanza is in the Pacific to defend the pockets of international waters between the Pacific Island countries as marine reserves from capricious fishing fleets, but are intending of fishing out the world's last tuna stocks basically from distant water fishing vessels that are here plundering our ocean from countries like Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the United States and the European Union.
GARRETT: The United States vessel is a perseiner and your particularly critical of perseining as a fishing method. Why is that?
TORIBAU: Perseining in Greenpeace's opinion is an unsustainable fishing method that basically has a high level of by-catch. I mean it's contributing significantly to the level of overfishing that is occurring here in the region. Over the last seven years, scientists in the Pacific have been putting out warnings and have been critically concerned about the level of overfishing that has been occurring on the Big Eye and Yellowfin Tuna stocks in the region. The specific fishing method of perseining specifically targets alborcore and Skipjack, the other two tuna species. But it takes up a huge amount of juvenile or Baby Big Eye and Yellowfin and this is contributing significantly to the level of overfishing on the Big Eye and Yellowfin stocks.
GARRETT: Greenpeace is calling for marine reserve in international waters between the Pacific Island countries, as you mentioned. Why is that so important?
TORIBAU: Key global tuna stocks in every oceans are in trouble basically and the Pacific contains the last remaining tuna resources. The failure of the Pacific to put in place sustainable management measures since the scientific warning has been put out since 2001. To date, nothing has been done on this tuna stock and we believe that the international waters is still a highly unregulated area that feeds from distant waters, fishing countries like Japan, Korea and Taiwan are still using the international waters as a loophole and are still plundering resources out of the Pacific.
Greenpeace believes that by closing off the international waters, we will be able to take the first step towards moving into true sustainability for the key tuna stocks in the region.
GARRETT: The Esperanza arrives in Honiara this morning. What are your plans during the visit?
TORIBAU: Greenpeace hopes to secure the support of the Solomon Islands Government to the closure of international waters that we have been defending as marine reserves.
GARRETT: Will you be inviting people to tour the vessel in Honiara Harbour?
TORIBAU: Indeed we will. We will be holding a public open day on Saturday where we will be inviting the Solomon Islands public to come and learn about Greenpeace's campaign and to talk about the unsustainable nature of tuna fisheries in the region and we hope to also engage in similar dialogue which they called is that in Solomon Islands from industry and government as well.
