Four courageous, inspirational women from around the world are in New York right now to urge President Obama and heads of state from over 100 countries to take action against climate change. These women have either lost their homes, jobs or food supply to flooding, droughts and other disasters. But they are taking action to rebuild their lives and they are now speaking out for their communities - their family. They are from Mississippi, Uganda, Papua New Guinea and the Cook Islands in the Pacific. In facing incredibly desperate situations - all of them have developed a strong voice for action climate change.

 

 

Mary Ann Mayo was the webbie onboard the Greenpeace ship Esperanza during the first leg of the Defending Our Pacific 2009 tour.

The last refuge of the last relatively healthy stocks of tuna is found right here in the Pacific. Scientists have been warning for years that the fishing pressure on Pacific tuna must be reduced, yet the Taiwanese-owned, American-flagged super-seiner the American Legacy left the shipyard in Taiwan only last year. Amidst warnings of overfishing and calls for restraint, this brand new super-seiner joined the already vast number of fishing vessels out at sea that are chasing fewer and fewer fish.


© Greenpeace/Paul Hilton

The number 8 in the Chinese culture is considered a lucky number, as the word for eight sounds similar to the word for "prosper" or "wealth." I am pretty sure the Chen family, which owns a network of Taiwanese companies, had this in mind when they included the triple 8 in the name of their fuel tanker, the MV Fong Seong 888. Good fortune and prosperity. However, the ship's high seas activities mean bad fortune and poverty for Pacific nations.

The MV Fong Seong 888 was refueling the purse seiner American Legacy in the high seas, near the waters of Kiribati, when we found them.


© Greenpeace/Paul Hilton

The ownership of both vessels links back to the Chen family. Even though these two ships share an owner, they fly under two different flags: the Fong Seong 888 is flagged to Panama while the American Legacy is a US-flagged purse seiner.

Strange to hear, you might say, that these Taiwanese-owned ships are using another country’s flag? The practice of using or flying the flag of another country other than the country of ownership is what is known as ‘flags of convenience’ (FOC). This is done for many different reasons, including cheap registration fees, low or almost no taxes, and the freedom to employ cheap labor. But to the fishing industry, flying flags of convenience also makes it possible to artificially increase the fishing quota from what is assigned to individual nations. And what does this mean? They can fish more than they would be allowed to if they flew the flag of their real country.

Under an agreement called the US Treaty, the United States is entitled to fish in the waters of 16 Pacific nations with up to 40 purse seine vessels. In recent years, the country has had fewer boats than that, but new vessels are being added, flying the US flag even though they're linked to a major shipbuilding and fishing conglomerate in Taiwan. Fresh from the biggest shipyard in Taiwan and flying the flag of the country with the greatest access to Pacific tuna resources comes the American Legacy. What hope do the tuna have with an alliance like that pitched against them?

Now let’s turn to the Fong Seong 888, one of many tankers operating in the Pacific. These tankers, along with the refrigerated “reefer” vessels that transfer fish, enable fishing fleets to stay at sea for extended periods. Without having to come into port to refuel, take on supplies, and land the fish they have caught, it is much more difficult for authorities to monitor tuna catches in the region. These supply vessels open a gateway for illegally caught fish to leave the region untraced – they are literally fueling and fostering the continued plundering of tuna from the Pacific.

To show our protest for this shameful practice, our Greenpeace activists painted "Fueling Plunder" and "Tuna Plunder" on the hull of the MV Fong Seong 888. It was one of the fastest ship painting actions I have ever seen! And with good cause: having already finished their refueling, we barely had time to paint the campaign message when the purse seiner, MV American Legacy, broke away from the starboard side of Fong Seong 888, and headed away at speed.


© Greenpeace/Paul Hilton

Maybe they were afraid we would "dirty" the fresh new paint on their hull. They should be worried that they're onboard a brand new industrial fishing vessel, which has added to the bloated fishing capacity in the region even though scientists are warning of overfishing and countries are agreeing to show restraint.

As I look back at the 3 weeks we have been here in the international waters of the Western Pacific, we have come across FADs, documented an illegal transshipment at sea, confiscated longlines and escorted several vessels out of the high seas (read all about it here). This latest deplorable activity - a brand new fishing vessel being refueled at sea - was perfectly legal, yet illustrates the problem of countries building yet more ships when there are already too many. It also raises the issue of flag state responsibility, and the curse of refueling and transshipment at sea. It is amazing just how many loopholes these companies find through which to carry out their operations. If only the fishing nets were this full of loopholes – I doubt that a single tuna would be caught!

With all the resources at their disposal and the capacity to circumvent, exploit and abuse bans and treaties, what will it take to stop these distant fishing nations from robbing the Pacific nations of their own resource?

While our activists painted the hull of the Fong Seong 888, I was watching all the activity from the bridge. As the purse seiner American Legacy broke away, the horizon where she was headed was dark with rain clouds, while amazingly at the stern of the Esperanza, the sun was shining at its brightest! In my mind’s eye I could see the two roads that the Pacific fisheries are facing at the moment: one heading towards a dark future of the continued plunder of the Pacific until this ocean is fished to death, while the other holds a bright future of a healthy and sustainable tuna fisheries.

Which road will the world take?

And America, which would you like to see as your “Legacy” for the Pacific?

-Mary Ann

Greenpeace activists have already made the point by occupying a Shell tar sands mine in Alberta that "climate leaders don't buy tar sands."

Because Canada is America's largest supplier of oil, the elephant in the Oval Office, when Harper and Obama met at the White House in Washington on September 16th, was Alberta's tar sands.

The tar sands are the reason that Canada has become the largest single national supplier of oil to the United States – exceeding Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Nigeria.  The tar sands are Canada's fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions... production of synthetic crude oil from tar sands results in three to five times more greenhouse gas than conventional crude.

In parliament on September 15th, Stephen Harper said that he is committed to "clean development" of the tar sands, but the reality is that there is no such thing – the tar sands produce the world’s dirtiest oil.

The official statement from Harper/Obama meeting contained no mention of tar sands; no mention of caps on greenhouse gas emission reductions for the medium-term (2020); and no indication of any progress on national or international emissions trading programs. Yet they had the temerity to say “they reiterated the urgency of taking aggressive action to combat climate change”.

The only justification for any mention of climate and energy was the release of a document entitled: “US-Canada Clean Energy Dialogue Action Plan” [PDF].

This document claims that "The United States and Canada have announced ambitious emissions reduction goals for 2050..." That’s simply not true. The Canadian target for 2050 is only 50 to 60 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050. Scientists have called for a minimum reduction 80 per cent by industrial countries, and as close to zero as possible.

The Harper government's target for 2020 is only 3 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020. The KYOTOplus Campaign, supported by Greenpeace and more than 80 other Canadian organizations, calls for a minimum reduction of 25 per cent.

The main thrust of the so-called “Action Plan” is the promotion of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). The oil and gas industry touts CCS as the silver bullet solution to the massive greenhouse gas emissions from the tar sands and from coal-fired electricity. There are only four test sites in the entire world that are actually sequestering carbon dioxide underground. Aside from numerous technical and environmental problems, we can be sure of only one thing — CCS is prohibitively expensive and can only be realized with massive government subsidies... therefore the Clean Energy Dialog!

By pushing Carbon Capture and Storage, the Clean Energy Dialogue is only putting a fig leaf over the huge environmental impacts of the tar sands. It will ultimately be too expensive and come too late to make a serious impact on the climate crisis. Worse, the huge expenditures on the CCS will prevent investment in the truly effective solutions for global warming – renewable energy and energy efficiency. The Alberta government has already committed about $2 billion in provincial taxpayer subsidies to CCS, and the Harper government has committed about $1 billion... of OUR money.

The bottom line is that the Harper government has refused to take the climate crisis seriously. The fate of the earth is going to be decided at the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen in December 2009. It’s time to get serious.

Dave Martin is the Climate and Energy Coordinator for Greenpeace Canada

 

Mary Ann Mayo is the webbie onboard the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, which is currently in the South Pacific for the Defending Our Pacific 2009 tour.

Just two days ago, the Japanese purse seiner, Fukuichi Maru, was pulling in its purse seine net, heavy with freshly caught tuna, when we found them fishing in area 2 of the Pacific high seas. Floating in the water and attached to the ship's left side (or port side as we refer to it in nautical terms), was a FAD made of a very long log with a radio beacon on it. It was the first time that we caught a fishing vessel in the act of purse seining from a FAD.


You can see the FAD on the left of this pic. © Greenpeace/Paul Hilton

Seeing this made me shake my head in disbelief. There is a two-month ban on FADs declared by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Conference (WCPFC) currently in place. But a major loophole in the ban is being exploited by Japan to continue their high seas plunder of the Pacific. (*See note below.)

The Fukuichi Maru finished its hauling operations and headed away. Two of our inflatables caught up with the plundering purse seiner. Upon reaching the ship, we delivered a letter and information about our campaign on tuna in Japanese. Two of our Pacific Activists, Anna Jitoko and Josefa Nasegui, showed their indignation by unfurling banners reading "No return from overfishing" and "Marine Reserves Now."

© Greenpeace/Gabriel Vianna

Witnessing this Japanese purse seiner using a FAD to catch tuna makes me feel sad, given how many of our global stocks of tuna are already in a state of collapse. The northern bluefin tuna population is severely overfished and has possibly already collapsed, and some Pacific tuna are in danger of heading the same way. The FAD ban was put in place to protect the tuna from being fished out during their August-September spawning season. But in the last two weeks, we have seen no less than ten FADs scattered in the Pacific high seas.

It seems that despite the laws that are in place, Japan is still using loopholes to get around this restriction. There are no boundaries too great, no territories too taboo, and no laws too strict, to prevent them from their high seas plunder in the Pacific.



The sea may appear to be as vast as we see them, but they have lost much of the rich marine life that helps sustain life on Earth. Like every resource that we use, tuna is also finite. If we do not manage this resource properly, and respect the laws in place to prevent its abuse and safeguard its very survival, our seas will just be a great big tub of salt water, empty of life.

Tuna is a resource that is NOT for one country to plunder. Why should one country continue to fish using fish aggregating devices — plundering not just tuna but juvenile fish and sharks, turtles and other marine life — while every other country is bound by a ban on this wasteful form of fishing? What hope can we expect for the tuna to survive? And what chance can the Pacific nations have for their own survival when these distant fishing nations outfish them of their own resource?

It reminds me of low-budget travelers who snap up budget travel packages advertised on the newspapers back home: FLY NOW! Pay Later! Satisfy instant gratification and worry about the cost later. Here we have it: FISH NOW! pay later! But for low-budget travelers that get carried away, it's their own credit cards that suffer. And when we are talking about fishing a shared regional resource, any one country's excess has impacts for all.

Japan is the world's largest consumer of tuna and if Japan and other countries continue to relentlessly fish tuna to the point of collapse and continually make a mockery of such laws, not only will sushi trains grind to a halt, but it will be the end of the line for Pacific nations: the loss of a vital resource and the end of a way of life.

- Mary Ann


* Paragraph 15 of the WCPFC’s Conservation Management Measure which sets the conditions of the ban provides such exemptions as follows: “As an alternative to the high seas FAD closure…members may adopt measures to reduce their catch by weight of bigeye tuna in the purse seine fishery in the area between 20°N and 20°S by a minimum of 10 percent relative to 2001-2004 average levels…. This alternative shall only be available to members identified by the Commission in advance as having demonstrated a functioning capacity to implement such measures in an effective and transparent manner including through: an established and functioning port monitoring program that allows monitoring of bigeye landings for each trip by each vessel; a commitment to carry on board observers from the Regional Observer Program….”

 

Mary Ann Mayo is currently the webbie onboard the Greenpeace ship Esperanza. You can read the posts we've already put up (here and here) featuring the amazing work the crew on board the Esperanza is doing as part of the Defending Our Pacific 2009 tour.

I just wanted to share this video with you, as well as a backgrounder on fish aggregating devices (FADs), which you can find below the video.

A Growing FAD

A few days back, we hauled on-board a Fish Aggregating Device (FAD), a device used by purse seiners to attract tuna. A lot of marine life was spared from certain fishy death that day.

We were pleased to see that our FAD expose generated positive comments (after all, we are in the middle of the two-month period when FADs are banned in this area of the Pacific). We also received a few inquiries on how FADs really work. Why are fish attracted to them? What are they made of? Are tuna the only fish that aggregate around these FADs?

So we ´fished´ out some FAD facts and figures. Our ‘haul’ revealed a pretty grim picture. For every 10 kilos of tuna caught, 1 kilogram will be unwanted catch, consisting of juvenile tuna, sharks, turtles, rays and other marine species. In 2005, that amounted to a staggering 100,000 tonnes of by-catch!

In addition, a recent study revealed that these deadly fish magnets affect the behavior of fish, essentially over-riding their natural instincts and even distracting them from their normal migratory paths.

To give you, our readers, a better understanding and additional information about FADs I’ve asked Genevieve Quirk, Greenpeace Oceans Campaigner based in Australia, to explain. Genevieve attended the meeting of the Pacific Tuna Commission scientists last month, and here she shares with us some insights on what transpired at the meeting, and her take on FADs:

Bad, bad FAD

It was astonishing to bear witness to the dirty laundry of the scientific meeting of the Pacific Tuna Commission.

Huge industrial fleets, having fished out their own waters, are now plundering the Pacific. Nets the size of city blocks are used to haul in schools of tuna. High-tech equipment now makes finding fish easy and longlines can extend over 100km!

In this type of fishery, huge amounts of bycatch are caught and thrown back dead or dying. These include endangered sharks, turtles and seabirds.

What a combination — record catches and a projected failure of the conservation measures for the Western and Central Pacific Fishery. It is scandalous that the tuna fishery recorded its highest catch on record this year, when the scientists have been recommending cuts to the overfishing in this fishery for years.

After hours of argument the scientists agreed that 34-50% cut in fishing is needed to protect bigeye tuna stocks. The biggest cut ever!

The raging debate was, however, quiet at one point in the meeting. The scientists were in awe of the research showing climate change would seriously decrease the habitat suitable for survival of tuna. Clearly, a more precautionary cut is needed to conserve the species, and in turn protect the millions of people who rely on them for food and livelihood.

A key solution to combat overfishing is to create marine reserves. They provide a refuge for stock recovery and the preservation of genetic diversity. A global network of marine reserves covering 40% of the world’s oceans is needed to preserve the integrity of our marine ecosystems.

Catching fish the way we do now — through purse seining, longlining and FADs — undermines the viability of the fish stocks, their ecosystem and the fishery itself. The Pacific Tuna Commission must cut fishing by half and set targets that secure a future for stocks, especially, as in these waters pirates take an additional 21-46% of the tuna.

Finally, the scientists presented the alarming facts on Fish Aggregation Devices (FADs), the newest and perhaps the most dangerous new threat to tuna. FADs are fast eroding overfished stocks before they even breed! Smaller yellowfin, bigeye and skipjack tuna were recorded to be caught more with FADs than regular FAD-free purse seining. Yellowfin tuna caught around FADs were, on average, less than half the size of yellowfin netted away from these devices.

It’s not science-speak, but Charles Clover — author of the book (and now movie) “The End of the Line” — summed it up perfectly:

”Killed alongside the skipjack tuna that finds itself in your tin is almost the entire cast list of Finding Nemo”.

An immediate ban on FADs is needed to protect stocks and let tuna live to grow and breed.

What is a FAD?

Blue water or oceanic species have a challenging lifestyle. Unlike most animals they have no shelter from which to hide from predators. They are vulnerable all of the time. Ocean species have many different ways to adapt to the constant threat of predation. Whales are large, jellyfish are transparent and tuna and sharks are fast.

Here’s one of the FADs we pulled out of the water. These devices attract a whole range of marine species, which are then indiscriminately netted.

Objects in the ocean present an opportunity to feed or shelter. Ocean species are biologically programmed to seek both. This is where a cruel trick is played upon the animals in our seas.

FADs can take any form. A log, a piece of net, weighted fishing gear. Any new addition to the ocean domain is attractive.

Fisheries use FADs to attract fish and then encircle them with a net called a purse seine. The net can have an area of multiple city blocks. All species that have sought the shelter of the FAD will be caught. FADs attract not just the target species like tuna but any ocean species.

FADs are often lost and abandoned and can entangle and kill animals. Ghost FADs present an ongoing threat to marine life and also a navigational hazard.

That's why Greenpeace demands a global ban on FADs: A threat to both the sustainability of fished stocks and the blue water species we love.

Hope this info helped. If you have any questions, ask away in the comments!

-Mary Ann

Mary Ann is the webbie onboard the Esperanza right now. The Espy is on a two-month tour in the Pacific to help enforce a ban on destructive fishing practices.

A black dot.

Peering through the binoculars, thats how the Taiwanese fishing vessel appeared, silhouetted against the horizon.

The past few days' activities have been like tricks from a magician’s hat – you never know what your hand will pull out. Just yesterday, we fished out a banned fish aggregating device (FAD). Yesterday, during a routine reconnaissance, we chanced upon two fishing boats transferring tuna from one to the other!

The ships, Her Hae and Jia Yu Fa (pictured above), two Taiwanese longliners, were caught RED-HANDED by the Esperanza trans-shipping in the high seas between Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM)! They were photographed transferring tuna from one to the other as well as having shark fins on-board.

However, as soon as they saw us, they both stopped operations, hurriedly disengaged from each other and the larger of the two, Her Hae, sped off.

Jia Yu Fa was left alone bobbing in its wake. The order of the day was to catch up with the ship and relay our appeal to stop trans-shipment at sea and check if they were illegal or legal. Steaming at 13.5 knots, the powerful engines of the Esperanza were making the bridge door rattle beside me at the campaign office. The whole ship was humming as we pursued the fishing boat.

We came alongside the Jia Yu Fa, delivered information about our campaign, and questioned the crew about their fishing activities. The captain said they were transferring fish to the other ship because… they had a broken freezer. They also claimed to have a permit to trans-ship at sea from the FSM authorities.


Note the sharkfins on deck, bottom left corner of the green cover.

Upon checking, we discovered that both fishing boats did indeed have licences to fish. Her Hae (the larger of the two) has a licence under the WCPFC list and Jia Yu Fa, under FSM. However, under FSM’s fishing license conditions, as we discovered, trans-shipment at sea is NOT ALLOWED. Since this was the case, their activities were deemed illegal: Jia Yu Fa for transferring fish at sea against the rules of their fishing license, and Her Hae for receiving fish from a vessel that was not allowed to do so.

Having confirmed the illegality of this monkey business at sea, the Esperanza peacefully escorted the Jia Yu Fa out of the high seas and into the waters of FSM, where they hold a license to fish and their activities can be better monitored.

Trans-shipment at sea is but one fish hook on a long line of fishing woes for Pacific islanders. Until such time as the Tuna Commission starts listening to the Pacific nations’ request to close the high seas to all forms of fishing, this dubious practice will never stop. Trans-shipment at sea is stealing a precious resource, what little is now left of the tuna stocks, from Pacific nations. Their lifeblood is sucked away with every illegal, unregulated and unreported tuna catch, not to mention the by-catch of sharks, sea turtles and other fish species that needlessly die in longline and purse seine fishing.

This was just our third day in the high seas, and we’ve already found fish aggregating devices that are supposed to be banned at this time. We’ve also witnessed one of the most elusive fishing activities, illegal trans-shipment in international waters. Imagine the other 362 days of the year that go unchecked for this type of theft and plunder? Finding these two fishing boats represents just the tip of the iceberg of pirate fishing in the Pacific.

How many Her Haes and Jia Yu Fas do we need to catch before the Tuna Commission, and the world, wakes up and acts?



When will it stop?

It’s not just a matter of strong political will on the part of the Pacific nations and the Tuna Commission to protect and replenish the tuna. This is a matter of urgency that everyone — every government, every fishing company, retailer, dealer, and last but not least, every consumer — needs to act upon now. The Pacific tuna catch must be reduced by half, the high seas must be closed to all fishing and declared marine reserves, and FADs and trans-shipment at sea must be banned.

There is no time to waste, the time to end the plunder of Pacific tuna is now.

Images © Greenpeace/Paul Hilton