We spent the last week patrolling the waters of the Mediterranean for illegal driftnetters.  The good news is that for the first time, we didn't find any.  (No pirates is good pirates!) Weather was probably a factor, as it was often a bit rough for them to be able to operate.  There's also the Greenpeace Factor - word gets around that we are out looking, so pirate fishermen know their chances of getting away with it are pretty slim - they may just decide not to go fishing. 

While these were undoubtedly part of the reason why we didn't come across any illegal driftnetters in a week of searching, an even better explanation is that the increased controls we have fought for and won in recent years are starting to take effect.  Even Italy, which appeared ready to flaunt the drift net ban, reversed their position the day our search began.

This echoed our findings from the previous week, where for the first time in years we encountered no blatantly illegal bluefin fishing.  We did see military ships inspecting fishing boats, even sending divers down to look at tuna cages. 

There are still some loopholes in the regulations that enable people to cheat.  However, Raul Romeva, a member of the European Parliament Fisheries Committee, was on board with us to see firsthand what is going on.  Romeva has been instrumental in writing many of the recent regulations, so I have a feeling he will be able to use what he learned at sea with us to close some of these loopholes.  Better still, it sounds like he is becoming a champion for marine reserves.

Looking ahead, it is clear that controlling illegal fishing alone will not be enough to protect the Mediterranean, or to prevent the collapse of bluefin tuna.  The LEGAL catch, as set by ICCAT, the organization that has failed to listen even to the advice of its own scientists, is high enough to seal the bluefin's fate.

There is still time to turn things around.  First, we need Monaco, the US, and others to ban illegal trade in critically endangered bluefin until the population can recover.  This can happen next year, at the meeting of parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.  Then, we need countries throughout the region to work together to establish fully protected marine reserves.  Bluefin spawning areas are a good place to start – in the Med as well as the Gulf of Mexico.

I leave the ship in the morning.  I’m going to miss everyone on board, but I made some new friends that I know I’ll keep in touch with for a long time to come.  I’ll also miss the ship, and this big blue sea, but it makes it easier knowing that the Rainbow Warrior will be defending the Mediterranean long after I'm gone.  

For the Oceans - 

John Hocevar and the team aboard the Rainbow Warrior

After a long campaign, the United Nations banned “wall of death” driftnets in 1992.  Stretching up to 50 miles, these floating nets were notoriously indiscriminate, snaring enormous amounts of marine life.  The Japanese squid fishery alone was estimated to take over 41 million non-target fish, sharks, sea birds, marine mammals and sea turtles each year.  Following the UN’s ban on high seas drift nets, the European Union reinforced the move by banning their use in EU waters, and the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas further extended the ban to the whole Mediterranean.

Unfortunately, several countries are not respecting the ban.  Italy is probably the worst offender, with a large fleet of driftnetters operating in the Sicilian Channel, Tyrrhenian and Ionian Seas.  The Italian Government has taken some small steps to limit driftnetting, but in general they have chosen to look the other way.  We just got some good news, though.  After protests by Greenpeace and WWF, Italy just suspended their previous decree that Italian driftnetters would be allowed to operate up to 40 miles from the coast, which would have been in violation of international law.

 

Hard fought victories like the driftnet ban must be defended, so the Rainbow Warrior is patrolling the central Mediterranean to gather evidence on illegal activity, to be submitted to relevant authorities.  

The fishing season for bluefin tuna fishing has ended, and now the illegal driftnet season is in full swing.  Driftnetters target swordfish during their June/July spawning season, but the nets catch anything in their path – including bluefin. They operate at night, during the new moon, to make it difficult for fish to see the nets.  This is necessary because swordfish have highly developed eyes, aided by an exceptionally high density of blood vessels.  Swordfish are able to see far better in low light conditions than humans, to assist them in hunting for prey.

We are now in our target area, with what looks like a driftnet boat on our radar.  We’re going in for a closer look, and will continue to patrol throughout the night.  Our eyes may not work as well as swordfish, but hey, that’s why we’ve got binoculars.

For the oceans,

John Hocevar and the crew aboard the Rainbow Warrior

 

While we were in Malta, Greenpeace activists were violently attacked when attempting to board two tuna vessels for inspection. Massimo Cappitta (more on him in a minute) was filmed punching Emma repeatedly in the face. Messages of support have been flooding in, with people offering well-wishes for Emma and also encouragement to keep up the fight.



Some, however, have questioned our methods. Why would we board a vessel without permission? A writer with Intrafish, a seafood trade outlet, urged readers not to be too quick to blame the fishermen. Others took the "two wrongs don't make a right" view, saying that trespassing was unjustified. In fact, this willingness to force the issue, to not take no for an answer, and, when necessary, to peacefully break the law, is part of what has made Greenpeace so effective over the years.

Time and time again, nonviolent direct action has played an important role in protecting the environment – and changing the world. From the Boston Tea Party to Gandhi's civil disobedience campaign, from the civil rights movement to Poland's Solidarity movement, peaceful resistance has often been what’s won the day. We boarded these vessels because illegal fishing is a serious threat to the survival of bluefin tuna.

The vessels may be privately owned, but the tuna are a public resource. Greenpeace has been instrumental in gathering information on illegal activity in the fishery for the last several years, sharing evidence with governments, which have then acted on our documentation. Further complicating the situation is the fact that the Maltese fisheries authorities are among the most corrupt in the world, so enforcement of the laws left in official hands is unlikely to happen at all. Massimo Cappitta is a Director of Mare Blue Tuna Farm, a business venture with bluefin tycoon Fuentes.

Here is his company's view on the environment, in their own words: www.mareblumalta.com/farm_environment.htm

I guess Cappitta prefers to speak with his fists.

It doesn't make the newspapers very often, but a large portion of Greenpeace's work involves providing technical reports and testimony at policy meetings, lobbying, grassroots organizing, scientific research, and collaboration with businesses. Sometimes, though, quiet diplomacy is not enough, and unsustainable or illegal activities must be confronted and exposed. Action of this nature often carries with it a certain amount of risk, as we saw this week.

Unfortunately for those who put their own greed above the health of our planet, that is a risk we are prepared to take.

For the Oceans,

John Hocevar and the crew aboard the Rainbow Warrior

Today things got ugly.  

We are in Valletta Harbor in Malta.  We learned that there were two vessels here owned by Fuentes, the tuna tycoon who controls over half the bluefin catch in the Mediterranean.  We decided to board the vessel to inspect the cargo and documentation.  Three women, Emma, Rita, and Liz, were the first to volunteer.

After the vessels refused our polite request to allow us access, Emma stepped on board to press the point. She was immediately attacked – they punched her, pulled her hair, picked her up and threw her overboard.  One person hurled a large wooden pallet which whistled by our heads, and another tossed a full bucket of paint into one of our boats.  If either of those had hit their intended targets, someone could have been seriously injured, but fortunately no damage was done.

Greenpeace is not known for taking no for an answer.  For us, the violent response to a simple request to inspect the vessel reinforced our belief that they had something to hide.  And even if they did not, greater transparency is essential to ensure that vessels are not able to obscure the kinds of illegal activity which have contributed to the bluefin’s decline.

We climbed onto the pier, where Emma again tried to board one of the Fuentes vessels.  She was viciously assaulted by a burly sailor twice her size, holding her down and punching her repeatedly in the face.  (We brought her to a clinic here for treatment, and she has a black eye and her neck is swollen but she’s ok.)

We refused to leave the pier, which is private property, until the two vessels were inspected.  The police came, and boarded the two vessels.  They reported to us that they did not see tuna on board, and that Malta fisheries inspectors were on the way.  Then we were taken to the police station, where statements were taken but no charges were filed against us.  Whether or not the fishermen will be charged with assault remains to be seen.

Unfortunately, corruption is widespread in the Maltese Fisheries Conservation and Control Division.  After several calls, they finally blurted “will you stop calling please; we’ve been instructed not to talk to Greenpeace.  If you want to pursue this further, I suggest you take this up with the Fisheries Minister.”  Calls to the Fisheries Minister went unanswered, but we will take this up with him in detail later.

There is a lot at stake here, especially for bluefin tuna, which are being mismanaged out of existence.  But also for fishermen – including many of the ones we spoke to last week, which are no longer able to make a living except by towing fish caught by much bigger, more expensive boats.

We were happy to see a French warship out on the high seas, inspecting tuna vessels.  The Mediterranean is too big for inspectors to cover every boat, however, and illegal activity continues.  And unfortunately, even the legal catch is far too much for the population to sustain.  

Last year, we overheard one tuna vessel owner complaining that it was not fair that Greenpeace activists were often women, as it’s awkward to beat them up.  Apparently, times have changed – these thugs did not hesitate.  Of course, their violent attack has already backfired, turning what could have been a simple (and frankly not very interesting) inspection into an international incident.  Footage of the attack has already traveled widely, and the story – and the fight to save bluefin tuna - continues to gather momentum. &nbsp

Patrolling for tuna pirates here in the Mediterranean is a 24-hour operation. My day started with a four AM wakeup call "John! We have found more boats!" but others on the crew had been working through the night. By eight this morning, we had inspected and traded information with nine boats.

Since the official close of the bluefin fishery, we have not been seeing the expensive pure seine boats that we frequently encountered earlier in the expedition. Instead, most of the vessels we see now are small, old, and worn. A couple people said the fishing has been “passable” or “mediocre,” but most have reported that catches have been quite low. One fisherman held up his net to show us his catch, and the fish were so small it reminded me of the “Tiny Fish” video. And as before, we have seen more fishermen who are no longer fishing, but instead towing cages for other, wealthier fishermen.

The cages can be quite large, over 50 yards across, and can hold more than 200 tons of tuna. The cage in this photo held 2800 bluefin. (We call them cages, but actually they are circular nets, supported by floats and plastic supports.) The captain of the boat towing these fish invited us on board for a tour, and at times it seemed that rust was all that was holding the vessel together. The fishermen had been at sea for 66 days, with very little shelter, much less luxuries like flush toilets or comfortable beds.

Back on board the Rainbow Warrior, we calculated that these guys had been towing over a million and a half dollars worth of fish. I don’t know whether or not they realized the value of their cargo, but it was very clear that these guys were not getting much of a share of the profits.

A couple fishermen mentioned that they had been fishing for a long time – one man said he’d been fishing for sixty years. Others said their families had always fished, which I imagined might mean as much as a hundred years or even more. Yesterday, however, I learned that people have been fishing for bluefin in the Mediterranean since before the rise of the Roman Empire. It is difficult for most of us to even imagine that kind of continuity of history, tradition, and culture.

And now, a fish that has been prized – and fished sustainably - for thousands of years has gone from abundance to the verge of extinction in just a few short decades. This is an emergency, and we are here to sound the alarm. We can only hope that our wake up call is enough to jolt the members of ICCAT to their senses, while there is still time. Or better still, to help convince the Obama Administration and other influential governments that the time has come to take responsibility for bluefin management out of ICCAT’s hands, and to bring the issue to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

Stay tuned – we have been hearing reports that illegal vessels are seeking shelter nearby, so we’re on our way there now.

For the Oceans –
John Hocevar
Oceans Campaign Director
Greenpeace USA