Wake Up! Don’t Take Your Oceans for Granted

GREENPEACE MEDIA RELEASE

Wake Up! Don’t Take Your Oceans for Granted

Suva, Fiji Islands. June 8, 2007. As we celebrate World Oceans Day today a crisis is occurring in our oceans said Greenpeace.

“We take our oceans for granted. We order fish at restaurants and assume it will always be there,” said Greenpeace Australia Pacific Oceans Team Leader Nilesh Goundar.

“We visit aquariums and believe that the oceans are full of the same species. We see fishing boats in our harbours and expect that fishing will always be a part of our heritage.”

“But the disturbing truth is that huge quantities of fish and other ocean wildlife have been lost over the last 50 years, through dramatic increases in fishing operations, technological advances, coastal development and pollution.” said Mr Gounder. “Our ability to catch fish more quickly than they can reproduce, the rising demand for seafood and the degradation of important fish habitat have created this fish crisis,”he said.

Mr Goundar said until we find a way to balance the huge demands upon our oceans' valuable resources with sustainable management of their fragile riches, our ready supply of fresh seafood, as well as countless jobs in the fishing industry, are at enormous risk.

“The Pacific is among the last moderately healthy fisheries in the world. Within our region, the greatest threat to the health of the ocean is overfishing. As fishing stocks collapse in other oceans, global fleets are moving en masse to the Pacific, rather than fixing the problems in their own waters,” he said.

Mr Goundar said the increasing number of foreign industrial and illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) or pirate fishing boats are preying on fish in these waters, greedily taking as many fish as they can.

This greedy migration of industrial fishing fleets threatens to overwhelm the Pacific’s vital fisheries, according to Mr Goundar

“The 20 Pacific Island states rely upon our oceans as a crucial economic resource with tuna fisheries making up to 40 percent of GDP through exports for some states, as well as being a primary protein source in local diets,” said Mr Goundar.

“The economic stability and health of Pacific Island communities is under threat.”

Mr Goundar said overfishing, overcapacity and lack of effective regulation must be urgently resolved at a regional and global level or key fish stocks will collapse.

“Experts warn this collapse could start within three years and together, Pacific nations can take more control of their own ocean resources and stop this from happening,” he said.

Greenpeace in a science report launched last year recommended that:

• Serious and stronger action needs to be taken against pirate vessels

• Fairer returns must be paid by foreign nations for the fish they take from the Pacific

• Foreign nations must immediately reduce by half the amount of fish they catch

• An immediate end to all transhipments at sea

• Immediately stop all building of large longline and purse seine vessels

• Ban super-super seiners from entering Pacific waters

• Increase support for enforcement and surveillance missions in the Pacific

• The immediate establishment of a marine reserve in an enclosed high-seas area bound by Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, and a firm commitment to establishing a second fully protected marine reserve to the east in the near future.

• Establish and enforce 40% of Pacific marine habitats as marine reserves. Globally, 40% of the world’s oceans must be made into properly enforced Marine Reserves

• The Western and Central Pacific Commission (WCPFC) must set quotas for tuna stock based on the health of the stock, taking into account the uncertainty that exists.

ENDS