ICCAT has gone too far.  The greed and corruption running this Commission are now about as well camouflaged as a stegosaurus trying to hide behind a postage stamp.  Forgive the hackneyed humor, but there is no longer any doubt whatsoever that ICCAT does in fact stand for “The International Conspiracy to Catch All the Tuna.”

Last week, at a meeting in Recife, Brazil, the scientific advisers to the Commission proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Northern bluefin tuna is in a critical situation.  Not a single delegate dared voice an objection to the fact that the animal’s perilous status qualified it for protection under CITES.

Numerous scientists from a multitude of different countries and environmental organizations submitted proposals stating unequivocally that the quota must be dropped from the current 19,500 metric tons to no more than 8,000 metric tons, if we hope to give the population even a 50% chance of recovery.

The science was bulletproof.  There was not a single shred of evidence that could countervail this assertion.  Greenpeace, WWF, and other environmental groups belabored the point until they were hoarse. Charles Clover, author of The End of the Line and prominent champion of the bluefin, made the trek to Recife to plead the poor fish’s case – he even managed to arrange a screening of the film for the ICCAT delegates.

So, when all was said and done, what was the final decision of the Commission?

In its infinite wisdom, the august body that is ICCAT voted to set the upcoming season’s bluefin quota at 13,500 metric tons.

This number far exceeds any remotely defensible figure.  It’s a quota with zero scientific basis that flies in the face of conventional wisdom and virtually ensures the commercial extinction of this animal.  Such a calculus is justifiable only to the members of what is clearly no more than a political cult idolizing greed, corruption, and piracy.

I need to take a few seconds and collect myself before continuing, lest this post degenerate into rabid polemics and I end up with spittle all over my computer screen.  I am so angry right now that it is difficult for me to express myself in a manner that doesn’t involve the wanton destruction of some nearby appliance.

ICCAT has failed.  It has failed us, and it has failed the bluefin.  It has failed the oceans, it has failed the planet, and it has failed our children.

In fact, ICCAT has even managed to fail the myopic fishing interests that control it.  Any corruption-riddled junta worth its salt should at least be able to satisfy its puppeteers to the degree that it provide them with their illicit plunder for more than just a couple of years.  This quota will not only ensure the destruction of the bluefin, but it will result in the controlling parties not even having a resource to exploit come the end of the Mayan calendar.

Immediately folloing the closing session of the Recife meeting, Charles Clover wrote a scathing and comprehensive letter in response to this kangaroo court escapade, noting that not only was the Commission unable to adopt sensible protections for several shark species, ICCAT actually voted to allow three member nations to continue to use drift nets — one of the most indiscriminate and destructive fishing methods on the face of the planet.  And thus do we all sally forth together into this bright new tuna-free world.

So where’s the silver lining here?  Believe it or not, it rests with the US government.

Nearly a month ago, I wrote a short post about how Dr. Jane Lubchenco, the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), had passed on Monaco’s proposal and threw her support behind ICCAT with the proviso that ICCAT set “responsible science-based quotas,” among other instructions.  Clearly, the Commission did not adhere to this directive.  As such, it is now Dr. Lubchenco’s responsibility to live up to her promise and champion Monaco’s proposal to grant the Northern bluefin tuna protection under CITES Appendix 1.  And it is our responsibility, as stewards and citizens of this planet, to show her our support.

I urge all who read this to send an email to Dr. Jane Lubchenco at Jane.Lubchenco@noaa.gov reminding her to rise to the occasion and stand up for the bluefin tuna.  ICCAT clearly cannot do so, regardless of the clarity and quantity of science that would justify such action.  It is time to cast off the trappings of this useless, obsolete Commission and to try something that will actually work.

Additional background on this issue can be found in Ashley Mirabile's excellent and comprhensive post on the plight of the bluefin.

Our Land and our Waters: Our Future


As Unangan (Aleut) people who have lived and survived on the Islands of the Aleutian Chain for almost 10,000 years, our survival and our foods have always come from the waters surrounding our Island villages.

The Pribilof Islands were discovered in 1786 by Russian navigator Gavriil Pribilof, ending a three-year search by Siberian merchants for the breeding site of the valuable fur seals. The roaring of seals drew Pribilof's boat through the summer fog to St. George Island. Thus the Pribilof Islands. These islands were not inhabited when discovered. Following this discovery, small bands of Unangan were enslaved to these islands from the Aleutian Chain to protect and harvest the millions of fur seals found there. Thus began a 200 year history of a people misplaced by governments eager to make money off of the vast resources found then and now in the form of fish and crab. The legacy of slavery seems to continue into twenty-first century America.

Today the descendents of the enslaved Unangan, done first by Russia and later by America, are struggling to survive on the islands in which our ancestors made a living and in which many are buried.  The once abundant northern fur seal populations, once ranging in number into the millions, are now numbered around 550,000 and steadily declining. The millions of pounds of king and tanner crab fishery are either a fraction of what they once were or are now closed due to overfishing. Today only a small percentage of fish once so abundant are now being taken by a hand full of large industrialized factory trawlers, long liners and crabbers, many coming to the Bering Sea from far away ports in the lower 48 states.

Traditional foods are moving away, or in many cases becoming so stressed due to the lack of their own foods, that the Unangan are finding it very difficult to fill their needs. With “store bought” foods so expensive and non-nutritious, the Unangan are once again facing an uncertain future. Again a group of people taken from their homes to protect and harvest fur seal may be forced to move from their homes because of poorly managed fisheries by the United States of America.  

These distressing activities are not only happening to the Unangan of the Bering Sea, but to all coastal tribal communities who depend upon the waters for survival.  For every village, it’s the water that provides and not the land.

As a result, the Alaska Federation of Natives recently passed a resolution at their 2009 convention in Anchorage to establish cultural heritage zones to help protect our foods and the habitat they depend upon in our waters. This is a major first step. Now our tribal governments must take the lead and begin to identify and designate these sites.

One such community is the Pribilof Island village of St. George. Their tribal leaders have been in discussions, workshops and research to find a solution to how the bottom trawlers can be stopped before critical benthic habitat is destroyed!

Recently both the Village Corporation and the tribal government of St. George have joined forces to seek cultural heritage zone protections for the waters immediately around their island as well as within the critical habitats of both the Pribilof and Zhemchug Canyons. What they are demanding our governments do is establish no trawl zones within twenty miles around St. George Island and no trawls deeper than 100 fathoms in both Canyons.

The leadership of our Tribes are also requesting that the State and Federal Governments responsible for the management of these resources formulate co- management agreements to ensure local input in any future decisions regarding the use of these fishery resources. This is about the survival of a people. This is about food security. This is about finally recognizing local tribal communities as valuable partners in the understanding of our nation’s ocean resources and seeking their valuable input in its management.

Willie, from Greenpeace UK, blogs from Brazil, where he is attending the ICCAT meeting.

The vultures were literally circling overhead as we approached the ICCAT meeting venue this morning... so something is on its last legs.

So, with just one day of the ICCAT meeting left, it’s time to see what has been achieved here this week. The short answer is ‘not a lot’. Despite a week of meetings, including extra, lengthy, evening sessions, virtually nothing has been decided on or agreed yet. Decisions on quotas for fish like bluefin tuna, protection of sharks and seabirds, are being left until the last minute, and all need to be discussed on the last day.

This wouldn’t be so frustrating if the week’s discourse had been more constructive. Don’t get me wrong, undoubtedly there are many at the ICCAT meeting who are working very hard and very long hours, but the system is so fundamentally flawed that it gives us little hope for very positive outcomes.

Little wonder, perhaps, that articles in today's (London) Times and New York Times poured a great deal of scorn on the whole process.

For days we have heard over and over how ICCAT must regain credibility, and for days we have seen some meaningless ping-pong across the tables as countries blamed each other whilst coming up with perfectly valid reasons why they could not be blamed themselves. It’s akin to a class of school kids explaining in turn where their homework is – you know the kind of thing, ‘dog ate it’, ‘mum put it in the washing machine’, ‘it blew away on the way to school’. Individually every excuse seems plausible. Collectively it means ICCAT has a very, very long way to go.

Last night saw, what was in ICCAT terms, a major step, with countries accepting letters of admonishment when they had not complied with the conservation and enforcement measures they had undertaken to do. A letter home from teacher, if you like. To us, this is pretty lame, but to them it is the first time countries are acknowledging formally that they have not done what they should. Trouble is, of course, the parties to ICCAT are here representing their own governments, and quite possibly have a note from their mum too. Personally, I blame the parents.

All this complying through gritted teeth is hugely frustrating. This week we have seen bizarre acceptances of others wrong-doing (and praise for them admitting it) and even some tacit derogations for a couple of countries to do what they want on hugely controversial issues. Remember driftnets, anyone? Fancy killing a few endangered species?

Ultimately, my impression from this meeting is to feel despondent, and I am even more convinced that there need to be a fundamental reforms of the way we ‘manage’ (and I use the word quite scornfully) our oceans. This gradual way of improving the systems we have bit by bit, issue by issue, year by year, just is not enough. The damage we are doing is happening far faster than our willingness to change.

So yes, we need drastic measures. That means setting large areas off-limits to fishing as Marine Reserves, and the bigger the better. It also means banning certain ways of fishing, and banning fishing for certain species altogether. And it means actually enforcing things too, with legal and financial consequences.

If we don’t start doing this on a huge scale, we will have lost not only our credibility, and our homework, but many irreplaceable species and livelihoods too.

 

Greenpeace activists delivered over 7,000 "Stop Whaling" petitions to the Japanese Embassy in Washington, D.C today, just hours before President Obama was scheduled to travel to Japan. As Michelle wrote yesterday, there is a very real possibility that Japan's whaling program could be ended soon. That's why we took the opportunity to send the message to Japan that they should stop whaling in the Southern Ocean international whale sanctuary, and use Obama's visit as a chance to make that announcement to the world.

Check out these pics from the delivery event today:



If you want to lend your voice to the call for Japan to stop slaughtering whales, sign our petition urging President Obama to to talk about whale conservation with the new Japanese Prime Minister.

Willie, from Greenpeace UK, blogs from Brazil, where he is attending the ICCAT meeting.

So, here in Brazil, the game is on. At the end of yesterday’s session the parties around the table at the ICCAT meeting were asked what their priorities were for conserving bluefin tuna. One by one they made positive murmurings about wanting to 'follow the scientific recommendations', and enforce compliance with them. They all pretty much said they want to see illegal fishing tackled. No rocket science there, and you would be forgiven for wondering why they have not done those things already!

More importantly there were also some hints as to how low some countries would go in terms of a quota, with several actually suggesting the possibility of closing the fishery. To you and me that may be a no-brainer. To many of them, it is a seismic shift.

Now, we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves here. There is a lot of horse-trading to be done behind closed stable doors. And it's worth noting that the talk about closing the fishery is just for one year – which could well be a very convenient way of avoiding bluefin being subject to an international trade ban under CITES.

Greenpeace, and other conservation organizations here, won’t settle for that – and we are reminding the participants at ICCAT that the only credible thing they can do is close this fishery.

And it seems they desperately want to regain some credibility here. You can understand that, after all ICCAT was branded an 'international disgrace'  by an independent review. The spotlight is on them because of what they have allowed to happen to bluefin, and the bureaucrats who attend these meetings really don’t like that. Delegate after delegate has talked about the need for ICCAT to claw back credibility, conveniently ignoring that this is a situation their own bad judgement in the past has gotten them into.

From an observer’s point of view here there is much to be cynical about. This is a dysfunctional meeting in a tropical paradise, at a resort whose very construction has caused disruption and problems for the local coastline in Brazil, with gala dinners, cocktail receptions, and a self-congratulating bunch of faceless bureaucrats mismanaging species, fisheries, and livelihoods.

Yesterday was an eye opener, with some impassioned and stirring interventions (particularly from some of the African delegations) requesting stronger action to protect stocks of fish in their waters. At several points I wanted to stand up, cheer and applaud. But those heartfelt pleas were met by some cynical process point-scoring by delegations on the other side of the table, immediately filling me with despair.

There is still a long way to go here.

We've all seen the horrific images of whaling. The harpoons. The sea turning red. It's a terrible vision and hopefully it may be a vision we won't have to see much longer!

We've just heard a bit of good news out of Japan. A major review of Japanese government spending could spell the end to whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

The review committee, commissioned to cut wasteful programs by Japan's new government, has proposed massive cuts in subsidies to a body which funds the so-called whaling research program.  

 

Without government subsidies, the whaling program would be doomed.

The Spending Review Committee recommended that the Overseas Fisheries Cooperation Fund (OFCF), which gives loans to the Institute for Cetacean Research (ICR) to run the discredited science program, have all of its funding revoked, except money needed for loans in 2010.

The OFCF claims it needs $780 million for various programs, including whaling, in 2010. The Review Committee and Cabinet Office will determine by early next year if the proposed operations for 2010 are actually "necessary" or should also be cut.

Soon, President Obama will be in Japan meeting with the new Prime Minister. Perhaps, President Obama could bring up whale conservation in their discussions. Take action and tell the President that whales are important to save.

We're keeping our fins crossed that once, and for all, Japan will hang up their harpoons and leave the whales alone.

 

--Michelle

 

Willie, from Greenpeace UK, blogs from Brazil, where he is attending the ICCAT meeting.

As I write this, I'm sitting in the plenary room of the ICCAT meeting, whilst Charles Clover's film 'The End of The Line' is being screened. This in itself is a great coup.

In a memorable scene from the film, whilst attending a previous ICCAT meeting, Clover himself chastized the bureaucrats in that meeting for setting irresponsibly high quotas that ignored scientific advice. In his words they were '…negotiating with biology. And you just can't do that, and expect to see the biology survive'.

It's a stunningly simple thing. Fishing is harvesting wild animals, and that can only happen if there are healthy populations of those animals, which in turn means healthy ecosystems to support them. And you simply can't take out more fish than is being replenished. Fish, like any other animals, are only a renewable resource up to a point!

 

 

Organisations like ICCAT, which are Fisheries Management Organizations, theoretically exist to make sure that the countries involved are managing the fisheries, OUR fisheries, effectively. But there's a catch. To you and me this would mean setting sensible quotas and not trashing fish stocks. But many of the people involved in ICCAT and other such organizations, seem to think their job is to squeeze every last fish out of the oceans, and keep their fishing industries happy. So when it comes down to setting quotas, it doesn't quite make sense.

ICCAT gets its own scientists to give it information on the stocks for which it is responsible (tuna, swordfish, sailfish and sharks). It then uses those to decide on quotas, which is a game of political haggling until an agreement is reached. Note that I said it 'uses' those. It isn't bound by them, and sometimes it just ignores them altogether. In fact they routinely set quotas vastly higher than the upper limits of what the scientists suggest would be safe especially on lucrative species like bluefin.

This is utter madness.

This year with huge amounts of public pressure, bad press, and celebrity outrage at the state of bluefin, ICCAT members are all talking very sincerely about setting catch levels that 'follow the science'. Surely they should be bound by the scientific recommendations – otherwise, what's the point of having them? Surely it should not take campaigns and catastrophic stock collapses to make ICCAT see that?

The starting point for ICCAT, and other fisheries management organizations should be the science, and the quotas shouldn't exceed that. But that in itself isn't even enough, as the New York Times has ably pointed out this week.  We are doing lots of things to our oceans, trashing other species as bycatch and altering ecosystems in ways we can't imagine. So we should be much more precautionary than the science suggests, especially when we factor in illegal fishing activity (which, as we know, is rampant for the profitable bluefin).

ICCAT has its work cut out. It has been dragged kicking and screaming to the realization that it has mismanaged bluefin tuna. And that's just the tip of the fishy iceberg. Most of the species under ICCAT's control are large predatory species, and globally they have declined by 90% over the last few decades. 

No wonder ICCAT is uncomfortable that the world is watching them this week.  But it remains to be seen if they will be shamed into usefulness. I'll keep you posted.

 

One of the weird consequences of overfishing is the very real possibility that jellyfish will replace the niche left by fish species. It makes for nice scary pieces of news, like this bit out of Japan. A ten-ton fishing boat was capsized after dozens of giant jellyfish were caught in their net. As the crew tried to haul the net onboard, the boat started to capsize and they were thrown into the sea.

The three men are safe. Thankfully, another trawler in the area was able to rescue them.

If we are about to be taken over by jellyfish, let's try to look on the bright side. Maybe they taste good? Maybe they're healthy for us to eat. I really can’t say, but perhaps we should be open-minded.

British cartoonist Steven Appleby tried to find a way we could cook jellyfish. And, at the rate our oceans are being overfished, you'll want to watch this video, just to be sure you're well-prepared.

 

I’m back in San Francisco after the Defending Our Pacific tour wrapped up in the Cook Islands on October 21st. We ended the tour by hosting an “open boat,” where a couple hundred locals and tourists got the chance to tour the Esperanza, and by holding a press conference to inform local journalists about what we accomplished out on the high seas.

We also met with some folks from the Ministery of Marine Resources in the Cook Islands. It was a pretty exciting meeting for all of us, because just the week before we had busted the Koyu Maru 3, a Japanese ship we caught fishing in Cook Islands' waters illegally, as you might recall. The Cook Islands has started a formal investigation of the vessel with their counterparts at the Fisheries Agency of Japan. I’ll be posting updates on that as well as on how all of the actions and documentation work we did plays out at the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) meeting this December, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, being that the tour was a really amazing experience for me and seeing as I’m still trying to process all of it, I thought I’d share just a few more videos about life onboard a Greenpeace ship.

We saw an abundance of amazing marine life, including dolphins, whales, flying fish, seabirds, and more. Here’s a video of a baby whale shark we encountered one day:


Our helicopter, Tweety, is an invaluable tool that we use to scout out the open water, document pirate/unlicensed fishing, etc. I went on one early morning heli flight to search for another two Japanese longliners, which we suspected might be fishing in the Cook Islands' waters with their sister ship the Koyu Maru 3. We didn't find them, but I put this video together anyway because I think it's interesting how a heli flight gives you a whole new perspective on just how small the Espy really is in relation to the deep blue sea:

 Lastly, I shot this video tour of the ship, which is pretty self-explanatory:

Like I said, there are definitely more updates coming on the political developments resulting from the actions we took and the documentation we compiled of the vessels plundering the Pacific. When the WCPFC meets this December, we’ll be pushing to have all four of the high seas pockets in the Pacific designated as marine reserves at this meeting.

There might be a few more videos coming from the tour, as well. Keep checking back!