Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior On Pacific Tuna Tourff

Some experts warn that in three to five years some species of tuna in the Pacific will face depletion if fishing is not controlled immediately.

Greenpeace Media Officer Carolin Wenzel said there was a need to erase pirate fishing in the Pacific and that was why the Rainbow Warrior II vessel was on a Pacific tour. The vessel's first stop is Fiji. It arrived on Thursday and the crew will spend six days there before continuing the journey. “There are fish like Skipjack, Albacore, Big Eye and the Yellow Fin which need to be managed so they remain healthy,” Ms Wenzel said. “The Pacific has one of the earth's most abundant and healthy fisheries whereby more than half of the world's tuna is fished here.”

With over 70 per cent of the world's fisheries being over-fished or at its limit, Ms. Wenzel said the Pacific was increasingly attracting growing numbers of foreign industrial fishing vessels and pirate fishers. “Many of these vessels have no concern for the environment and through over-fishing and destructive fishing methods, they are threatening the Pacific's fragile ocean environment and the communities that depend on it,” she said.

Ms. Wenzel said large fishing boats that came from all over the world took nearly two million tons of fish from the Pacific. “This is a 400 per cent increase on the catch of 30 years ago whereas the local commercial fishing industry catches about 200,000 tons which is just 10 per cent of the total,” she said. “Fresh tuna is airlifted to the Tokyo fish markets where the Pacific-caught species can fetch up to $26,500 per ton and raw tuna (sashimi) is served as a popular delicacy in Japanese restaurants around the world.”

“Greenpeace's flagship since 1978, the Rainbow Warrior spent her first seven years sailing the world's oceans opposing whaling and seal hunts, intercepting the dumping of toxic waste and protesting driftnet fishing,” Mr. Hanich said. “After the bombing of the original Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand in 1985 Greenpeace became a global force.”

The vessel had been moored in Auckland harbor en route to protest French nuclear tests at Mururoa atoll when French secret service agents bombed the ship. The ship sank and Rainbow Warrior crewmember and photographer Fernando Pereira drowned.

Greenpeace's long history in the Pacific began in the early 1970s when its founder, David McTaggart sailed his yacht, The Vega to Mururoa in protest against nuclear testing in Polynesia.

Since then the organization has campaigned vigorously to end nuclear weapons testing and nuclear shipments, support sustainable eco-forestry and destructive logging, eliminate toxic pollution, prevent harmful climate change and preserve the diversity of ocean life.

In the 1980s and 1990s the Warrior played a leading role in peace flotillas to Mururoa and relocated the population of Rongelap Island who were suffering health effects from nuclear fallout. They also protested against nuclear waste transports through the Pacific.