Spain Acts On 200 M/T Of Fish Stolen From Guinea ff
25 April 2006
Spain Spanish officials agreed that they would declare that a 200-ton cargo of fish stolen from West Africa is illegal, when they receive official confirmation from Guinea - following six days of Greenpeace occupation and several hours of diplomatic negotiations, the environmental organization said in a statement. Greenpeace and Environmental Justice Foundation allegedly spent three weeks exposing the scandal of pirate fishing off the coast of West Africa, culminating in the Greenpeace ship M.Y Esperanza, claiming that they documented the illegal transfer of stolen fish taken from Guinea on April 6th from pirate vessels to a 'reefer' vessel - the Binar 4. This ship was then claimed to have been followed to Las Palmas where activists climbed on board before it came into port on April 11th. They have allegedly been on the mast and cranes ever since - nearly 150 hours in total.
The environmental and human rights groups say that they presented a dossier of information to both the Guinean and Spanish governments seven days ago, proving the fish had been stolen and demanded the cargo be confiscated. After the Guinean authorities confirmed the organizations’ findings, negotiations began between Guinea and Spain. Yesterday the Spanish fisheries ministry allegedly told Greenpeace they would declare the cargo illegal. Greenpeace and the Environmental Justice Foundation said that they are aware that Guinean officials confirmed during discussions with the Spanish Government that the transshipment did indeed breach Guinean law.
During the time the Esperanza was in West Africa, 104 foreign flagged vessels, from Korea, China, Italy, Liberia and Belize were allegedly documented. Nearly half were engaged in or linked to illegal fishing activities, including operating without a license or no name; hiding their identity, trawling inside the 12 mile zone restricted to local fishermen, or transshipping outside the Guinean capital Conakry. The Binar 4 was allegedly taking fish from ships licensed to fish, but all the vessels involved had broken the laws concerning transshipments, Greenpeace claim.
Guinean officials have now announced that they would fine the owners and operators of the Binar 4.
The drive to make piracy history is the second leg of a 14-month global expedition “Defending Our Oceansâ€, the most ambitious ship expedition ever undertaken by Greenpeace to expose the threats to the oceans and demand a global network of properly enforced marine reserves covering 40% of the world’s oceans. Greenpeace aims to gather a million Ocean Defenders by the end of the expedition in February 2007.
