Greenpeace: Tuna Fleets Are Exploiting Loopholes ff

The conservation organization made the claim following a two-month collaboration with fisheries enforcement officials from Pacific Island nations.

According to Greenpeace, fleets from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, the US and the EU, take 90% of Pacific tuna. Pacific Islands receive a mere 5% of the USD$2 billion profits made from their resources.

Greenpeace and inspectors from the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and Kiribati, boarded vessels that were consistently failing to report their activities and positions to relevant authorities through their Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS). The organization said some had almost certainly been transshipping (offloading their catch) at sea, which makes it impossible to monitor or regulate the size of their catch.

“Foreign fishing fleets take advantage of the Pacific’s lack of resources in order to run amok. Kiribati, for example, has just one small patrol boat to cover over 3 million square miles. Just because they are not flying a skull and crossbones flag, does not make these licensed vessels any less of a pirate, they are still cheating Pacific Islands out of income and food,” said Lagi Toribau, lead campaigner onboard the Esperanza.

Greenpeace says that unless drastic action is taken to reduce fishing effort, Bigeye and Yellowfin tuna could face commercial extinction within three years.

“Any boat with a known history of pirate fishing - here or in any other part of the world - should not be allowed to fish in our waters,” continued Toribau.

Greenpeace says vessel monitoring is the backbone of effective patrol and surveillance. If a ship is not reporting, there is no way of knowing how long it has been at sea, nor how much or what it has caught. It also makes it very easy to carry out dishonest activities, such as unregulated transshipment and refueling at sea.

There is currently no requirement for vessels to report when they are on the high seas. This is a major loophole, says Greenpeace, as it makes it almost impossible to track their activities. Another “serious flaw” currently allows a certain type of vessel (Longliners) to transship on the high seas, the organization says.

“We boarded boats that had been out at sea for over a year, yet only had a tiny amount of tuna in half empty holds. There is no way to track how much they had really caught in that time,” added Toribau.

Greenpeace says that in order to close these loopholes and prevent Pacific tuna from collapse, as has happened with Mediterranean stocks, authorities must:

Ban all transshipments outside ports;

Revoke the license of any vessel with a faulty VMS, and send them straight to port;

Require all vessels to report from all fishing grounds, including the high seas;

Ban any vessel with a pirate history from the Pacific.

In addition, Greenpeace is calling for foreign fishing nations to pay a far more representative fee for their licenses, and for a proportion of this to be allocated to enforcement resources and training.