“Forbes Wants To Promote The IATTC At The Expense Of Dolphins”ff

Letter from Earth Island Institute to Forbes Magazine:

Dear Editor:

Elizabeth Eaves’ article “Dolphin-Safe but Not Ocean-Safe” (Forbes, 7-24-08) contains false and misleading information on a complicated issue.

The article blames the “Dolphin Safe” tuna label for declines in tuna stocks, but Dolphin-safe has nothing to do with tuna overfishing.

Furthermore, the chief source for the story is a spokesman for the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), an international body representing tuna fishermen and their fishing government bureaucracies.  It is these international fisheries commissions that are responsible for overfishing, not the Dolphin-safe label.

The IATTC has not approved ANY tuna quotas or ANY tuna fishing closures to protect tuna stocks for the 2008 fishing year (more than half over) or 2009, despite holding four separate meetings to do so.  Earth Island Institute and our environmental partners, including World Wildlife Fund and representatives of the US tuna industry, have strongly protested this lack of protection for tuna in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean.

Overfishing is caused by substantial increases in the number and capacities of international tuna fishing fleets combined with the unwillingness of fisheries commissions (dominated by governments representing those fishing fleets) to restrict their fishing, not the Dolphin-safe label.

The IATTC spokesman in the article blames the use of Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) for overfishing, yet the IATTC has never invoked ANY meaningful restrictions on the use of FADs, despite being asked to do so repeatedly by Earth Island and other environmental groups.

Furthermore, the article claims the IATTC was responsible for reducing the deaths of dolphins in tuna fishing -- this is pure nonsense.  The decline in mortality of dolphins occurred due to a public campaign in the US by Earth Island Institute and our colleagues, resulting in a decision by the largest tuna company in the world, Starkist, to stop buying tuna caught by methods that involve chasing, netting, and killing thousands of dolphins annually.  90% of the resulting decline in dolphin mortality occurred BEFORE the IATTC ever addressed the issue.  And since then, the IATTC has been instead promoting deadly netting of dolphins as a means to catch tuna, using false claims of environmental harm.

If Forbes wants to promote the IATTC at the expense of dolphins, tuna stocks, and the public interest, you should at least try to get your facts straight.

Dolphin-safe tuna means no dolphins were chased, netted or killed by the tunaboat during the entire fishing trip.  Overfishing of tuna stocks is occurring due to the lack of tuna management by the very international agencies (especially the IATTC) set up to control such fishing.  Until these international agencies do their jobs, tuna will indeed be at risk in our oceans.  If the IATTC succeeds, due to misleading claims such as Forbes’ story, in allowing fishermen to again target dolphins to catch tuna, then not just tuna, but dolphins as well will be slaughtered unmercifully.