23
Jun 2008 - The argument that great whales
are behind declining fish stocks is completely
without scientific foundation, leading researchers
and conservation organizations said today
as the International Whaling Commission
opened its 60th meeting in Santiago, Chile.
The Humane Society International
(HSI), WWF and the Lenfest Ocean Programme
presented three reports debunking the science
behind the ‘whales-eat-fish’ claims emanating
from whaling nations Japan, Norway and Iceland.
The argument has been used to bolster support
for whaling, particularly from developing
nations.
“It is not the whales,
it is over-fishing and excess fishing capacity
that are responsible for diminishing supplies
of fish in developing countries,” said fisheries
biologist Dr. Daniel Pauly, director of
the University of British Columbia Fisheries
Centre. “Making whales into scapegoats serves
only to benefit wealthy whaling nations
while harming developing nations by distracting
any debate on the real causes of the declines
of their fisheries.”
Who’s eating all the
fish? The food security rationale for culling
cetaceans, examines the final destination
of catches of coastal fisheries in the South
Pacific, Caribbean and West Africa. Less
than half the catch goes to domestic markets
– the majority of the catch supplies markets
of affluent countries in the European Union,
Japan, North America, and increasingly China.
“One can speak of fish migrating from the
more needy to the less needy” states the
report.
Also presented to the
IWC Scientific Committee were the preliminary
results from an analysis of the interaction
between whales and commercial fisheries
in north west Africa. The modeling, supported
by the Lenfest Ocean Program, shows no real
competition between local or foreign fisheries
and great whales.
The great whales spend
only a few months in the area during their
vast seasonal migrations, eat relatively
little while breeding and tend to consume
fundamentally different types of food resources
than the marine species targeted by both
local and foreign fisheries. Inserting modelling
assumptions to presume that great whales
are not breeding in the area and eat species
important to the fishing industry still
fails to show that great whales are a significant
source of competition to fishing, the report
concluded.
Also released today
is a review of the scientific literature
originating from Japan and Norway - the
two countries most strongly promoting the
idea that whales pose problems for fisheries.
The review, funded by WWF, found significant
flaws in much of the science and concluded
that “where good data are available, there
is no evidence to support the contention
that whale predation presents an ecological
issue for fisheries.”
Dr. Susan Lieberman
of WWF said, “These three reports provide
yet more conclusive evidence that great
whales are not responsible for the degraded
state of the world’s fisheries. It is now
time for governments to focus on the real
reason for fisheries decline – unsustainable
fishing operations.”
"Dr. Pauly's findings
should refute, once and for all, the misconception
that whales are eating all the fish and
need to be killed to protect the world's
fisheries," said Patricia Forkan, president
of the Humane Society International.
Notes:
These three reports can be downloaded under
embargo from the “whales-eat-fish” fallacy,
at https://intranet.panda.org/documents/folder.cfm?uFolderID=61441
The log-in is: intranet@wwfint.org and the
password is: dropbox
Dr. Daniel Pauly will
be available throughout the day of Monday
23rd June at the IWC meeting to give press
interviews (please contact Bernard Unti
to arrange.) Dr. Peter Corkeron, author
of the WWF funded paper, will also available
to give press interviews from the US (please
contact Wendy Elliott to arrange.)
Bernard Unti, Senior
Policy Advisory, HSI
Kristen Everett, Public Relations Manager,
HSUS
Dr Susan Lieberman, Director, Species Programme,
WWF-International, IWC Head of Delegation,
Chile
Wendy Elliott, Species
Programme, WWF-International,
Justin Kenny, Lenfest Ocean Programme
+ More
WWF, Greenpeace and
Seas At Risk response to the outcomes of
the Fisheries Council
24 Jun 2008 - Regulation
on Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU)
fishing
WWF, Greenpeace and
Seas At Risk welcome today’s decision by
Member States to apply the IUU Regulation
to EU and non-EU fisheries. The environmental
organisations have reported numerous cases
of EU IUU fishing to relevant authorities,
highlighting the need to tackle this 1 billion
euro a year industry. IUU fishing further
aggravates the environmental impacts of
overfishing, inside and outside EU waters.
“This industry is netting
billions of dollars in black-market revenue,
destroying ecosystems and competing with
the much needed income of coastal communities,”
says Saskia Richartz of Greenpeace.
“Today’s decision will
help limit destructive fisheries and benefit
all those that are sticking to the rules.
“
Fuel costs and increase
in subsidies
WWF, Greenpeace and
Seas At Risk oppose the proposed increases
in state aid and other subsidies to offset
high fuel costs. Such an increase will lead
to a rise in fishing capacity and effort,
and distorts competition resulting in further
depletion of fish stocks. Invariably, these
perverse subsidies will favour the most
fuel inefficient section of the fleet at
the expense of the more fuel-efficient vessels
and fishing operations.
“The EU’s oversized
fleet is pushed to go farther and farther
to reach dwindling resources. The European
Union will not solve the structural problems
of the sector by using public money to satisfy
their thirst of fuel. To address the long
term problems, it is absolutely necessary
to support scrapping of vessels and small
scale and sustainable fishing practices,”
says Aaron McLoughlin, Head of European
Marine team at WWF.
The protection of deep-sea
ecosystems
WWF, Greenpeace and
Seas At Risk welcome the decision to conduct
impact assessments prior to licensing certain
deep-sea bottom fisheries, but are disappointed
that Member States did not agree to freeze
the footprint of these damaging fisheries
through a depth limit for the deployment
of bottom gears.
“A depth limit would
have been an extra safeguard for vulnerable
marine ecosystems. Now it is crucial that
the impact assessments are sound and control
effective. While the requirement for prior
impact assessments is common procedure in
all other industry, it is a novelty in fisheries.
Today’s decision is a significant step and
we want to see it applied to all fisheries,”
says Dr. Monica Verbeek, Executive Director
of Seas At Risk.
Aaron Mc Loughlin, Head of European Marine
Programme
WWF European Policy Office,
+ More
Flags of convenience
fly in face of fisheries protection
26 Jun 2008 - Maritime
security and the future of fisheries are
coming under increasing threat from vessels
flying flags of convenience (FOC), a UN
conference on the Law of the Sea was told
today.
Real and Present Danger:
Flag State Failure and Maritime Security
and Safety, a joint WWF and International
Transport Workers’ Federation study, found
ships under flags of convenience were also
involved in piracy, people trafficking and
arms smuggling.
“Many of the thousands
of ships plying the world’s oceans are effectively
without nationality, their owners operating
under a veil of corporate secrecy and anonymity
within a system that allows them to easily
evade international laws and regulations,”
said the report’s author, independent consultant
Matthew Gianni.
“Under the FOC system,
flag state sovereignty and control over
ships is fast becoming a fiction of international
law.”
The report cites the
number of fishing vessels registered to
states without fishing authorizations and
the extent to which these vessels have been
mentioned in connection with illegal, unregulated
and unreported (IUU) fishing.
Some 318 large-scale
fishing vessels without apparent fishing
rights are registered to Cambodia, Georgia,
Mongolia, North Korea, Sierra Leone and
Togo. Vessels from five of these six countries
are currently “blacklisted” in various fisheries
for illegal fishing activities.
For example, Spanish-based
fishing company Vidal Armadores SA “has
regularly used a variety of flags of convenience
to facilitate IUU operations” the report
says. The company, which was stated to have
received European Union subsidies of €3
million, has been prominently involved in
the illegal trade of the highly overfished
Patagonian toothfish with three of its vessels
registered to North Korea.
Fishing vessels used
in illegal operations typically change name
and flags many times to avoid being caught.
In 2007 the Vidal Armadores’ vessel Ina
Maka, previously named Black Moon, Red Moon,
Elo, Thule, Magnus and Dorita and flagged
at various times to Equatorial Guinea, St.
Vincent & the Grenadines and North Korea,
was fined 400,000 South African Rand ($US50,000)
and its 60 kilometres of gillnets were confiscated
after being caught illegally fishing off
South Africa with a load of endangered nurse
sharks on board.
The report notes that
as FOC countries seldom exercise adequate
control over the operation of ships registered
to fly their flags, their ships also dominate
records on sub-standard shipping, poor safety,
maltreatment of crew and pollution of the
marine environment.
IUU fishing costs an
estimated US$1.2 billion each year and threatens
the food supplies of millions in coastal
areas of developing countries. In addition
to the direct loss of the value of the catches
to local fishermen, IUU fishers rarely comply
with regulations and cause damage to fragile
marine ecosystems and vulnerable species
such as coral reefs, turtles and seabirds.
WWF is calling for the
establishment of a UN Committee to negotiate
a new implementing agreement to the UN Law
of the Sea (UNCLOS) – the legal framework
governing the use of ocean space – that
sets out enforceable measures to ensure
flag states fulfil their responsibilities
under UNCLOS and prevents states from operating
vessel registers in breach of regulations
and international agreements.
“Without transparency
of ownership on the FOC registers and without
flag states exercising effective jurisdiction
over vessels flying their flag, FOC vessels
will continue to plunder marine resources
on the high seas with impunity,” said Miguel
Jorge, acting Director of WWF’s Global Marine
Programme.
The report was released
as governments attended the ninth meeting
of the United Nations Open-ended Informal
Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law
of the Sea (UNICPOLOS) in New York.
