12 May 2009 - Straits
of Gibraltar, Spain – WWF’s On the Med tuna
trail bluefin tuna tagging project is resuming
its activity today in the waters near Barbate
off southern Spain.
Through this three-year
project – among the most ambitious bluefin
tuna tagging work seen so far in the Mediterranean
– WWF scientists are mapping tuna migrations
around the basin, seeking answers to key
mysteries on the migratory behaviour of
this most valuable but also most imperilled
fish.
WWF is tagging tuna
this week with fishermen from Spain’s traditional
tuna trap, the almadraba. This method for
fishing bluefin tuna has existed around
the Mediterranean for over 3,000 years and
is intrinsically sustainable given the low
vulnerability of tuna stocks to the trap.
The fishery supports the livelihoods of
hundreds of families but is in jeopardy
– the fishermen have seen a drop in catches
of over 80% during the past two decades,
given the exponential growth in industrial
tuna fishing.
“While there are still
tunas to tag, WWF hopes to shed light on
the migrations of this incredible species,”
said Dr Pablo Cermeño, WWF Mediterranean’s
Tuna Officer. “Relatively little is known
about the behaviour of Mediterranean tuna,
yet it is repeatedly subject to rampant
overfishing.”
On the Med tuna trail
is a race against time to gather data before
the overstretched fishery collapses. WWF
recently released a new analysis showing
that the reproducing population is collapsing
now and could effectively disappear by 2012
if there is no change to current mismanagement
and overfishing.
WWF’s tagging project
is collecting information such as position
and depth of the high-speed fish by fitting
adult tunas (over 35kg) with ‘pop-up’ tags
that are released from the fish at a specified
time and float to the surface for the data
to be read by satellite. Lifecycle information
will also come from juvenile tuna tagged
with ‘archival’ tags and recovered at point
of catch.
“The plan behind this
project to fill the significant gaps in
knowledge of bluefin tuna’s migratory behaviour
in the Mediterranean is starting to bear
fruits,” said Dr Sergi Tudela, Head of Fisheries
at WWF Mediterranean. “The first data gathered
through WWF’s tagging project, soon to be
released, will reveal surprising results.”
WWF is calling for a
recovery period moratorium on bluefin tuna
fishing in the current absence of effective
rules for a sustainable fishery, lack of
enforcement, and the high degree of illegal
fishing.
The global conservation
organization is also supporting calls to
suspend international trade of Atlantic
bluefin tuna by getting it listed on Appendix
I of the Convention on International Trade
in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and
Flora (CITES) when contracting parties meet
in early 2010.
WWF’s tuna tagging activities
– planned in partnership with key international
scientific institutions and fishing stakeholders
in the Mediterranean, and made possible
thanks to financial help from the Prince
Albert II of Monaco Foundation – runs to
the end of 2010.
Gland, Switzerland –
Only one percent of the sustainable palm
oil available on the market has been bought,
according to new figures released by the
WWF today.
In a bid to speed up
this “sluggish performance”, WWF will assess
the world’s major users of palm oil over
the next six months and publish a Palm Oil
Buyer’s Scorecard highlighting companies
that support sustainable palm oil and exposing
those who have not fulfilled their commitments
to buy it.
WWF helped set up the
Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)
as an international body for the industry
to develop sustainability standards. Certified
Sustainable Palm Oil (CSPO) has been available
since November 2008 and provides assurance
that valuable tropical forests have not
been cleared and that environmental and
social safeguards have been met during the
production of palm oil. Yet further production
will hinge on manufacturers and retailers
committing to buy what’s available.
“So far around 1.3 million
tonnes of certified sustainable palm oil
has been produced by RSPO member plantation
companies, but less than 15,000 tonnes have
been sold,” said Rodney Taylor, Director
of WWF International’s Forests Programme.
“This sluggish demand from palm oil buyers,
such as supermarkets, food and cosmetic
manufacturers, could undermine the success
of the RSPO and threatens the remaining
natural tropical forests of Southeast Asia,
as well as other forests where oil palm
is set to expand, such as the Amazon.”
WWF asks all companies
buying palm oil to make public commitments
that they will use 100 percent certified
sustainable palm oil by 2015; to make public
their plans with deadlines to achieve this
goal; and to begin purchasing certified
sustainable palm oil immediately.
The Palm Oil Buyer’s
Scorecard will rank the commitments and
actions of major global retailers, manufacturers
and traders that buy palm oil. Companies
will be scored on a variety of criteria
relating to their commitments to, and actions
on, sustainable palm oil. The resulting
scores will not only help consumers evaluate
the performance of these companies but will
also encourage the companies themselves
to better support the use of sustainable
palm oil.
As a founding member
of the RSPO, WWF has worked since 2002 with
the palm oil industry to ensure that the
RSPO standards contain robust social and
environmental criteria, including a prohibition
on the conversion of valuable forests. The
RSPO brings together oil palm growers, oil
processors, food companies, retailers, NGOs
and investors to help ensure that no rainforest
areas are sacrificed for new palm oil plantations,
that all plantations minimize their environmental
impacts and that basic rights of local peoples
and plantation workers are fully respected.
The RSPO began in 2002
as an informal cooperation on production
and usage of sustainable palm oil among
Aarhus United UK Ltd, Golden Hope Plantations
Berhad, Migros, Malaysian Palm Oil Association,
Sainsbury’s and Unilever together with WWF.
These organizations held the first Roundtable
meeting in August 2003 in Kuala Lumpur in
order to prepare the foundation for the
organizational and governance structure
that resulted in the formation of the RSPO.
Since then the RSPO has grown to include
more than 300 members between them accounting
for more than 35% of global palm oil production.
+ More
Japanese government
misleads public with biased emission cuts
figures – WWF
13 May 2009 - Tokyo,
Japan - The Japanese government is misleading
the public by presenting biased figures
on Japan’s 2020 target for emission cuts,
WWF said ahead of the country’s last public
hearing on the issue.
The global conservation
organisation also points out that the government’s
position wrongly focuses on potential burdens
for households, while ignoring the financial
benefits of a low carbon future.
“Japan pretends to aim
at ambition levels and emission cuts similar
to those in the EU and US, but the method
applied to compare efforts by different
countries is misleading”, says Kim Carstensen,
Leader of the WWF Global Climate Initiative.
“Ill-informed Japanese
citizens are at risk of being talked into
a high emission future – bad for the people,
bad for the economy, and bad for nature.”
The target options currently
debated range from an increase of 4% to
a decrease of 25% by 2020 compared to 11000
levels. The Aso government says the weakest
option, +4% by 2020, is comparable to the
EU’s goal of cutting emissions 20% by 2020,
as well as to the US goal of returning to
11000 levels by 2020.
According to WWF, this
is a case of serious public misinformation.
The method applied by
the Japanese government is biased, because
“Marginal Abatement Costs” – the extra costs
a country must incur to reduce one more
unit of pollution – are used as the sole
indicator to compare country efforts, while
other more important indicators such as
ability to pay and historical responsibility
are completely ignored.
”To create cost curves
for marginal abatement you need detailed
country data, and different organizations
release different cost curves, so the government’s
cost curve is neither an objective indicator
nor the ultimate truth”, says Carstensen.
“Picking just one indicator which is also
advantageous for Japan and presenting it
as if it was the only indicator to assess
comparability is misleading.”
The government’s announcement
about economic consequences related to the
various target options is also distorted.
Targets such as -15% or -25% are described
as a heavy burden for households, highlighting
only estimated decreases in job numbers,
income levels and GDP growth. Positive economic
effects of strong targets and the opportunity
to create green jobs are concealed.
“While countries such
as Australia are raising the ambition level,
Japan proposes smaller efforts to tackle
climate change, frozen in fear of economic
burden while not seeing the benefits of
a low carbon future”, said Carstensen. “Instead
of depressing citizens with loss and decline
messages, the Aso government must go for
a strong target to leave future generations
a safe environment.”
In WWF’s view, a responsible
and capable country like Japan must contribute
its fair share to the global effort and
aim at emission cuts of 25% to 40% by 2020,
as shown by the IPCC. If Japan were to choose
a weak target, it would seriously discourage
efforts by other countries, resulting in
a major blow for international hopes to
agree a new global climate treaty this year.
The Japanese government
announced the six target options on 27 March.
After the announcement, the government has
held five public hearings in major cities
across the country. The sixth and last hearing
is held today in Tokyo. In parallel, the
government is calling for public comments
on the proposed target options until 16
May. Taking into account the results of
these processes and internal discussion
within the government, Prime Minister Aso
is expected to announce his final decision
on the mid-term target sometime in June.
