'Defending the Pacific' ship tour ends

In celebrating World Oceans Day, Greenpeace in Suva made public the names selected by eminent Pacific scholars(1) who judged the competition.

 WOMAR stands for West Oceania Marine Reserve, the area of international waters bounded by Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau. GOMAR stands for the Greater Oceania Marine Reserve, the area of international waters bounded by PNG, the Solomon Islands, FSM, Nauru, the Marshall Islands, Fiji, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. MOMAR stands for the Moana Marine Reserve bounded by Kiribati, the Cook Islands and French Polynesia.
 
The scholars identified eight people for their creative contribution to the naming competition and for suggesting the sea snake, seahorse and sea turtle for the marine reserves. The winners are Sara Tripp, Ravi Ram, Shaniel Sen, Jejay Sen, Rupeni Diani, Saad Hussein, Mereoni Kanavo and Josivini Ratabucavu.
 
Greenpeace is advocating these areas be designated as fully protected marine reserves. These three pockets of international waters cover extensive areas that include biologically rich undersea mountains, migration routes of tuna species, habitat of endangered leatherback turtles and breeding areas of skipjack, albacore and bigeye tuna.  However, despite their great biological and ecological importance they face a number of emerging threats, including overfishing and the potential extraction of seabed minerals in the future.
 
More than half the world’s tuna, worth over US$3 billion is fished from the Pacific, with overfishing of bigeye and yellowfin tuna being of greatest concern. 

Pacific nations are only receiving 5-6 per cent of the value of the catch caught by foreign vessels in their national waters. This is due to the unfair and unsustainable agreements negotiated by foreign companies and countries for access to fish for tuna in their waters. The Pacific countries receive no money for fishing taking place in the international waters proposed to be designated as marine reserves.
 
The Greenpeace ship M.Y. Esperanza has been defending the Pacific Commons for the last nine weeks, taking peaceful action against fishing vessels from Taiwan, Korea, China, USA, Philippines and Spain.

Greenpeace oceans campaigner Lagi Toribau sums up the key findings of the expedition(2):

“We were shocked to discover how vulnerable the Pacific commons are to pirate fishing and overfishing by Distant Water Fishing Nations. Far away in the international waters plunder of the Pacific resources continues day in day out almost with no control laying waste to the regions tuna stocks and other marine life, including threatened sharks and turtles.

The 'Defending Our Pacific' expedition ends today, but the work to ensure sustainable tuna fishing in this region has only just begun. Last month alone two major political agreements focusing on the Pacific Commons were reached.
 
Eight Pacific island countries(3) took the boldest steps towards creating the world's first marine reserves in international waters through the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) Third Implementing Arrangement. New rules will apply to all vessels fishing for tuna in the region. Tuna vessels licensed to fish in the waters of the eight countries will be banned from fishing in the WOMAR and upper GOMAR regions.
 
At the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) Conference of Parties Meeting (CoP9) in Germany, member states adopted a list of 7 scientific criteria for the selection of marine protected areas in open ocean waters and deep-sea habitats. These can now be used to identify and eventually protect areas of the high seas. (4)
 
For the Pacific, these measures will go a long way to protect marine life and provide future food and Greenpeace calls on Pacific Island member states to actively progress this position through their UN Missions at the upcoming United Nations Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea, in New York from June 23-27, 2008.

 Note to Editors:

(1) Dr Milika Sobey (Head of School of Biology at the University of the South Pacific); Dr Tarcisius Kabutaulaka (Research Fellow Pacific Islands Development Program, Hawaii); Dr Joeli Veitayaki (Head of School of Marine Studies at the University of the South Pacific); Dr Teresia Teiawa (Senior Lecturer, University of Wellington); and Dr Randy Thaman (Head of School of Geography, University of the South Pacific).
(2) http://weblog.greenpeace.org/makingwaves/DefendingOurPacific.pdf
(3) PNA Members - Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu
(4) http://www.greenpeace.org/pacific_marine_reserves_map