Wrapping up the Mediterranean

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Greenpeace activists from the Rainbow Warrior create a syymbolic "tuna graveyard" with mock crosses inside a tuna ranch in Cartagena, Southeast Spain.

During the tour that started with the launch of the Greenpeace tuna report onboard the Esperanza in Barcelona, we've confirmed our worst fears about the threats facing the Mediterranean Sea.  Bluefin tuna are being plundered, illegal driftnets known as "walls of death" continue to be used despite their prohibition and the rampant overdevelopment of the Mediterranean coastline is destroying coastal ecosytems.

However, as we showed with the proposal for a network of marine reserves for the Mediterranean, there is still hope.

As the Rainbow Warrior concludes the 2006 tour of the Mediterranean, we look back on some of the highlights and many suprises from the past three months. From diving and documenting the beauty below the surface, confiscating illegal driftnets and rescuing sailors from sinking boats to being blockaded by the fishermen in Marseille, it's certainly been a memorable tour.

"The Mediterranean is in desperate need of a sea change - literally. The large industrial fishing fleets are out of control, the tuna ranches are out of control, the illegal driftnetters are out of control, even the jellyfish are out of control, partly due to its main predators like tuna and sea turtles being wiped out," said Karli Thomas, of Greenpeace International. "A network of marine reserves would guarantee the protection of the Mediterranean species and their habitat and definitely help to reverse the fishery's decline."

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