Ending the days of plunder: halting the pirates

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Activists prevent four pirate fishing trawlers from leaving Rostock harbour. The ships were involved in the collapse of redfish stocks in the North Atlantic in 2005.

We've already called on the German government in the past to preventthese same fishing vessels leaving port. Back in December last year,they were called the Oyra, Ostroe, Okhotino, Olchan and Ostrovets. In2005, they were involved in the collapse of the redfish stocks of theNorth Atlantic. Now their owners have changed the ships' registrationsand they're named like a Spanish chorus line: Eva, Junita, Rosita,Isabella and Carmen, and are registered to a new flag state: Georgia.But the German government didn't stop them setting out again, so wedid.

Andrea Cederquist, marine biologist at Greenpeace Germany,says the fact that the German government allows known pirate fishingvessels to set sail is incredible. "Knowing these ships are leavingport without making sure they will keep to international fisheryagreements in future is unacceptable," she added.

Update - The One That Didn't GetAway
Under cover of darkness, the fifth vessel inthe blacklisted fleet sneakedaway to Poland. Our activists have paid a visit to the Carmen, in the portof Swinoujscie, wrappingit in chains and hanging a banner that reads "Stop PirateFishing".

TheCarmen is currently in dry dock, presumably in preparation for anotherbout of pirate fishing. As in Germany, where the sister vessels wereillegally re-supplied, the Polish government are so far ignoring theirobligation to prevent the Carmen from re-supplying, despite its beingblacklisted for repeated breaches of European, north east and northwest Atlantic fishing regulations.

We have obtained information indicating that these trawlers have settheir sights on either plundering the rich fishing waters off the coastof West Africa (Mauritania) or going farther afield to trawl the depthsof the Pacific. Both are regions where proper controls are lacking andpirate fishing is flourishing.

Pirate fisheriesare estimated to cost countries between 3.4 and 7.6 billion euros eachyear. They also wipe-out the unknown worlds of the deep-sea. Manypirate vessels are engaged in a fishing technique called bottom trawlingwhich is known to cause huge destruction to vulnerable deep-sea marinelife such as cold water corals. Over the next few months, inpartnership with the Environmental Justice Foundation,our ship the Esperanza will expose how fishing pirates in the Atlanticare wiping out marine life and destroying the livelihoods of thecommunities dependent on our oceans for food.

So what needs to be done to stop this? Our Oceans Campaigner SariTolvanen thinks governments should put their money where their mouth is- and now. "They need to stop these boats from leaving port and supporta United Nations moratorium on high seas bottom trawling. This wouldsend a signal to pirates that their days of plundering the oceans areover," she said.

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