Fish around a FAD in the Pacific Ocean
School of fish around a fish aggregation device or FAD in the Western Pacific. In addition to a total ban on purse seine fishing using FADs, Greenpeace is calling on members of the WCPFC to reduce by half the regional tuna catches and close all four Pacific high seas pockets from fishing. These measures are needed to save the remaining commercially valuable tuna stocks from collapse.
© Paul Hilton / Greenpeace
Greenpeace has again shed light on the careless and wasteful fishing practices that are rife throughout our oceans with the release of shocking new video footage, captured by a tuna industry whistleblower.
The video footage that was released internationally today reveals the routine careless slaughter of marine species, including whale sharks, rays and whales, as purse-seine vessels deploying Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) cut a swathe through the Pacific Ocean.
WARNING: Some scenes in this video may offend sensitive viewers.
Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) are floating devices used to attract fish to the surface, and are one of the most aggressive fishing operations used by the industry in the face of fish populations that are declining due to overfishing.
In simple terms, it shows us what really goes in to our cans of tuna.
“Consumers have the right to know what is destroyed and discarded in order to fill their cans with tuna,” said Sari Tolvanen, Greenpeace International oceans campaigner.
Without significant changes to global fishing practices and more protected marine reserves across the world’s seas, we will literally fish away future tuna supplies, jobs and healthy oceans.
“The tuna fishing industry is at a crossroads: continuing business as usual is simply handing our children empty oceans, empty nets and empty plates and bellies”, continued Tolvanen.
Africa faces a similar future, with overfishing taking a serious toll on West African seas. Here, rampant overfishing will not only leave empty nets, but also an empty future for the hundreds of thousands of Africans who depend on the fishing industry for their livelihoods.
Greenpeace is campaigning globally for nations to ban all fishing in the Pacific Commons and to ban the use of FADs with purse seines across the Western and Central Pacific, and is also demanding that tuna fishing across the Western and Central Pacific be cut in half.
In Africa, we are calling for fewer foreign trawlers and factory ships at sea, sustainable fishing practices and the establishment of a network of marine reserves to let fish stocks recover and protect the ecosystem. Current fisheries agreements should be scrapped and replaced with sustainable ones that benefit West African countries first and foremost.
These are necessary steps to a future of fish and healthy, living oceans.
Add your voice to our call for to stop the plunder of African oceans.