The Rainbow Warrior in Croatia during the meeting being held in Dubrovnik.
This week the European Union, led by France and Italy, torpedoed
attempts by the United States to properly regulate the number of
tuna caught each year, during the International Commission for the
Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) meeting. (ICCAT was also
known by the Rainbow Warrior team as "I Catch Crazy Amounts of
Tuna".)
The EU Commission even failed to agree to stop fishing during
most of the spawning season. In an almost humourous moment, they
called this a "recovery plan".
Profits and pirates
Our Oceans Campaigner Sebastian Losada
points out how crazy it is. "The Mediterranean tuna fishing
industry wants to keep running their business as if nothing is
happening. They are wiping out the stocks and destroying their own
futures. The European Community has now given them license to wipe
out one of the most valuable fish in the Mediterranean. It is
predicted that within a few years the bluefin tuna will face
extinction".
In addition to ignoring the science, EU officials also blocked
attempts to stop pirate fishing. In essence, the European Union
has sided with the criminals, in this case the French and Italian
tuna mafia. Bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean suffers from one of
the highest rates of illegal catches in the world.
RFMOs - Regularly Failing to Manage our Oceans
The state of the bluefin tuna fishery in the Mediterranean is
yet another clear example of governments and Regional Fisheries
Management Organisations (RMFO) failing to guarantee the
sustainable management of the marine resources they claim to be
responsible for. The same pattern can be seen when you look
closely at any one of the 35 RMFOs currently in place around the
world.
This all gets particularly scary in light of the results of
last week's UN negotiations on high seas bottom trawling. The
result was particularly dissapointing -- governments came really
close to making what could have been a reasonable deal, only to be
blocked at the elevnth hour in the dead of night - literally!
There are only 5 RFMOs that can take measures to protect deep-sea
life and they only cover one quarter of the high seas. Their
record of protection is particularly bad, yet this year again,
states championed RFMOs as the answer to the world's fishery
problems.
Bottom trawling - about the short-term bottom line
Little wonder some of us have changed
the acronym RFMO (Regional Fisheries Management Organisation) to
'Regularly Failing to Manage our Oceans'. Even more worrying is
that with Iceland leading the charge, the negotiations in New York
completely failed to regulate the 75 percent of the high seas where
no RMFOs that regulate bottom trawling currently exist. This means
that countries are left to monitor their own vessels -- which is
what they are supposed to do already. It's not hard to see that
countries with influential fishing industries more focused on the
short-term bottom line than the longer term health of our oceans
feel that they can go out and fish as much as they want and can
keep doing just that -- because so far, nobody is stopping
them.
Fisheries crisis, management failure
Despite a recent scientific report indicating that based upon
current trends, most commercial fisheries could be in a state of
collapse by 2048, the harsh reality is that the political
mechanisms designed to protect ocean life and ensure sustainable
use are failing left, right and center.
The decision-making is biased so that those with the most money
at stake in a particular fishery can keep blocking conservation
and management measures regardless of scientific or majority
opinion. Making matters worse, the process is so untransparent
that only those with interests in the fishery have the right to
know what is going on. While this is the case, we have very little
hope of reversing the current crisis facing our oceans.
Governments: Notice is hereby served
But there are two other things that
governments will have learned from the meetings in New York and
Dubrovnik: we are watching, we are bearing witness, and we will
not let the plunder of our marine environment go by unnoticed.
To those who think they have won at both meetings, notice is
hereby served: the global community has woken up to the current
state of the world's fisheries. Momentum is building for change.
Business as usual may have its place for one more year in the Med,
and high seas bottom trawlers may be able to avoid regulation in
the high seas for just a bit longer.
But there is a sea-change on the horizon and we believe that
sooner rather than later, the interests of these fishing states
are going to be challenged. Challenged because there will simply
be less fish. And challenged because more and more countries,
scientists and citizens are not going to stand for this
mismanagement any longer. The world's governments must wake up to
this fact and ensure that RMFOs are fundamentally changed. They
should stop looking after the interests of only those who make
money from fishing in the short-term, but also the interest of the
fragile ecosystems and the benefits sustainable use will bring in
the long term.
Defending Our Oceans
We will be there every step of the
way. We are not defeated. It may take a bit longer than
governments want to admit -- and we hope that they will act sooner
rather than later, but Defending Our Oceans is what we do and we
are not about to stop now.