With this delisting, Norma is the first supermarket in Europe to
react to Greenpeace's warning not to buy tuna from four Spanish and
Ecuadorian companies that have been involved in pirate fishing in
the West and Central Pacific Ocean. The companies named are Nirsa,
Albacora, Conservas Garavilla SA and Calvopesca.
"We applaud the move by Norma to remove tins of suspect tuna
from the shelves of their Austrian and German outlets. Norma has
become the first European supermarket to take a stand against
pirate fishing in the Pacific," said Greenpeace oceans campaigner
Antje Helms. "If retailers and purchasers buy tuna from these
companies, they cannot be sure the product is legal. Ceasing to do
business with these firms is the only way for retailers and the
public to avoid being unwittingly caught up in the trade and
marketing of stolen goods," said Helms. "These fish are stolen from
the plates of people in the Pacific."
Norma is a European food discounter with headquarters in Germany
and 1,300 shops in Germany, Austria, France and Czech Republic.
After Greenpeace in Austria started its sustainable seafood
campaign in 2006, Norma quickly cleared its shelves of "Red
Listed"[1] species and switched their procurement policies to
guarantee traceability for their fresh and frozen fish products. In
November 2006, they led the league table of Austrian supermarkets
ranked according to the sustainability of their seafood.
"The world's tuna stocks are in a dire state due to rampant
legal and illegal overfishing. Two key species from the Pacific,
the bigeye and yellowfin, are now also seriously depleted.
Retailers like Norma have the power to stop illegal fishing by
simply refusing to sell stolen tuna," said Greenpeace International
Oceans Campaigner Sari Tolvanen. "Retailers have to demand full
traceability of their seafood products, and then act, as Norma has
done, to ensure their customers are not complicit in driving tuna
toward extinction," she added.
Greenpeace is campaigning for a halving of all tuna fishing in
the Pacific in order to ensure the long-term sustainability of
fisheries, a ban on all transshipments (offload of catch) at sea,
and a global network of no-take marine reserves protecting 40 per
cent of the world's oceans.
VVPR info: Antje Helms, Greenpeace Austria, in Vienna +43 664 2148952Sari Tolvanen, Greenpeace International, in Sydney +31 65 512 5480
Notes: [1] Greenpeace Central and Eastern Europe's Red list of threatened fish species is available at http://marktcheck.greenpeace.at/fischfuehrer
Exp. contact date: 2007-10-12 00:00:00