{"id":7626,"date":"2016-05-19T00:30:00","date_gmt":"2016-05-19T00:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dev.p4.greenpeace.org\/post\/the-battle-against-destructive-fishing-goes-from-sea-to-shelf\/"},"modified":"2019-11-06T09:49:27","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T08:49:27","slug":"the-battle-against-destructive-fishing-goes-from-sea-to-shelf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/story\/7626\/the-battle-against-destructive-fishing-goes-from-sea-to-shelf\/","title":{"rendered":"The battle against destructive fishing goes from sea to shelf"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the defining symbols of Greenpeace is our ships. The ability to reach areas of the world that are inaccessible to others is what allows this global movement to tackle environmental malfeasance head-on, wherever it takes place.

That\u2019s why, for the past few weeks, the Esperanza<\/a> has hunted reckless fishing vessels in the Indian Ocean, going straight to the heart of where the industry doesn\u2019t want us to \u2013 and where many can\u2019t reach. In that time, we\u2019ve hauled dozens of FADs<\/a> (Fish Aggregating Devices) from the sea, sparing countless sharks and other bycatch from death in the nets of some of the fishing vessels supplying Thai Union. We\u2019ve sent a message to their headquarters that people won\u2019t stand for it.<\/p>\n

\"The

Aerial view of the Esperanza in the Indian Ocean<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s not just the ability to sail the seas that enables us to do this. The Indian Ocean stretches for over 10,000 km from East to West, covering well over 70 million sq km\u00a0and more than one fifth of the world\u2019s ocean area. (Short version: it\u2019s big.<\/a>) Scouring an area this size<\/a> for the visible beacons (about the size of a shoebox) can be like hunting for a needle in a haystack \u2013\u00a0or it would be if you didn\u2019t have the right tools.<\/p>\n

\"Crew

Greenpeace crew member looking through binoculars during his FAD (fish aggregation device) watch on the ship’s monkey island<\/p><\/div>\n

Fortunately, the Esperanza is also equipped with cutting-edge surveillance technology. On board there are solar-powered UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) with a range of\u00a0100 km and the ability to photograph a 10 sq km area, an underwater ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) for monitoring and some of the most powerful and sophisticated marine binoculars out there. With these tools we\u2019re making it harder and harder for unscrupulous fishing vessels supplying Thai Union to hide their destructive practices.<\/p>\n

\"ROV

ROV dispatched to inspect a FAD in the Indian Ocean<\/p><\/div>\n

Meanwhile, with the ship\u2019s crew locating and retrieving FADs by the bucketload every day, storage and upcycling are also vital. The buoys and nets are \u2013\u00a0as the fish stocks of these industrially plundered seas should be \u2013\u00a0returned to artisanal local fishermen in coastal communities. The remaining components in the beacons are repurposed by tinkering crew members as solar-powered lamps and phone chargers.<\/p>\n

\"Esperanza

Esperanza crew creating lamp from reconstructed FAD beacon<\/p><\/div>\n

If that all sounds impressive, you ain\u2019t seen nothing yet. As if challenging Thai Union\u2019s reckless practices at sea wasn\u2019t enough, the company has more problems waiting for it on land. Where Thai Union FADs hide under the surface, we\u2019re ramping up the hunt. Where Thai Union\u2019s destructive supply chain goes from sea to shelf, we\u2019ll be waiting.<\/p>\n

The wave against Thai Union is rumbling out at sea and it\u2019s about to crash onto land.<\/p>\n

Tom Lowe is Multimedia Editor for the Communicaitons Hub at Greenpeace International, on board the Esperanza.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the defining symbols of Greenpeace is our ships. The ability to reach areas of the world that are inaccessible to others is what allows this global movement to tackle environmental malfeasance head-on, wherever it takes place.That\u2019s why, for the past few weeks, the Esperanza has hunted reckless fishing vessels in the Indian Ocean, going straight to the heart of where the industry doesn\u2019t want us to \u2013 and where many can\u2019t reach. In that time, we\u2019ve hauled dozens of FADs (Fish Aggregating Devices) from the sea, sparing countless sharks and other bycatch from death in the nets of some of the fishing vessels supplying Thai Union. We\u2019ve sent a message to their headquarters that people won\u2019t stand for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":7627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_planet4_optimize_post_is_variant":false,"_planet4_optimize_experiment_name":"","_planet4_optimize_variant_name":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70,99],"tags":[85,20],"p4-page-type":[59],"class_list":["post-7626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nature","category-ships","tag-oceans","tag-esperanza","p4-page-type-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7626"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26178,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7626\/revisions\/26178"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7626"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=7626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}