New York, USA – Greenpeace is demanding governments curb corporate interference in ocean protection as crucial Ocean Treaty talks begin at UN headquarters in New York today.<\/p>\n\n
The talks are expected to have a crucial impact on the power of destructive industrial fishing activity on the high seas, which campaigners say could have \u201ccatastrophic\u201d consequences.[1]<\/p>\n\n
Megan Randles, head of Greenpeace\u2019s delegation to the talks, said:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n \u201cThe fishing industry has been lobbying to weaken the Ocean Treaty for years. We need governments to curb corporate influence now, stop kowtowing to industry pressure, and stop the process from being tied up in delays. If they don\u2019t, the result will be catastrophic for ocean protection. <\/p>\n\n \u201cThe organisations that manage fishing in the high seas have always protected industry interests, that\u2019s why we\u2019re calling for a limit on how much influence they would have on sanctuary proposals, which are urgently needed for the ocean to recover. Governments must not allow the fishing industry\u2019s influence to hold the Treaty process to ransom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n Fully protected sanctuaries would cordon off huge areas of the ocean from destructive human activity, but it\u2019s something that the fishing industry has been lobbying against for years. <\/p>\n\n Greenpeace is calling on governments to curb the influence of fishing industry lobbying before it\u2019s too late, and ensure that fully protected high seas sanctuaries can be created without delay. Governments must therefore impose a maximum 120 day time limit for the review of sanctuary proposals, this would prevent the organisations that control high seas fishing, and fishing industry interests, from stalling the process. These Regional Fishing Management Organisations (RFMOs) have always protected the interests of the fishing industry, overseen the decimation of biodiversity and destruction of entire ecosystems, and therefore must not be allowed to tie up ocean protection in delays.[2] <\/p>\n\n Governments have committed to protecting 30% of the ocean in the next four years, a target that scientists say is the absolute minimum required for the ocean to bounce back from decades of destruction. Making sure that the process of creating sanctuaries isn\u2019t tied up in delays will be vital to this progress. <\/p>\n\n It is in the best interest of the fishing industry that RFMOs retain their power over the high seas.[3] That\u2019s why during the Ocean Treaty negotiations, they lobbied governments hard to ensure that the Treaty wouldn\u2019t undermine RFMO power. They even tried and failed to remove fishing activity from the scope of the Global Ocean Treaty altogether. This would have been a disaster for ocean protection.<\/p>\n\n ENDS<\/p>\n\n Notes: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n To receive a full media briefing please use the contacts below. <\/p>\n\n Contact:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n Florri Burton, Global Media Lead, Oceans Are Life, Greenpeace Nordic, +447896523839, florri.burton@greenpeace.org<\/a>\u00a0 New York, USA \u2013 Greenpeace is demanding governments curb corporate interference in ocean protection, as crucial Ocean Treaty talks begin at UN headquarters in New York today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":81727,"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":"Oceans Are Life","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"Oceans","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[85],"p4-page-type":[98],"class_list":["post-82290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-oceans","p4-page-type-press-release"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82290","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\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82290"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82292,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82290\/revisions\/82292"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82290"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=82290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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Greenpeace International Press Desk: +31 (0)20 718 2470 (available 24 hours), pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"