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Greenpeace targets Thailand tuna conference
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Thailand: Greenpeace has called on the world’s tuna industry, gathering in Bangkok for its biannual trade conference, to abandon what it calls wasteful fishing methods - particularly the use of Fish Aggregation Devices (FADs) to attract fish to purse-seine fishing nets- in order to rescue the world’s
“Business as usual for the tuna industry will mean no more tuna, no more tuna fishing,” said Lagi Toribau, Greenpeace oceans campaigner.
“Time and tuna are running out - the fishing methods used by the companies gathered here are not only wiping out juvenile tuna, but also sharks and turtles. The crises induced by wasteful fishing can and should be ended here in Bangkok.”
The FADs used with purse seine nets are the main cause of the decline in bigeye and yellowfin tuna stocks and the huge, unsustainable, increases in the world’s skipjack tuna fishing, according to Greenpeace.
Up to 80 percent of the world’s tinned tuna brands have formed the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) (3), the proclaimed mission of which is to “undertake science-based initiatives for the long-term conservation and sustainable use of tuna stocks, reducing bycatch and promoting ecosystem health”.
ISSF member companies, also present in Bangkok, are either large producers or processors of tuna caught using FADs and contribute to the decline of tuna, sharks, turtles and other vulnerable marine life.
Greenpeace is urging the ISSF to stop sourcing purse seine FAD-caught tuna. Greenpeace is also calling upon retailers to not buy tuna from the companies that refuse to move away from FAD’s, including ISSF companies such as Princes, Bumble Bee/Clover Leaf and others.
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