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Greenpeace/Hofford
Killed alongside the skipjack tuna that finds itself in your tin is almost the entire cast list of Finding Nemo.
Charles Clover Canned tuna is Australias favourite seafood, but our voracious appetite is having a devastating impact. Almost all of our tuna comes from the Pacific and after only a few decades of industrial fishing, most if not all of the commercial tuna species are now exploited at unsustainable long-term levels.
We have a choice. Either we force our favourite brands to change the way they source their fish, or we face the real possibility that our children will be the last generation to have tuna in their sandwiches. Less well-known is the effect tuna fishing is having on other species. As a result of wasteful fishing methods, our tuna catch is causing the widespread death of endangered and threatened marine animals including sharks, rays, dolphins and turtles known collectively as bycatch. In tuna purse seine fisheries using Fish Aggregation Devices, or FADs, for every 10kg
catch, up to 1 kg is bycatch and a further 2kg is juvenile tuna meaning that it is too young to reproduce.
Safcols future depends on the health and sustainability of the ocean. We know that fish stocks around the world are in decline and many fishing practices are destructive and wasteful. The switch to 100% pole and line, and dropping yellowfin for skipjack, were in the end obvious choices.
Andrew Mitchell, CEO, Safcol Australia.
Greenpeace/Hilton
FADS
FADs are floating objects, often equipped with satellite-linked sonar devices, which are used to attract tuna. Tuna gather around the FADs, allowing them to be scooped up in vast nets known as purse seines. These purse seines consist of a huge curtain of net that encircles a school of tuna and then closes when a line is pulled, much like a draw-string purse. It is estimated that around 70% of the total global purse seine catch is taken using FADs.1 The problem is, FADs attract all manner of marine life, not just tuna this gets scooped up too and is known as bycatch. The global tuna industry knows it has a bycatch problem. The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) which counts as its members the global giants of the tuna trading industry agrees that when used without FADs, purse seine fishing has
Greenpeace/Hilton
an average by-catch rate of less than 1 percent (0.5-1%).2 When used in combination with FADs, the bycatch is typically ten times greater 3 and can be much worse. Most of this is made up of sharks and rays although whales, dolphins and turtles are also common casualties. But the problem is many times greater when you include the bycatch of juvenile tuna from highvalue, at-risk species. According to the ISSF, purse seine fishing on FADs can also lead to greater catches of small tuna, typically of the bigeye and yellowfin species. This can represent 15-20% of the catch4 Globally, it is estimated that FAD associated bycatch in purse seine fisheries may now be as high as 182,500 tonnes annually.5 This global bycatch would fill the equivalent of nearly 1 billion cans of tuna every year.6
Greenseas customers expect a sustainable product and we recognise the need to improve our footprint. Purse seining for skipjack using FADs is having an unsustainable impact on bigeye and yellowfin stocks, as well as other marine life, in the Pacific. We feel it is important to phase out FAD use, to ensure the long-term viability of Pacific tuna fisheries.
Heinz Australia (Owner of the Greenseas tuna brand)
Greenpeace/Hilton
Turtles
A recent study has shown that the 85,000 turtles officially recorded as killed annually in global fisheries may be a gross underestimation.13 The main sources of turtle deaths are long line, gillnet and trawl fisheries, but purse seines using FADs can also be responsible for killing turtles. Research from the Pacific region shows 750-2,500 purse seine turtle deaths annually between 1994-2004. Bycatch from fishing with purse seines and FADs may cause problems for Pacific turtle populations14 which are found entangled in nets both below the FADs and on top where they frequently climb up to rest.15 All five Pacific sea turtles are listed as critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable on the IUCN red list.16 All turtles are protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), Appendix 1, making international trade illegal. Zero by-catch should be
Greenpeace/Hofford
Greenpeace/Hofford
the goal of every fishery that comes into contact with turtles. Remarkably, resistance to change remains entrenched. Industry is reluctant to change if it results in a smaller tuna catch. The summary of a 2009 ISSF workshop with tuna experts and skippers of purse seine vessels noted with regards to bycatch mitigation techniques that if it is good for turtles but bad for fishing, it wont be adopted.17
For each 1,000 tons of yellowfin tuna caught in FAD sets over three years, fishermen caught nearly 111,000 other individual animals, including turtles, sharks, rays and marlins.18
PURSE SEINE FISHING WITH FADS RESULTS IN 10X GREATER BYCATCH THAN WITHOUT
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
RTHS
per annum
ARE
and rising
THE SOLUTIONS: POLE AND LINE FISHING MARINE RESERVES PURSE SEINING WITHOUT FADS
OVER EXPLOITED
per annum
1M 1966 1.75M
4.3M
1976
1986
1996
75% of sharks and rays are under threat and many more are endangered. Shark finning is on the increase.
Turtles
Purse seining on FADs is killing high numbers of bigeye and yellowfin both over-fished and in rapid decline.
182,500
Tonnes of FAD bycatch in purse seine tuna fisheries per year. Thats equivalent to almost
Tuna
Skipjack tuna
WHATS BYCATCH?
Larger bycatch
Juvenile
BIGEYE
Vulnerable
ATLANTIC BLUEFIN
Endangered
BLUEFIN
Critically endangered
Small bycatch
Greenpeace/Behring-Chisholm
Greenpeace/Powell
Overfishing
Taking an overall view, at present it is clear that the global catch level for tuna will not be sustainable unless action is taken.
John West (UK)20 Most canned tuna sold in Australia is a small, relatively short-lived species called skipjack. John West and Greenseas are the brands that sell the most of it. But the more commercially valuable yellowfin and albacore tunas are also sold in cans brands like Sirena and Sole Mare base their business almost entirely on yellowfin. The majority of tuna stocks are in decline and appear set to continue on this downward trajectory as fishing rates are very high. In 2009, 2,467,903 metric tonnes of tuna were caught in the waters of the Pacific the highest ever recorded. This includes bigeye and yellowfin tuna. Globally, yellowfin tuna stocks are in serious decline,19 all four regional stocks of yellowfin are declining and continue to be fished at an alarming rate.20, 21, 22, 23 Yellowfin tuna is fully-exploited and on the brink of being overfished in a region of the Western Central Pacific Ocean (WCPO) where the majority of yellowfin catches are taken. Even previously healthy fisheries are now under pressure. 1.8 million tonnes of skipjack were caught in the WCPO in 2009 also a record. At first that may look like good news but the maximum sustainable yield for skipjack the upper catch limit that should avoid decline was set by fisheries scientists at 1.35 million tonnes. Since this maximum sustainable yield makes no allowance for poor data or poor management, that overexploitation of more than 400,000 tonnes of fish is an incredible risk. Without better management, even stocks of the healthiest remaining species, like skipjack could suffer.25, 26, 27, 28 The increasing pattern of tuna overexploitation and its associated bycatch is exacerbated by the enormous increase in the capacity of tuna purse seine fleets and the proliferation of FADs. Larger boats with greater capacity are chasing fewer and fewer fish. Foreign purse seine ships fishing to supply global markets can catch 3,000 tonnes of tuna in a single trip to the Western and Central Pacific, almost double the entire annual catch that some Pacific Island nations make in their own waters.29 The number of tuna vessels continues to increase worldwide. For example, the US flagged tuna purse seine fleet in the South Pacific more than tripled in size between 2006 and 2009.30
Greenpeace/Hilton
Greenpeace/Hilton
References
1 J. Hallier and D. Gaertner, Drifting fish aggregation devices could act as an ecological trap for tropical tuna species. http://hal.ird.fr/docs/00/26/91/72/PDF/Hallier_ GaertnerMEPS7180_Prev2.pdf ISSF, FAD: Fact Aggregating Document, http://iss-foundation.org/wp-content/uploads/ downloads/2011/05/FAD-document.pdf Ibid. Ibid. Calculation based on the FAO estimates that total purse seine catches were 2.607.201 MT in 2007. 70% FAD with 10% bycatch. Greenpeace International, A Growing FAD: Kobe-II Bycatch Workshop, Brisbane 23-25 June 2010. It had previously been estimated that total bycatch from the use of FADs amounted to some 100,000 tonnes every year: T. Dempster and M. Taquet Fadbase and Future Directions for Ecological Studies of Fad-Associated Fish, 2005. www. spc.int/coastfish/news/Fish_News/112/ Dempster_112.pdf [accessed15.12.10] 16. 987,325,000 cans of tuna (i.e. almost 1 billion 185g cans) M.D. Camhi et al (2009). The Conservation Status of Pelagic Sharks and Rays. Report of the IUCN Shark Specialist Group Pelagic Shark Red List Workshop. Tubney House, University of Oxford, UK, 1923 February 2007 http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/ ssg_pelagic_report_final.pdf N.K. Dulvy et al, 2008, You can swim but you cant hide: the global status and conservation of oceanic pelagic sharks and rays, Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, 18: 459-482 (2008). http:// onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aqc.975/ pdf [accessed 16.10.12] M.D. Camhi et al (2009). The Conservation Status of Pelagic Sharks and Rays. Report of the IUCN Shark Specialist Group Pelagic Shark Red List Workshop. Tubney House, University of Oxford, UK, 19-23 February 2007. http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/ ssg_pelagic_report_final.pdf and reported (typically<1% of total fleets), and to a global lack of bycatch information from small scale fisheries, this likely underestimates the true total by at least two orders of magnitude, Wallace et al, 2010. Global patterns of marine turtle bycatch. http:// onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1755263X.2010.00105.x/full [accessed 9.12.10] 14 D. Bromhead et al, Review of the impact of fish aggregating devices (FADs) on Global Tuna Fisheries, 2003 15 J. Franco et al , Design Of Ecological Fads, 2009. www.iotc.org/files/proceedings/2009/ wpeb/IOTC-2009-WPEB-16.pdf 16 IUCN Red List Categories: Vulnerable: high risk of extinction in the wild; Endangered: very high risk of extinction in the wild; Critically Endangered: extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. www.iucn.org/about/work/ programmes/species/red_list/about_the_red_ list/ [accessed 16.12.10] 17 ISSF Meeting on mitigation of bycatches in the Tuna Purse seine Floating Object fisheries Final Report AZTI Sukarrieta, Spain, 24-27 November 2009. www.iss-foundation.org/ FileContents.phx?fileid=e7f00ec6-01eb-4ba79ede-42f229199955 [accessed 16.12.10] 18 M. Hall, Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission reported in Forbes. http://www. forbes.com/2008/07/24/dolphin-safe-tunatechpaperplastic08-cx_ee_0724fishing_2.html 19 Seafood Watch Seafood Report, Yellowfintuna. www.montereybayaquarium. org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/content/media/ MBA_SeafoodWatch_YellowfinTunaReport. pdf Seafood Watch Seafood Report, Bigeye tuna. www.montereybayaquarium. org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/content/media/ MBA. SeafoodWatch_BigeyeTunaReport. pdf Western Pacific Fisheries Management Council, Press release, 21 August 2007. www.wpcouncil.org/press/2007.08.21%20 Press%20Release%20on%20WCPFC%20 SC3.pdf and www.iss-foundation.org/tsm 20 WCPFC (2009). The Commission for the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. Scientific Committee Fifth Regular Session, 1021 August 2009, Port Vila, Vanuatu. Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), Kolonia, Pohnpei. www.wcpfc.int/doc/ summaryreportpre-edited-version 21 WCPFC (2010). The Commission for the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. Scientific Committee Sixth Regular Session, 10-19 August 2010, Nukualofa, Tonga. Summary Report. Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), Kolonia, Pohnpei. www.wcpfc.int/ node/2751 22 IATTC (2010). The Fishery for Tunas and Billfishes in the Eastern Pacific Ocean in 2008. Fisheries Status Report No 7. Inter-American tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), La Jolla California, USA. www. iattc.org/PDFFiles2/FisheryStatusReports/ FisheryStatusReport7ENG.pdf 23 IOTC (2009). Report of the Eleventh Session of the IOTC Working Party on Tropical Tunas, Mombasa, Kenya, 15-23 October 2009. Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC), Victoria, Seychelles. www.iotc.org/ files/proceedings/2009/wptt/IOTC-2009WPTTR%5BE%5D.pdf 24 WCPFC (2010). Summary report of the sixth regular session of the scientific committee. http://www.wcpfc.int/node/2751 25 IOTC (2009). IOTC Report of the Twelfth Session of the Scientific Committee, Victoria, Seychelles, 30 November-4 December, 2009 IOTC-2009-SC-R[E]. www.iotc.org/ files/proceedings/2009/sc/IOTC-2009-SCR%5BE%5D.pdf 26 ICCAT (2008). Skipjack executive summary. In: Report of the 2008 ICCAT yellowfin and skipjack stock assessments meeting. Florianpolis, Brazil, 2129 July 2008. SCRS/2008/016 YFT & SKJ Assessment. www.iccat.int/Documents/SCRS/ExecSum/ SKJ_EN.pdf 27 IATTC (2010). Fishery Status Report 7. Tunas and billfishes in the Eastern Pacific oceans in 2008. Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission. La Jolla, California 2010. www.iattc.org/PDFFiles2/IATTC-80-05-Tunasand-billfishes-in-the-EPO-2008.pdf 28 WCPFC 2010. The Commission for the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific. Ocean Scientific Committee Fifth Regular Session Port Vila, Vanuatu 10-21 August 2009. Summary report. http://www.wcpfc.int/meetings/2009/5thregular-sessionscientific-committee 29 WCPFC Area Catch Value Estimates 2009. http://ffa.int/node/425#attachments [accessed 16.12.10] 30 www.ntsb.gov/events/forum_fishing_vessel_ safety/Background/2010%2004%2030%20 DHS%20Distant%20Water%20Tuna%20 Fleet%20Report.pdf [accessed 14.12.10] 31 World Bank 2008, quoted in Island Business, 2011 http://www. islandsbusiness.com/islands_business/ index_dynamic/containerNameToReplac e=MiddleMiddle/focusModuleID=19010/ overideSkinName=issueArticle-full.tpl 32 UN FAO, http://km.fao.org/FIGISwiki/index. php/FishStatJ_download
3 4 5
6 7
10 www.iucnredlist.org/ 11 WCPFC Scientific Committee 7, Prospects for effective conservation of bigeye tuna stocks in the Western Central Pacific Ocean, Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia, 9-17 August, 2011. 12 University of Hawaii, The Associative Dynamics of Tropical Tuna to a Large-Scale Anchored Fad Array,2008. http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/PFRP/biology/ holland_itano_png.html 13 The total reported global marine turtle bycatch was~85,000 turtles, but due to the small percentage of fishing effort observed
The balance of power between the fishing fleets and tuna has shifted too far in favour of the fleets.
Profesor Callum Roberts, University of York
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Cover Image: Greenpeace/Hofford