{"id":6298,"date":"2014-12-10T11:20:00","date_gmt":"2014-12-10T11:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldfishing.nfdtesting.uk\/icefish-conference\/2014\/12\/10\/greenpeace-questions-future-of-pacific-tuna\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T23:58:55","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T22:58:55","slug":"greenpeace-questions-future-of-pacific-tuna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/news\/industry-news\/greenpeace-questions-future-of-pacific-tuna\/","title":{"rendered":"Greenpeace questions future of Pacific tuna"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The WCPFC met in Samoa for the 11<sup>th<\/sup> session last week, but failed to agree on urgently-needed rules to manage Pacific tuna fisheries and give the stock time to recover from overfishing, despite last year\u2019s record-high catch of bigeye tuna by purse seiners using FADs, and the latest stock assessment revealing overfishing has driven the stock down to just 16%.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBigeye tuna are overfished, albacore fisheries are no longer profitable, and yellowfin and even skipjack tuna are starting to buckle under the strain of a fishery out of control,\u201d said Lagi Toribau of Greenpeace Australia Pacific.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe governments represented on this Commission, need to be held accountable by their people. The commission failed to pass a single one of the proposals put forward by Pacific Island Nations to save these fish \u2013 and the fisheries that depend upon them,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Greenpeace says the Commission\u2019s failure to agree is also taking its toll on the region\u2019s albacore fisheries. And China isn\u2019t helping matter, once again refusing to cap it\u2019s fishing of South Pacific albacore after building up to 100 more longline vessels in 2013, despite the declining stocks driving Pacific fleets out of business.<\/p>\n<p>While Pacific countries tried to take matters into their own hands \u2013 agreeing the Tokelau Agreement to work together to manage South Pacific albacore \u2013 distant water fishing nations did not join the effort at the WCPFC, leaving the group high and dry.<\/p>\n<p>Now, Greenpeace says international tuna brands should ensure their suppliers are not involved in driving Pacific fisheries\u2019 collapse, \u201cnor should they partner with distant-water fishing powers that expand their longline fleets or plunder bigeye using FADs, while blocking conservation rules from being adopted\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Sharks are also in trouble as the Commission failed to adopt proposals from the Pacific and European Union that would have clamped down on shark finning. Mr Toribau said: \u201cTuna brands must start behaving ethically and guarantee consumers that their supply chains don\u2019t produce shark fins as well as tuna cans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the absence of real leadership, industry and traders are running Pacific tuna fisheries into the ground. Supporting sustainability protects their viability, and we\u2019re going to start holding them to account if they don\u2019t,\u201d Mr Toribau concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Greenpeace is urging tuna traders and investors to \u201cstart behaving ethically\u201d to ensure a sustainable future for the stock and market after Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) talks failed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6299,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-6298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6298"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6300,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6298\/revisions\/6300"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6298"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=6298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}