US seafood manufacturers and suppliers are being petitioned to stop biodiversity loss in their supply chains.
The call from Greenpeace US follows a recent report from the New Zealand Department of Conservation (DOC) report, which shows that 58 protected sea turtles, were caught as bycatch in the last year alone.
“As one of the largest importers of seafood from New Zealand, the US is implicated in this destruction of biodiversity by the New Zealand commercial fishing industry,” said Mallika Talwar, senior oceans campaigner, Greenpeace USA.
”Americans want to know that the food they are consuming is free from the destruction of iconic and protected species like the leatherback turtle. It is high time that seafood producers and retailers that include these tainted products in their supply chain step up to ensure these practices are stopped.”
Boycott calls
The report shows that New Zealand’s sea turtle bycatch tripled in the fishing year 2020 – 2021 compared to the previous decade’s average. In Hawai’i, an annual limit of 16 leatherback turtle captures is enough to close the fishery for the rest of the year.
Greenpeace Aotearoa oceans campaigner Ellie Hooper said that the NZ Government needs to step in and regulate commercial fisheries.
“This report shows that New Zealand fisheries caught 58 turtles in one fishing year – that’s a number that would have closed the fishery if it was operating in a country like the United States. But in New Zealand, there is no such limit. Commercial fishing here can catch protected species in huge numbers and no action is taken. That goes for these turtles and for protected corals too.”
Greenpeace said that the DOC report has been released in the same week New Zealand representatives are attending the UNGA workshop in New York on bottom trawling, where they are advocating an approach that would see seamount ecosystems legally destroyed.
Hooper added: “Rather than admit that New Zealand’s commercial fishing industry urgently needs to change, the Government continues to defend them, talking a big game on the world stage and hoping our clean and green image precedes us internationally. Commercial fishing has all but wiped out our smallest native dolphin. They’re catching endangered turtles at a terrifying rate. And they’re trashing protected coral in our own backyard, Australian waters and the South Pacific.”
