Greenpeace in its relentless attack on John West has released a game app, a "slasher" games app that challenges players to kill as many fish and turtles as it claims canned fish company John West rejects and wastes in tuna fishing.
Based on
the game Fruit Ninja, the grim Greenpeace game, Ocean Apocalypse, gives players
knives, axes and multi-blades to kill fish, turtles, sharks, stingrays and baby
tuna.
Greenpeace
oceans campaigner, Nathaniel Pelle, said John West used fish aggregating
devices that killed fish indiscriminately.They also go on to make a claim that
10% of the catch is by-catch something John West rejects (lol). John West claims
that independent scientific observers have put the by-catch at 2%. Skip Jack
tuna is the makes up about 98% of the species John West use. Skip Jack tuna are
the most sustainable tuna species.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/greenpeaces-killer-video-game-cans-john-west-20121026-28a74.html
Greenpeace goes on further in its attack and recommends brands that use pole and line fishing, know how pole and line fishing works, is first of all they catch a hole pile of live bait inshore, then go off shore releasing the live bait to get the tuna into a feeding frenzy as they use poles and lines to catch them. Greenpeace claim that this method has no by-catch, I guess Greenpeace don’t consider the live bait a valuable species.
Pole and-line tuna fishing, currently use about 48,000 tonnes of bait fish per year, the live baitfish fisheries have a number of environmental and social impacts. Potential impacts include a reduction in the amount of forage available for the larger species on which subsistence, commercial fisheries and recreational depend, incidental and deliberate capture of juveniles and of species targeted by artisanal fisheries, overexploitation of live baitfish fisheries and the treat of localised depletion of bait fish.
What will the impact be on this bait fish if everyone is forced to use pole and line fishing methods?
Greenpeace goes on further in its attack and recommends brands that use pole and line fishing, know how pole and line fishing works, is first of all they catch a hole pile of live bait inshore, then go off shore releasing the live bait to get the tuna into a feeding frenzy as they use poles and lines to catch them. Greenpeace claim that this method has no by-catch, I guess Greenpeace don’t consider the live bait a valuable species.
Pole and-line tuna fishing, currently use about 48,000 tonnes of bait fish per year, the live baitfish fisheries have a number of environmental and social impacts. Potential impacts include a reduction in the amount of forage available for the larger species on which subsistence, commercial fisheries and recreational depend, incidental and deliberate capture of juveniles and of species targeted by artisanal fisheries, overexploitation of live baitfish fisheries and the treat of localised depletion of bait fish.
What will the impact be on this bait fish if everyone is forced to use pole and line fishing methods?
Currently only a very small
percentage (10%) of the tuna fisheries use pole and line fishing techniques, in some
areas the lack of bait fish makes this technique almost impossible, and
currently globally this bait fishery is the most under regulated fishery and
under researched species.
Over 90% of the purse seine sets
on FADs are successful compared to only 50% of free schooling tuna, and the
total catch of tuna and weight is also higher.
Currently there are no measures
in place to keep separate FAD free caught tuna, from the FAD caught tuna, for
any real system FAD free tuna needs to be kept separate right through the
supply chain, from the catch, through transportation right to the manufacturing
process.
There was
also an organised attack on the John West's Facebook page, forcing John West to
close its Facebook page to non-Australian and NZ users.
But here is the smoking
gun!
http://www.greenpeacefoundation.org/history/histsub.cfm?hiid=5
SOME MORE LINKS
http://awsassets.wwf.org.au/downloads/pr305b_fact_sheet_john_west_wwf_sustainable_seafood_partnership_7feb12.pdf
http://www.facebook.com/greenpeaceaustraliapacific?ref=ts&fref=ts
That’s right it was Greenpeace
international in a join campaign with Greenpeace Foundation in
1982 during its Dolphin safe campaign, who introduced the FADs to the tuna
fishing industry, they designed them!
(2) Deploy “aggregation device” to
attract schools of tuna and highlight the fact that it was possible to set on
tuna without setting on dolphins. These floating aggregation devices, designed
by Greenpeace Foundation, would be deployed throughout the ETP as possible.
The campaign was a qualified success,
It didn’t not encounter any activity setting tuna boats. It succeeded in
deploying aggregation devices, and in fact tuna boats subsequently took loads
of tuna aggregated from beneath several of the devices! (they featured a
floating information sign with instructions to report successful sets to the
IATTC)
SOME MORE LINKS
In February 2012, John West
Australia & NZ announced a new sustainable Seafood partnership with the world’s
largest conservation organisation, WWF
http://www.wwf.org.au/?3681/John-West-launches-sustainable-seafood-partnership-with-WWF-Australiahttp://awsassets.wwf.org.au/downloads/pr305b_fact_sheet_john_west_wwf_sustainable_seafood_partnership_7feb12.pdf
International Seafood
Sustainability Foundation Management of bait fisheries that support pole and
line tuna fishing.
An account of the dolphin-safe
tuna issue in the UK (Science direct)
http://www.ieep.eu/assets/148/dolphinsafetuna.pdf
IPNLF
(2012). Ensuring Sustainability of Livebait Fish, International Pole-and-line
Foundation, University
of York
The
Maldivian Tuna Livebait Fishery - Status and Trends - By R. Charles Anderson,
Marine Research Section, Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture Malé, Republic
of Maldives
Greenpeace propaganda page, almost nothing in the
video is true, John West have put in place a plan together with the WWF to
ensure all its catch is sustainably sourced by 2015, and they have gone further
than most other companies in signing up with the WWF program.
John West Australia Facebook pagehttp://www.facebook.com/JohnWestAustralia?ref=ts&fref=ts
The Greenpeace spoof of the John
West add
The original John West add
Greenpeace Australia Facebook page
What is
also disturbing it appears that Safcol, aligned themselves with Greenpeace, it’s
probably just coincident that Safcol started an advertising campaign about their
suitable tuna fishing methods only days before Greenpeace started their attack
on John West, if you have a look at the Safol Facebook page you can see for yourself
what Safcol has been up to.
http://www.facebook.com/SafcolAustralia?ref=ts&fref=ts
http://www.facebook.com/SafcolAustralia?ref=ts&fref=ts
While we all expect that anyone in business
would use every advantage they have over a competitor, for someone who is in
the business of fishing to align themselves with a group that’s primary goal is
to see the end of all fishing, is a little short sighted in my opinion.
What is
even more concerning according to the Greenpeace canned tuna guide, Safcol is
listed as “ publicly supporting marine resurves” yet they are also listed as a
supporter on the “Save our Seafood group” a group adamantly against marine
parks in South Australia, looks like they are trying to have a bet each way.
