The latest from Greenpeace

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?

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

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-Australia


http://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. 

 http://iss-foundation.org/2012/09/20/management-of-baitfisheries-that-support-pole-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 

http://johnwest.com.au/~/media/Files/PDFs/John%20West/04-12-12-IPNLF_Baitfish_Report_%20pdf.pdf

The Maldivian Tuna Livebait Fishery - Status and Trends - By R. Charles Anderson, Marine Research Section, Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture Malé, Republic of Maldives

http://www.fao.org/docrep/X5623E/x5623e0k.htm

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. 

http://www.rejectjohnwest.com/

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

http://www.facebook.com/greenpeaceaustraliapacific?ref=ts&fref=ts

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

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.

http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/tuna/

http://www.saveourseafood.com.au/our-supporters/