Summary

At several United Nations fora during the 1990s, governments, international agencies and NGOs have expressed concern over the sustainability of the world's fisheries, their impact on the marine environment, and the excessive size of the world's fishing fleet. Various resolutions have been adopted calling on countries to review the fishing capacity of their fleets and take action to reduce capacity in line with sustainable fishing. Yet the size of the world's fishing fleet continues to relentlessly increase, without heed to the concerns expressed by the international community. Greenpeace is calling on governments and the fishing industry urgently to implement a number of responsible fishing practices and to reverse overfishing and its adverse impact on marine biodiversity.

Problem Statement

The world's oceans are under increasing threat from overfishing and excessive fishing pressure. Not only have many major fish stocks been depleted but excess fishing pressure is placing many more marine species at risk. From the North Pacific to the Southern Ocean marine mammals, seabirds, sharks and key fish species in the intricate web of marine biodiversity are being overexploited, caught and killed as 'bycatch', or threatened by the large-scale fisheries for species that are critical links in the marine food chain. Furthermore, there has been an increasing flow of fish from southern countries' waters to the markets of Europe, North America and Japan, often at the expense of local, coastal communities and the food security of developing nations.

After rising steadily for decades, world marine fish catches peaked in recent years and have remained at about 80-90 million tons per year. Most catch increase in 1980s came from only five species - sardines, anchovies, pollack, pilchard and jack mackerel - most of which was used to produce food additives, livestock and farmed fish feeds - not for direct human consumption. Numerous other species have reached plateaus in catches, while many higher value species (e.g., cod, hake and haddock) have declined.

At the 1992 Earth Summit, governments agreed that fisheries in many areas face "mounting problems" including "overfishing, unauthorized incursions by foreign fleets, ecosystem degradation, overcapitalization and excessive fleet sizes...insufficiently selective gear, and increasing competition between artisanal and large-scale fishing..." (Agenda 21, para. 17.72). Despite this recognition, a global review of data from 1991-1997 on large-scale, industrial fishing fleets shows that, with the exception of 1995 and 1996, the numbers and tonnage of new vessel construction continues to rise, and that overall the fleet size continues to grow. Furthermore, new vessel construction is specialized toward large vessels using large mid-water trawls, highly automated 'longlines' of up to 50,000 hooks per vessel, and deep water trawl and longline fishing technology.

Governments have failed to address the problem of excessive fleet size, highlighted at the Earth Summit and subsequent UN meetings and agreements - in fact the problem has worsened. There is an urgent need to significantly reduce the size and fishing capacity of the world's industrial fleets to ensure fisheries conservation, minimize the impact of fishing on other marine species, and ensure that interests of coastal and traditional fishing communities are protected.

Some Key Facts

• The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that almost 70% of the world's major fisheries are fully exploited, overexploited, or depleted.
• Some 27 million tons of unwanted fish 'bycatch' is caught, killed and dumped back into the sea each year, because of unselective fishing practices and gear.
• Over 1600 new industrial fishing vessels totalling over 1 million GRT (Gross Registered Tons) were added to the world's fleet between 1991-1995.
• Of the 3.5 million fishing vessels worldwide, about 38,000, or 1% by number, are classified as large-scale, industrial vessels. These vessels, however, constitute 50-60% of the total vessel 'capacity' (measured in GRT) of the world's fishing fleet.
• The UN FAO estimated that in 1989 the world's fishing fleet, primarily the large-scale, industrialized sector, received some $54 billion dollars (US) in subsidies.
• A million people in Asia alone depend on fish as their primary source of animal protein.
• Small-scale, artisanal fisheries produce approximately one half of all fish caught for human consumption.

Greenpeace's Involvement in the Issue

One of the most important outcomes of the 1992 Earth Summit was the agreement to set up the UN Conference on Straddling and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks (1993-1995). Greenpeace was an active and influential participant in the Conference, which produced the most important international fisheries agreement since the conclusion of the Law of the Sea negotiations in 1982. In addition, over the past 5 years Greenpeace has stepped up its efforts in challenging environmentally destructive fishing through confrontations at sea, public education, research, documentation and lobbying.

Amongst the many campaigns around the world that Greenpeace is waging there are:

• Pressuring the government of Italy and the European Union to put an end to high seas driftnet fishing in the Mediterranean by a fleet of some 600 Italian vessels operating in blatant violation of the UN ban on such fishing
• Demanding a moratorium on the fishery for bluefin tuna (one of the world's most valuable and depleted fish species) by Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea and others in the Southern Ocean and an end to the 'incidental' killing of tens of thousands of seabirds in this fishery, including endangered species of albatross
• Calling for the rapid phase-out of factory trawl fishing by a fleet of super trawlers operating in U.S. waters in the North Pacific Ocean
• Challenging some of the world's largest, most destructive fishing vessels. For example, Greenpeace, together with inshore fishermen, recently fought successfully to deny access to fish in Chile's waters to the American Monarch, a new, $65 million dollar (U.S.) state of the art vessel built to catch over 1000 tons of fish per day, owned by one of the largest multinational fishing companies, Aker/RGI, Norway
• Working with a growing network of activist and fishworkers' organizations worldwide to confront the movement of large-scale distant water fishing fleets from the overexploited waters of northern countries to southern countries' waters in search of fish.

Solutions

Globally, Greenpeace is calling on governments and industry to urgently implement ecologically responsible fishing practices and reverse overfishing and its adverse impact on marine biodiversity through

1. Substantial reductions in the numbers and capacity of the world's industrial fishing fleets
2. Eliminating subsidies to destructive fishing practices, large-scale and distant water fishing fleets, and new fishing vessel construction
3. Establishing or strengthening fishing vessel decommissioning schemes;
4. Preventing reflagging and flag of convenience vessels from fishing; and
5. Halting the "export" of large-scale fishing vessels from northern to southern countries waters. We also are calling on all fishing nations to ratify and implement the 1995 UN Agreement on Straddling and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks. This treaty contains detailed conservation measures, requires the application of precaution and the recognition of the interests of artisanal fishers, and obliges governments to prevent or eliminate overfishing and excess fishing capacity.

Relevant Reports

Greenpeace: "Sinking Fast, How Factory Trawlers are Destroying U.S. Fisheries and Marine Ecosystems". 1996

UN FAO: "State of the World's Fisheries and Aquaculture". UN FAO 1995;

UN FAO "State of the World's Fisheries and Aquaculture 1996," UN FAO, 1997

Garcia and Newton, "Current situation, trends and prospects in world capture fisheries". Paper presented at the Conference on Fisheries Management, Seattle, WA USA, 14-16 June 1994

Greenpeace: "Assessment of the World's Industrial Fishing Fleet". (To be published in the latter half of 1997);

Key Contacts

Greenpeace Fisheries/Oceans Campaign,Greenpeace International,
Matthew Gianni, tel:1.415.512.9025, fax:1.415.512.8699, e-mail: mgianni@mail.sfo.us.gl3

Clifton Curtis tel: 1.202.319.2473, fax:1.202.462.4507, e-mail: clif.curtis@wdc.greenpeace.org

or the Greenpeace office nearest you

Fisheries Department, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Rome, Italy
tel: 39.6.522.56423; fax: 39.6.522.53605.