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‘Let fishing nations pay $400M’
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Posted on Oct 17 2006
[B]SUVA, Fiji Islands[/B]—Pacific island governments should call on Japan and other fishing nations to immediately pay $400 million to them, according to a Greenpeace official.
Greenpeace Australia Pacific Oceans Team leader Nilesh Goundar made the comments in light of revelations in a report by the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin tuna that found Japan had illegally caught up to $6 billion worth of tuna over the past 20 years.
“If this is happening in the Southern Ocean imagine what is going on in the Pacific and around the world,” he said.
Goundar said it is estimated that in the Pacific region pirates take up to four times in license fees and globally pirates steal up to $9 billion worth of fish a year.
“Even where foreign fishing fleets pay in return for access to a Pacific country’s fishing grounds, the financial returns from these access fees and licenses are worth a pittance of the total value of fish caught, often a mere 5 per cent of the $2 billion that the fish is worth when it reaches the international market,” he said.
Goundar said Pacific island governments must not allow foreign industrial fishing nations like Japan to hoodwink them into plundering their oceans.
“The 20 Pacific Island countries rely upon their oceans as a crucial economic resource as tuna fisheries make up to 40 percent of GDP for some states and is the primary protein source in their diet,” he said.
Greenpeace has recently launched a science report highlighting the conservation and management of Big-eye and Yellow fin tuna, which is now in a critically overfished state in the Pacific.
Greenpeace is on a Defending Our Oceans expedition in the Pacific exposing the scale and threats of overfishing and pirate fishing in the region. Greenpeace is campaigning for a global network of marine reserves covering 40 percent of the world’s oceans. The tour is part of Greenpeace’s 15-month global expedition.
Greenpeace is an independent, campaigning organization, which uses non-violent, creative confrontation to expose global environmental problems and to force solutions essential to a green and peaceful future. [B][I](PR)[/I][/B]
