TL: IMPACTS OF COMMERCIAL TUNA FISHING ON OCEANS SO: Greenpeace International (GP) DT: not dated, likely 1992 Keywords: oceans marine mammals dolphins greenpeace reports gp fisheries fish effects tuna / in the race for tuna ... DOLPHINS AREN'T THE ONLY SACRIFICE The Impacts of Commercial Tuna Fishing on Oceans, Marine Life and Human Communities. A report by Greenpeace International (GP) TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION WHAT IS THE IMPACT OF UNREGULATED, UNCONTROLLED COMMERCIAL TUNA FISHING? I. Out of Sight, Yes, But Not Out Of Mind HOW DID WE GET TO THIS DISASTROUS STATE? II. A Massive and Unchecked Expansion WHAT ARE THE IMPACTS ON MARINE ECOSYSTEMS AND OCEAN SPECIES? III. The Environmental Consequences a. Let the Little Tuna Live: The Problems With Hunting Young Tuna b. Animal Sets Kill Many Marine Creatures, Not Only Tuna c. Log Sets: Communities of Ocean Life Destroyed d. The Scale of Bycatch: A World of Waste HOW DO WE SOLVE THESE PROBLEMS? IV. A Global Approach to a Global Crisis a. Regional Systems, No Interconnections b. Global Management Equals Conservation in All Oceans c. Precautionary Management Needed to Stop Overfishing d. Urgent: Bring Commercial Operations Out of Secrecy e. Too Many Vessels Catching Too Few Fish f. Rather Than Bigger Boats, Better Gears Needed For All g. Conservation Will Fail Without Control and Enforcement DO "DOLPHIN SAFE" POLICIES REALLY SOLVE PROBLEMS? V. Corporate Strategies Greenwash In the Name of Dolphins a. The Meaning of "Dolphin Safe" b. Lack of Control on the High Seas c. Little Control on Land d. "Dolphin Safe" Does Not Mean Environmentally Friendly e. Precautionary Approach Not Considered in "Dolphin Safe" Schemes CONCLUSION AND GREENPEACE DEMANDS APPENDIX INTRODUCTION By now people worldwide have heard that dolphins die in commercial tuna fishing. In some industrial countries, public outcry over these dolphin deaths prompted the labelling of some tuna cans as "dolphin safe," supposedly meaning that no dolphins were killed in order to catch the tuna. Unfortunately, this has turned into a public relations-oriented marketing scheme by transnational tuna-corporations. They have used the "dolphin safe" campaign to avoid dealing with the larger global impact of commercial tuna fishing. The tuna industry is a prime example of the global crisis in fisheries. As such, it has been allowed ta develop under a philosophy that ocean life is limitless and available without restraint for private profit. The impacts of commercial tuna fishing, both on the high seas and in the waters of coastal states around the world, go far beyond the one ocean area called the Eastern Tropical Pacific where public attention has been narrowly focused on dolphin deaths. This industry is harming not only tuna, dolphins and many other species, but also may be adversely impacting coastal tuna fishing communities all around the world. The problems caused by commercial tuna fishing are far more extensive and serious than most people may have suspected. Attempting to solve one fraction of a global problem--with "dolphin safe" labels on tuna cans--has resulted in spilling the negative impact of commercial tuna fishing into waters outside the Eastern Pacific Ocean and onto species other than dolphins. The problems in commercial tuna fishing can be solved, but only if they are addressed all together and only if we act now. ; '- The questions this report seeks to examine are: What impact is the massive and unchecked development of commercial tuna fishing having on the delicate balance and health of ocean systems? How many other marine animals are at risk because of commercial tuna fishing? Finally, we must ask what can we do to ensure the kinds of global changes needed to solve these problems? With this report, Greenpeace seeks to provide more insight into the problems caused by commercial tuna fishing in the tropical oceans. These problems range from the disappearance of previously self-sufficient artisanal communities to the capture and death of marine species such as dolphins, sharks and endangered sea-turtles in commercial tuna operations to the lack of international systems to manage, monitor and control the tuna industry. Together, these problems have shaped into a global crisis. WHAT IS THE IMPACT OF UNREGULATED AND UNCONTROLLED COMMERCIAL FISHING DEVELOPMENT? Commercial tuna fishing: Out of sight, yes, but not out of mind Tuna are large, nomadic fish which spend their lives migrating through vast ranges of the open ocean. Though there are many species of tuna, a few are especially prized by the industrialized fishery. This report focuses on the impacts of the huge commercial industries that have developed to exploit the species of tuna which are found in tropical waters: primarily yellowfin, skipjack and bigeye. Tuna are highly migratory species which do not respect political boundaries. Yet governments have spent decades creating a complex web of political boundaries in the oceans to allow industry to maximize their short term economic gains and to avoid comprehensive programmes to conserve tuna and other species. These boundaries come in two forms, which often are at odds with each other. Beginning in the 1950s, nations began claiming jurisdiction over waters up to 200 miles out from their coasts. Governments claimed these Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) often after becoming concerned that foreign fishing fleets were taking much of their fish. Nations also recognized that money could be made through granting access to foreign fishing grounds within their zones. In two areas, regional bodies to manage tuna fishing have been established: the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, and the International Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) in the Atlantic. A third is being negotiated in the Indian Ocean. In these various fora, nations have spent decades arguing over who has the right to exploit the most fish, rather than how best to conserve them. Far too often, only lip service is paid to research into the impact of fishing on other species, the enforcement of the few restrictions that are adopted, and the collection of necessary data. In these disputes, fish are called marine resources and the vast hunting grounds of the fleets operating in national waters are Exclusive Economic Zones. Restricting the debate and its language to economics and politics, without concurrent ecosystem concerns or criteria, has created a dangerous model for the management and conduct of fisheries. It took a decade (1973-1982) to negotiate an international convention to bring some semblance of order to these political disputes, resulting from the massive invasion of commercial fishing technology in the world's oceans. These international negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations resulted in the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Called UNCLOS, this law attempted to set out international standards for fishing (among a wide range of other ocean-related matters), including the need for nations to conserve the fish and to cooperate. Although 56 of the 60 ratifications necessary for the Convention to enter into force have been deposited, some key industrial nations, thus far, have refused to ratify or accede to the Convention, undermining its effectiveness. In addition, no law is effective without regulation and enforcement, and neither of these exist to deal effectively with the international scale of destruction caused by commercial tuna fishing. About 60 percent of the tropical tuna that is hunted globally is captured within national EEZs. Many are zones of lesser developed nations. Often nations strapped for cash and needing to pay back debts are pressured to grant access to more and more fish from their EEZ, in the form of joint ventures or access agreements. These contracts rarely have conservation criteria attached, and these nations often do not have the ability to enforce or control the huge fleets operating in their zones. In addition, such agreements only apply within the 200 mile "Economic" Zone over which nations may claim jurisdiction. No effective regulation exists to control tuna fishing industries operating in the vast reaches of high seas that fall outside of national zones. This often has a double-edged impact on tuna and other marine life, because they are overfished both on the high seas and again within the coastal areas of the EEZs. To make matters worse, few reliable data exist to fully gauge the impacts of commercial tuna fishing on a global scale, and no international coordination exists to analyze the bits and pieces of information that are made available. An inherent problem with regional or national regulations over highly migratory species exploitation that are not linked to a global regime is that when regulations are imposed in one area, the vessels merely take their destruction elsewhere. Because information is not coordinated or exchanged and science is uncertain, the problem is exacerbated by this easy movement of fishing industries around the world. Consequently, the environment and marine life are destroyed in an area, jobs are lost, and the culprits are not around to take responsibility for the environmental or social debts created. As more ships invade different regions of the world's oceans and as catches of tuna drop in one area, the fisheries expand farther and farther offshore. Often capital-intensive tuna vessels exhaust fish stocks in one ocean or region and then simply move, unencumbered by regulations, to another ocean area. After having fully developed fishing grounds in the eastern Atlantic, in 1984 the fleets of France and Spain sailed for the Indian Ocean in search of tuna. Spanish authorities have written that "the immediate reason for this displacement of the fleet was the exceptional low yield of yellowfin" in the Atlantic. In another example; when national regulations were imposed to resolve one part of the tuna industry problem--that of dolphin deaths in purse seine nets in only one ocean area, the Eastern Pacific--the U.S. purse seine fleet merely sailed to the Western Pacific tuna grounds. In that area, the umber of vessels that must carry scientific monitors during fishing trips, for example, is far smaller than in the Eastern Pacific, where 100 percent of the trips are monitored. A popular practice called reflagging is an additional dangerous trend in the industry. All fishing vessels must be registered in a country and fly the flag of that nation. When a nation or a regional body attempts to place restrictions or regulations on the vessels, the ship owners may pay to get a new flag from a country that does not regulate the ships activities. These are called flags of convenience. Today, commercial tuna fishing is one of the only industries that is permitted on a global scale to hunt and harvest natural resources--fish and other marine species--free of charge and out of sight of the public. This has much to do with the long held and fallacious philosophy that the ocean life is limitless and can be stripped without repercussions to the marine life or ocean ecosystems. HOW DID WE GET TO THIS DISASTROUS STATE? A massive and unchecked expansion For centuries, fishermen cast nets by hand or used fishing poles and lines from small craft to catch tuna. Long before the industrial fisheries began in the 1950s, these ancient fishing communities grew along the tropical shores of coastal nations throughout the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Called artisanal fisheries, their ancient origins are difficult to trace. Artisanal fishermen along the Eastern Atlantic coast in Senegal and Sierra Leone in Africa are known to have captured Bonito tunas as long ago as the 17th century. Some of these centuries-old fishing communities exist today, but are fewer in number or disappearing, as are the marine creatures on which their survival depends. Perhaps the last region where small-scale tuna fishing thrives is throughout the Indian Ocean: in the Maldives, Sri Lanka, the Indonesian Islands and Comoros Islands, among others. Intensive fishing for tropical tunas has been later in coming to the Indian Ocean than elsewhere, so artisanal communities may not--as yet--have felt the impact of large scale tuna fishing. The trends in commercial tuna fishing development without accompanying management, regulation or control began around the same time in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The first mechanized baitboats were introduced in the Eastern Pacific in the early 20th century. They were soon all but replaced by fishing technologies that enabled ships to fish more intensively and farther out to sea, primarily purse seiners. Following World War II, with the introduction of advanced technology, industrialized nations began their invasion of the world's oceans to capture tuna destined for the canned and fresh tuna markets in the three primary areas of Japan, the United States and Western Europe. Japan first sailed for the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans in industrial longline ships in the 1950s. Taiwan and Korean longliners were soon to follow. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the United States began building its empire over commercial tuna fishing with purse seine vessels in the Eastern Pacific and Atlantic: the first purse seiner to invade the Atlantic Ocean was the U.S. flagged vessel "The Mayflower" in 1960. France and Spain were not far behind. Tropical tuna catches subsequently exploded. Before 1940, for example, catches of these commercially important tuna species were not higher than 250,000 metric tons a year. By 1971, catches were more than 1 million metric tons a year. Just two decades later, the global harvest of tropical tunas was nearly 3 million tonnes a year. Not surprisingly, stocks of yellowfin around the world, the species most sought after, are overfished, which means that they have been reduced too much and need to be allowed to recover. By the early 1980s, tuna fishing was fast becoming a monopoly: eight nations were catching 80 percent of all the tropical tuna harvested in the world. Over half of this tuna was hunted by Japan and the United States, with the next largest catches by Taiwan, South Korea, France, Spain, the Philippines and Indonesia. Today, commercial purse seiners, equipped with deadly-efficient advanced technology including helicopters, sonar and speed boats, roam the seas of the world. They are accompanied by industrial longliners equipped with freezers for flash freezing tunas. The value of the world catch of raw tuna reached $4 billion in 1990, second only to shrimp as a species group, Massive refrigerated barges ply the oceans, picking up frozen tuna from several fishing vessels in a trip for shipment to docks and canners. Intricate webs of processing, distribution and retailing have emerged to support the fishing industry. The Western Pacific fishery provides a good example of the rapid development of the industrial purse seine fleets. In 1967, purse seiners harvested a mere 1 percent of the total skipjack caught in the region. Baitboats captured the remaining tuna taken that year. By 1991, the purse seine catch of skipjack had expanded to account for 84 percent of the total and baitboats harvested only 16 percent of the skipjack captured in the region that year. Most tuna is shipped to rich markets in Japan, the United States and Western Europe, so commercial tuna hunting operations contribute little to alleviating hunger in the rest of the world. Ironically, most of the tuna comes from tropical waters, where many of the poorest countries are found. Most of the billions of dollars made in the tuna industry is accumulated not by the fishers themselves but, as with most modern food production, by the transnational corporations that own the vessels and canneries and control distribution networks. The complete lack of effective control on commercial tuna fishing operations has led to a destructive race toward over- capitalization of industrialized fleets. It is a model established by industrialized nations such as the United States and now being copied by Latin American and African nations. Governments often exacerbate this over-capitalization by guaranteeing loans or granting subsidies to buy the equipment and keep the ships afloat. This requires commercial tuna fisheries to catch more and more fish to pay back the loans. One super purse seiner--big enough to carry 1,000 metric tons of fish--costs $15 million dollars. Smaller seiners can cost up to $5 million dollars. A vicious cycle is set up, of pressure for higher catches to export to rich countries to pay for the fishing vessels. But the flood of fish can cause prices to drop, which harms the markets. The result is overfishing, which leaves fewer and fewer fish for both the industrial fleets and the local artisanal fisheries to chase. WHAT ARE THE IMPACTS ON MARINE ECOSYSTEMS AND OCEAN SPECIES? The environmental consequences Tropical tuna are fished on an industrial scale using three basic gear types: purse seines, baitboats (also known as pole- and-line fishing) and longlining. The use of each fishing gear has environmental consequences. Of course, the tuna are affected directly, but so are many other marine creatures from marine mammals such as dolphins and whales to long-lived sharks, endangered sea turtles and various other fish species. To understand these environmental damages, it is necessary to grasp exactly what the fishing technologies are and how they are used. Purse Seines: Tuna are gregarious, associating in large schools near the surface, and this is why they are so vulnerable to purse seiners. Although a technically complicated method of fishing, purse seining can be efficient and lead to extremely high catches. One set of a purse seine net lasting a couple of hours can easily haul in 30 to 40 tonnes of tuna, and catches of up to 300 tonnes have been recorded. From helicopters on the ship's deck, schools of tuna are found using a variety of cues, such as floating objects or animals in the water, birds overhead or even the tuna themselves breaking the surface while swimming. To set the net, a small boat with one end of the net attached is launched from the seiner. The seiner then encircles the school with the net, returning to the skiff to retrieve the other end. The net is then "pursed" or drawn taught at the bottom using a heavy cable. When the net is closed at the bottom, preventing the escape of whatever is inside the net, it is hauled alongside so that the fish can be brought on board. The complete operation is known as a set. A variety of seining techniques have been developed to exploit the different types of tuna schools. School Sets -- Free swimming schools of tuna are visible at the surface of the sea, or are detected by birds flying overhead. School sets, in which the net is set around such schools, produce an important part of the total catch. Around the world, over a third of the sets are school sets, though this varies widely among the fleets and regions. Log set -- Tuna also gather under virtually anything that floats: floating mats of vegetation, marine debris, dead whales, even the fishing vessel itself. In these log sets, the seine is set around the object, catching the tuna underneath. Tuna are so attracted to the logs that sets can be made on the same object over the course of several days, resulting in enormous catches. One large log in the Western Pacific was fished repeatedly over a two week period. The total catch was 1,500 metric tons. Advantages for the fishermen setting on logs are the large catches of tuna per set and the low failure rate (in school sets, the entire school often escapes the net, resulting in no catch). FAD Sets -- Fishermen further exploit the tendency of tuna to gather under floating objects by deploying artificial structures such as rafts, buoys, barrels, etc. These are called Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs). They are either anchored or allowed to drift free and usually are equipped with radio beacons so the fishermen can find them again. Because FAD fishing is easy and profitable, this type of fishing is on the rise in some areas. Animal Sets -- Tuna also gather with other marine mammals in all the tropical oceans, so fishermen actively look for these other species. These are known as animal sets, since they are made on live animals. The most publicized are made on dolphins. Since tuna are often found associated with dolphins swimming on the surface, the seiner sets the net around a herd to capture the tuna underneath. Sets are frequently made around other types of marine species, including whales and whale sharks. Industrialized Baitboats: Baitboat fishing exploits tuna gathered at the water's surface in a different way. Live bait is thrown into the water near the school. Once the tuna are feeding, jets of water are sprayed onto the sea to further excite the fish and the create a screen between the fish and the fishermen. Fishing then begins, using short poles with hooks baited with live fish; the tuna are so excited that can be caught with unbaited lures or hooks. Commercial Longlines: While baitboats and purse seines concentrate on surface schools, longlines are used to catch tuna at much greater depths. A fishing line up to 180 km in length is laid across the water. Attached to it, at intervals of about 50 meters, are short lines with baited hooks. A complete longline can have from 2,000 to 3,600 hooks, hanging at depths varying from 150-250 meters. These, then, are the principal gears being used by the commercial tuna industry, though the details may vary from country to country. Methods may differ somewhat in terms of the amount of fish caught per operation; what species are captured and the ocean area fished. From an environmental point of view, two important things to consider are the size of the tuna caught and what other marine creatures are captured. LET LITTLE TUNA LIVE: THE PROBLEMS WITH HUNTING YOUNG TUNA: Tropical tuna are fast-growing and short-lived. Yellowfin, for example, grow at a rate of 3-4 cm per month. They can be over a meter long and weigh 20-25 kg by the time when they are about two-and-a-half years old, when they begin to reproduce. Rarely do yellowfin tuna live beyond five or six years. The age and size of the fish being caught is an important consideration in terms of conservation of the stock. Common sense dictates that the fish should at least be allowed to grow large enough to reproduce, so it is better to catch adult fish. Older fish will then have had a chance to spawn, contributing to the survival of the species. Another advantage is that there is more food in a tonne of large fish than in a tonne of small fish, so fewer fish must be caught to provide the same amount of food. If fishing ships operating in an area, called a fishery, catch mostly young tuna, several things happen. Catches will decrease, possibly by as much as a third, since the tuna are caught before they have had a chance to grow. If too many small fish are taken the stock can decline, or even collapse, because not enough fish are left in the water to mature and reproduce. This has often happened in tuna fishing, for example in the Eastern Pacific in the 1960s. Since large tuna are more valuable to a fisherman than small ones, and a fishing boat can only carry so much, small tuna are thrown away. Called high-grading, this is done in many commercial fisheries around the world, because making money is more important than conserving the fish. In summary, not only does the catching of small tuna threaten the whole stock and decrease the amount of food captured, many of the tuna caught are simply wasted. Large tuna are usually found at greater depths than smaller ones, so gears which reach deeper into the water catch larger fish than those which fish closer to the surface. Longliners fish at the greatest depth of all the gears, so they catch the biggest fish. The lines used by baitboats extend only a few meters into the water, so they often catch small fish. Using the Indian Ocean as an example, yellowfin caught by baitboats in the Maldives are mostly less than 80 cm, whereas the Japanese longline fishery catches fish that are almost all over 100 cm. Purse seines target surface schools, but their nets fish down to depths of 100-150 meters, so they catch a range of sizes. School sets catch large yellowfin, except in the Eastern Pacific, where the large fish are caught in association with dolphins. The smallest tuna are caught in sets made on logs and other floating objects, especially artificial FADs. The amount of small tuna discarded can amount to several tonnes per set. Any increase in the practice of setting on logs--because it is easier, or catches are larger, or to avoid setting on dolphins-- could end up spelling disaster for the tuna populations themselves. ANIMAL SETS KILL MANY MARINE CREATURES, NOT ONLY TUNA: Fisheries biologists have measured millions of tuna to determine what size tuna are being caught and how that affects the stock. Of far less interest to them, however, are the other species which are caught at the same time. Tuna associate with a wide range of species and objects at sea, and inevitably many of these species are caught along with the tuna. Very little research has been done into this important aspect of tuna fishing, but what little information is available suggests that enormous amounts of a wide variety of other species are regularly caught and discarded overboard as waste. These animals, which fishermen are not actively hunting but which are caught anyway, are collectively known as bycatch. The most known bycatch is dolphins. In dolphin sets, the seine is set around the dolphins, in order to catch the tuna swimming underneath. Nobody really knows how many dolphins have been caught and killed in this way over the years, but the best estimates are in the range of 6-7 million animals in the Eastern Pacific since the 1950s, which caused huge declines in some species of dolphin. Far fewer dolphins are being killed there now (15,900 in 1992) and most of the dolphin populations are reported to be recovering, primarily.because the fishery is under the control of an international program. This decline in mortality is not because the purse seine fleet is setting on dolphins less frequently, but rather because the fishermen have developed ways of allowing the dolphins to escape the net. The nations involved in this fishery have committed to reduce the mortality to 5,000 in the Eastern Pacific by 1999. There is no reason why it can't be entirely eliminated, however. There is a popular misconception that the association between these marine mammals and tuna exists only in the Eastern Pacific. However, dolphins and tuna have been documented swimming together in the other tropical oceans as well and are often used by fishermen to locate the tuna. How often purse seines actually set their nets on the dolphins in other areas is unknown, though it has been reported in the Eastern Atlantic and areas of the Western Pacific. Without extensive observation of the purse seine fleets wherever they fish for tropical tunas, there is no way of knowing how serious a problem this is. Purse seiners often set their nets around live whales. In the Indian Ocean, at least one set in twenty is made on whales; ironically, the International Whaling Commission has declared this Ocean to be a whale sanctuary, and the vessels setting upon whales are from nations which are members of that Convention. This practice also occurs in the Western Pacific, but whales are most frequently set upon in the Atlantic. In the waters off West Africa, almost 10 percent of the sets are made on whales, but in some regions the rate is far higher. A small survey of seiners in the southern Caribbean suggests that live whales are involved in 20 percent of the sets. Unfortunately, it isn't always clear what happens to the whale. They may escape by punching a hole in the net, or be freed by the fishermen, but it is not known how often this happens. Whales which escape and carry pieces of the net with them could suffer problems in swimming and feeding. It is not always known which species of whales are involved. Fin, Bryde's, sei and minke whales have all been recorded, but other endangered species may also be involved. A surprisingly large number of sets are made on whale sharks, giant fish which feed on small fish and squid. The practice is known to occur in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, but seems to be particularly common in the Atlantic. For instance, fully one third of the sets made by the Venezuelan fleet in the South Caribbean involve whale sharks. There is no information available on the fate of these animals. These animal sets catch other species as well, including sharks and a few other kinds of fish. Ocean anchovy is often taken because both the tuna and the whales or whale sharks are feeding on it, so it ends up in the net too. Ironically, dolphin sets seem to be cleaner, in this respect, for very few other species are caught in the seine, possibly because they cannot keep up with the fast-swimming dolphins and tuna. LOG SETS: COMMUNITIES OF OCEAN LIFE DESTROYED: Sets on logs also have bycatch, for it isn't only tuna which gather under objects on the surface. Some interesting Russian research in the Indian Ocean has shown that fish begin to associate with floating objects just a few hours after they have been put in the water, and tuna schools may show up on the second day. Entire communities build up over the course of time. Species closest to the log are small fish such as pipefish and juvenile sergeant majors, drummers and man-o-war fish, while predatory fish (tunas, dolphinfish, rainbow runners and many others) cruise around the logs in their search for prey. Given this situation, it is not surprising that log and FAD sets catch the widest range of different species. In addition to those listed above, dozens of others have been recorded: several species of sharks, wahoo, marlin, porcupine fish and many others, even seahorses and manta rays. The box (omitted here) lists the species which have been recorded caught in log sets in different ocean areas. Some of these are caught in large quantities. The catch of amberjack, mahirnahi and rainbow runner, among others, can number over 100 fish per set. Endangered sea turtles are captured sometimes, such as hawksbills, green turtles and olive ridleys. There are very few estimates of the total quantity of bycatch in these log sets, but in some cases amounts as high as 5 to 6 tonnes have been noted, a quarter of what is caught in the net. While some is eaten on board or taken to port for sale in the local markets, many tonnes of fishes and other species are simply thrown over the side of the ship, dead. Nor is the longline fishery innocent in this carnage. In addition to tuna, they catch enormous numbers of billfish (marlin, swordfish, sailfish) and sharks. In the countries which operate these fisheries, at least some of these species can be sold, so they are not all discarded. There are a few reports of other species also being caught on longlines, such as pomfret and lancetfish, but, since they cannot be sold, there is no information on how much is caught and discarded. Longlines are also known to catch large numbers of seabirds and highly endangered sea turtles. Unlike these other methods, baitboat fishing is relatively clean, and seems to catch few species besides tuna. On the other hand, it requires large amounts of small fish as bait, mostly taken from reefs and lagoons near the tuna fishing ground. Supplying a fleet of ships with bait can deplete these local fish stocks, causing hardship for the people who use them locally. THE SCALE OF BYCATCH: A WORLD OF WASTE Most of the above information on bycatch species caught by different fishing methods in the tuna fishery is based upon a few scattered scientific observers who have noted what they saw. In the overwhelming majority of cases, nobody on board bothered to record what was caught, except, of course, the amount of tuna. The result is that about the only information available on bycatch is a list of species, with a few indications that some of these are caught in large numbers. An obvious concern is the impact that tuna fishing has on these other species. In most cases, the lack of information collected by the fishery makes it difficult to know for certain. A few things can be said, though. The only bycatch figure which is at all reliable is the number of dolphins killed in recent years in the Eastern Pacific, for the IATTC has operated an observer programme for that fishery for several years. As mentioned earlier, far fewer are killed now than even a few years ago, though the mortality must be brought down to zero. Sea turtles are in danger worldwide from many threats; their habitat is being destroyed, they are hunted for their shells and leather, and they are caught in many different fisheries. Every effort must be made to eliminate any deaths caused by the tuna industry. Several of the other species affected by the fishery are predators, like humans. They are at or near the top of the food web, and so especially vulnerable. The wide variety of sharks, for instance, are not only caught in enormous quantities by the tuna fishery, but also as bycatch in other fisheries. Some sharks are additionally targeted themselves, either by commercial fisheries or by large sport fisheries. On top of that, many of their prey species are being intensively fished, which could result in problems of food shortage. Finally, since many species of shark grow and reproduce slowly, they have little resistance to the many human activities which are increasingly affecting the oceans. Many are already severely depleted. All too often, the problems faced by species are only recognized when the decline is so severe that somebody became alarmed and investigated the situation, and this is especially so for species that are not exploited. Fisheries managers are so busy concentrating on tuna that they are paying no attention to the other species that are caught as bycatch. It is quite possible that some populations are already in a state of decline, even collapse, which hasn't been detected because there is so little monitoring of the bycatch or research into their status. If the problem hasn't been seen, nothing can be done to solve it. What can be said with certainty is this: during the decades of commercial tuna fishing, countless quantities of a wide variety of marine species have been captured and thrown out, dead. Log fishing and longlines have been particularly destructive in this regard. The fact that the amount of this waste is unknown, that neither the industry nor the fisheries management bodies have bothered to measure it, that, indeed, it has never seriously been discussed as a major problem, stands as a powerful indictment of the tuna fishery. It is evident from the above discussion that the environmental destruction caused by commercial tuna fishing is far more widespread than the killing of dolphins by the purse seine fleet in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. Each method of fishing has its own set of serious problems: Industrialized longlines have a significant bycatch of many different species including endangered sea turtles, vulnerable sharks, billfish and other marine life. Mechanized baitboats catch small tuna. Commercial purse seines set around whales, dolphins and.whale sharks, or set on logs and catch large amounts of other species such as turtles, sharks and other fish, and small tuna. Confining the discussion to the capture of dolphins in one ocean area masks these other significant problems of the industry. Any credible and effective management regime must deal with these as well as all the other problems. HOW DO WE SOLVE THESE PROBLEMS? A global approach to a global crisis Tuna are global species. If they stop swimming they will sink and die, so they are fated to constantly roam the seas of the world, crossing entire oceans in a matter of months. To them, boundaries to their movements consist of areas of different temperature and salinity, or greater food availability. They swim on, following their natural migratory paths, blissfully ignorant of the highly arbitrary political divisions created by nations, such as Exclusive Economic Zones. Tuna fleets are global. Vessels sail across the oceans even more rapidly than the tuna they are hunting, easily moving from one fishing ground to another in a few short weeks. A vessel can fish in the Eastern Pacific for a few months, hop over to the Western Pacific to try its luck there, and then finish the year back in the Eastern Pacific. Entire fleets migrate as well, usually when the catches are poor due to overfishing or when they try to escape regulations. In the early 1980s, overfishing depleted the stock of yellowfin in the Eastern Pacific, so much of the fleet migrated to the Western Pacific. Coincidentally, the French and Spanish fleets did the same thing at the same time for the same reason, though in their case it was a shift from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. Tuna money is global. In today's world, capital is extraordinarily rapid and diverse in its movements. Ships, canneries, distribution networks: they all are bought and sold in the blink of an eye. Gone are the days of a long term family investment in a local business. Today's owners often live on the other side of the planet from their holdings, know nothing about tuna and their environment, and care even less. Tuna management is not global. A moment's reflection would show that any serious and credible attempt to conserve tuna stocks and manage the tuna fisheries must cover the complete geographical range of both the tuna and the fleets. Unfortunately, tuna fishing is managed, where it is managed at all, in a fragmented and parochial manner, with little formal information exchange among the various management institutions. REGIONAL SYSTEMS, NO INTERCONNECTIONS: The oldest management body is the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), which came into existence in 1950. Its mandate is to conduct scientific research on tuna in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and to recommend measures for the management of the stock. More recently, it has expanded its focus to the marine mammals taken in the purse seine fishery as well. The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) was established in 1969, and assumed responsibility for management and scientific research on tunas throughout the Atlantic Ocean. There is no comparable management body dedicated specifically to tuna in the waters around the Pacific Island countries, or the Western Pacific. Rather, the South Pacific Commission (SPC) is primarily responsible for scientific studies of tuna, while the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) coordinates the fisheries policy among the many countries in the region, including management measures, enforcement and data collection. At present, there is no regional management body for the tuna fishery in the Indian Ocean, though the Indo-Pacific Tuna Development and Management Programme (IPTP) collects statistics on tuna fishing in the area. A convention is currently being negotiated. Clearly, management of the tuna fishery on a global scale does not exist today. The current regional approach is insufficient for a number of reasons. To begin with, in order to be effective, any management regime must cover the entire range of both the tuna stocks and the fishing fleets which are exploiting them. Anything less is bound to fail. If there are areas where access to the tuna can be had without restrictions, that is inevitably where fishing becomes concentrated. Indeed, the fleets have frequently demonstrated their ability to leave one ocean basin whenever their catches, and therefore profits, fall, only to reappear in another area. Considering the mobility of modern fleets, the entire range of their activities must be included in the management regime. Finally, the problems of tuna fishing are not restricted to one small ocean area. The same gear types and fishing practices are used around the world, so it is only natural that the problems that they cause may be similar around the world. This is true just as much for bycatch of unwanted species and small tuna as it is for the disruption of coastal communities. These problems can only be addressed from a global perspective. There is more than one approach to this problem. One would be the creation of a single body which assumes responsibility for the details of management of tuna fishing around the world. Another, possibly simpler option would be the establishment of a global system to coordinate the activities of a series of regional tuna management bodies. There already are regional bodies in some areas, with varying degrees of sophistication and effectiveness. What is needed is the political will on the part of the nations involved to strengthen these bodies and use them to cooperate in the management of the fishery around the world. While cooperation is called for in the Law of the Sea Convention, it has been almost completely lacking in reality. There are several requirements for a system to effectively manage the global tuna fishery. GLOBAL MANAGEMENT EQUALS CONSERVATION IN ALL OCEANS: The most fundamental and important objective of any fishery management regime must be the conservation of both the tuna that the fishermen are trying to catch, and the other species that are caught along with the tuna. Tuna grow very fast, reach a large size, and can lay millions of eggs a year. Consequently, there is a common assumption that it is almost impossible to overfish them. The almost total lack of any kind of international control on fishing for the various tropical tunas is eloquent evidence of that belief. Severe declines in yellowfin stocks resulting from overfishing in the Eastern Pacific forced the IATTC to establish a quota system for that species in one part of its range, which was in effect from 1966-1979. The system then broke down, since the nations fishing in the Eastern Pacific could not agree on who had the right to catch the fish. In an effort to limit the catch of small fish in the Atlantic, ICCAT has imposed a minimum size limit for both bigeye and yellowfin, so the fishermen are not supposed to catch individuals of these species that are less than 3.2 kg in size. Even ICCAT itself admits that this measure has not resulted in any reduction in the catch of immature fish. The Forum Fisheries Agency has established a list of vessels which are allowed to fish for tuna in the Western Pacific. The Regional Register of Foreign Fishing Vessels is designed to ensure that foreign vessels abide by the terms of their licence. There is no comprehensive management plan for tuna in the region. No controls exist for the international fishery in the Indian Ocean, except the limits on the number of vessels which are granted licences to fish in the various EEZs, such as that of the Seychelles. This, then, is the international control system for one of the world's most mobile, voracious and profitable fisheries. Perhaps a non-control system is a more apt description. PRECAUTIONARY MANAGEMENT NEEDED TO STOP OVERFISHING: The fishery has time and again demonstrated its ability, even willingness, to overfish stocks of tuna. When overfishing resulted in severe declines in tuna catches in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific in the early 1980s, the only thing that allowed the tuna to recover was the migration of the fleets to areas where the tuna was still relatively untouched in the Indian and Western Pacific. Unfortunately, there are no more new areas for the fleets to invade. A management regime is urgently needed that places conservation before profits, that seeks to ensure the restoration and protection of not only the tuna, but also the other species which are affected by tuna fishing operations. This management regime must first of all establish a clear set of objectives, a statement of what management is intended to achieve, giving clear priority to conservation. Currently, both the IATTG and ICCAT aim to obtain the Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) from the stocks of tuna. This approach is the opposite of being conservative, for it concentrates on taking as much tuna as possible and ignores the effect of fishing on other species and the habitat. A precautionary approach to the management of tuna, and indeed other fish stocks, is required. The primary objective must be to keep the stock at high levels of abundance, to ensure that the tuna continue to be functioning members of the ecosystem. A comprehensive system of controls on the fishery must be developed and implemented that will meet the management objectives, even when things go wrong, including environmental changes such as global warming, disease outbreaks, and many more. Though fishing for tuna also catches a great many other animals, such as sharks, dolphins, turtles and other fish, there is only one situation in which this is being dealt with by a management body. In 1992, the nations fishing in the Eastern Pacific agreed to measures to reduce the number of dolphin deaths caused by the purse seine fishery. This was the first time in any tuna fishery that any other species caught with the tuna was included in management considerations, and signalled the possibility of a new level of cooperation among the nations. Even so, the schedule for phasing out dolphin mortality is far too slow, and must be accelerated. Unfortunately, there is not yet any similar concern about the many other species being killed in the Eastern Pacific, let alone any other area of the world. Similar programmes must be developed and implemented to reduce and eliminate all forms of bycatch, both other species as well as the small tuna which are being caught and thrown away. Clearly, very accurate and comprehensive information on both the fishery and the ecology of the tuna and other species is necessary in order to accomplish these objectives. URGENT: BRING COMMERCIAL TUNA OPERATIONS OUT OF SECRECY: Despite the impressive amount of scientific documentation on various aspects of tuna fishing, there is still much that is unknown. In many cases, even the most basic of information, such as the amount of tuna that has been caught, is unknown. ICCAT, for instance, often reports that catch data reported by some countries with major fisheries is "extremely delayed". In reviewing the quality of its statistical base, the South Pacific Commission list many gaps in the catch data supplied by governments and periods for which the data are "poor". Developed countries such as the United States, Japan and Australia are among the worst. Such a situation can only be described as shameful and irresponsible. As mentioned earlier, there are a few reports of other species that are caught during tuna fishing. They give the impression that the information gathered to date is only the small tip of a very large iceberg. Not enough is known to estimate either the total bycatch or the impact on the environment. The one exception is the case of dolphins in the Eastern Pacific (the number of dolphins killed in other areas is unknown, but could be high). Many of the other species such as sharks and turtles are depleted, some even threatened with extinction, so this information is desperately needed. Yet there are very few observer schemes which collect this information. The observer programme of the IATTC which now covers 100 percent of the large purse seines in the Eastern Pacific, is only now beginning to collect data on bycatch other than dolphins, but not from the longline fleet. There are small observer programmes in the Indian Ocean (The Seychelles) and the Western Pacific (Federated States of Micronesia) which collect some information on bycatch, but these programmes cover only a tiny fraction of the fleet. There are no observer programmes operated by ICCAT in the Atlantic Ocean. The establishment of observer programmes for fall gear types in all of the fishing regions is an urgent necessity. Global criteria must be established for the kind and quality of data that all programmes collect, so that the information gathered in different regions is comparable. Observers should collect data on species composition of the catch, size of the catch, details on fishing gear and methodology, environmental observations, etc. Scientific data collection and analysis are a crucial part of any management scheme. The ICCAT Secretariat has no mandate to conduct scientific research, and so relies upon member governments to conduct whatever research is required. The IATTC, on the other hand, has its own independent research staff to conduct the necessary work. This latter approach is preferable, since it is free from the political influence and changing priorities of national governments. TOO MANY VESSELS CATCHING TOO FEW FISH: Around the world, the tuna fleet is far lager and more powerful than is necessary to catch the tuna that is available, a problem known as excess capacity. This situation plagues most modern fisheries, and is responsible for many of the current problems. It develops because fishermen try to catch fish which are worth more than the money invested in the ship, its gear, fuel, etc. But others are chasing the same fish, so it becomes a race to see who can catch the fish first. This results in a vicious circle of bigger catches requiring better gear, which in turn requires bigger catches to pay for it. The so-called "bird radar" is an example of the technological advances which contribute to this pattern. It allows the detection of flocks of birds (which often accompany tuna) at distances of 10-12 nautical miles; rather than 3-4 miles as with binoculars. This radar makes it much easier to find, and therefore catch, schools of tuna. Not surprisingly, it spread throughout the fleets very rapidly, since any vessel which didn't have it was at a disadvantage. Continued unchecked growth of the size and number of fishing vessels, combined with improvements in their fishing technology, is a recipe for disaster. If the tuna stocks are to be conserved, it is essential that some sort of equitable system to limit the size and power of the fishing fleet be established. The ease with which vessels move from one ocean to another dictates that this control must be invested with the management system and coordinated at a global level. An equitable limited entry system is required which would grant licences to fish for tuna in an area, based on the amount of tuna which can be caught without jeopardizing the stock. This must be combined with an international register of all vessels which are licensed in all ocean areas where tuna are fished, in order to coordinate the size of the tuna fleet at a global level. The Register of Fishing Vessels set up in the Western Pacific could serve as a useful model in this regard. Obviously, all nations which are fishing for tuna must participate in the programme. Only by establishing a cautious balance between the size of the fishing fleets and the amount of tuna which is available to be caught can the future conservation of the tuna stocks be assured. RATHER THAN BIGGER BOATS, BETTER GEAR NEEDED FOR ALL: Most gear research today is aimed at catching more tuna in less time. But this research is counter-productive, in that it contributes to further growth in the capacity of the fleet, putting further pressure on the stocks of tuna and other species. Moreover, it is diverting the research from other, more pressing problems. Work is urgently needed to improve the selectivity of tuna fishing overall, to reduce bycatch of all the different gears, not just dolphins caught by seiners in the Eastern Pacific. Since gear research can be expensive, companies or national fleets that develop any improvements in selectivity will not usually want to share them. This is especially so when the more selective gear gives them a competitive advantage, such as when they can call their tuna more "environmentally friendly" than tuna caught by fleets using less selective gear. Consequently, nations that have not or cannot afford to improve their gears or practices may be sanctioned by those who can. The development of environmentally clean technologies and practices to reduce bycatch is too important to be restricted or delayed by these types of solely economic interests. For this reason, funds are needed for international initiatives to develop safe fishing technologies and to share them with even the poorest nations. Such programmes should not be funded exclusively by taxpayers in the form of government grants. The tuna industry benefits financially from the fisheries and rarely, if ever, pays the costs. These corporations should participate as well, rather than emphasizing the development of gear which catches more fish no matter what the environmental cost. CONSERVATION WILL FAIL WITHOUT CONTROL AND ENFORCEMENT: Control measures which exist only on paper are bound to fail, so a programme of surveillance and enforcement is an integral part of any management regime. Countries differ in their ability and willingness to patrol the fishing grounds and enforce regulations. This means that the programme, while designed by governments acting cooperatively, must be conducted by the management authority, rather than by national governments acting independently. It must be equitably administered, though, recognizing that some nations are wealthier and wield more political power than others. The mobility of both fishing vessels and the money which controls them create potential loopholes which need to be addressed. For instance, vessels which break the rules in one area must not be allowed to escape penalties by moving to another fishing area. Similarly, the owners of tuna boats must not be able to transfer their holdings to countries which impose less stringent controls on fishing activities. The most effective way to prevent these problems is to create an enforcement scheme which is global in its scope, with standardized penalties being imposed no matter where the illegal fishing occurs. The use of penalties other than fines, such as loss of a licence to fish in any region for a certain period, should be encouraged. Control of the size of the fleet and enforcement of the regulations are not programmes which are separate from the management regime, but are integral parts of an effective plan. When the capacity of the fleet is in line with the amount of tuna which is available to be caught, there is less incentive for cheating and illegal fishing. As a result enforcement becomes a less onerous task, establishing equitable penalties becomes less difficult, and populations of tuna and other marine species remain healthy. It is important that all of these components be developed in an integrated manner. DO "DOLPHIN SAFE" CORPORATE POLICIES REALLY SOLVE PROBLEMS? Corporate strategies greenwash in the name of dolphins: The movement for "dolphin safe" tuna began in the United States as an outgrowth of many campaigns by animal rights and environmental groups, including Greenpeace, against the practice of encircling dolphins in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. It was designed as a guarantee for consumers that the tuna called "dolphin safe" was caught without killing dolphins, both in purse seines and in driftnets. Initially, canned tuna consumers in the United States pressured for change in tuna corporations' policies. The campaign then expanded to other countries, especially in Western Europe. Because of the work of consumers and organizations, various transnational tuna corporations announced "dolphin safe" labelling and purchasing policies beginning in 1990. Soon after, the IATTC expanded its observer programme and began to issue certificates stating that no sets were made on dolphins during the fishing trips. Canned tuna labelled "dolphin safe" or "dolphin friendly" is now easy to find in many world markets. In Western Europe campaigns are being run to persuade consumers to demand such labelling schemes in their countries. Unfortunately, what started as a good idea and a lot of hard work and concerted public pressure was quickly manipulated by the tuna industry to a sophisticated public relations campaign of "greenwashing." Instead, tuna companies used their considerable wealth and power, spending millions of dollars in advertising to persuade consumers how environmentally conscious they are, while actually doing very little to protect ocean ecosystems or marine life or improve the way fisheries are conducted. It has also led to considerable confusion among consumers, who genuinely want to buy tuna which has not been caught using destructive fishing methods. THE MEANING OF "DOLPHIN SAFE" Simply put, the "dolphin safe" concept was to pressure corporations to halt purchases of tuna caught using fishing gears or methods that killed dolphins. At the time, attention was focused on tuna fishing operations in the Eastern Pacific where the most was known. As more information has become available, the scope of the global problem has become clearer. To be labelled as "dolphin safe", many corporations agreed not to purchase tuna that was caught by fishing vessels that: encircled dolphins to catch tuna during a fishing trip in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, only used driftnets longer than 2.5 kilometers used other fishing gears that kill dolphins Purse seine fishing vessels can also agree to the above criteria to be considered "dolphin safe". Often, these vessels call themselves "dolphin safe" even if their activities and bycatch in other oceans remain virtually uncontrolled and unmonitored. Some tuna corporations have allowed limited inspection and monitoring operations by animal rights groups in an effort to validate their dolphin safe claims and to gain their endorsements for their products. These agreements, however, rely heavily on land-based inspections. A more comprehensive on-board monitoring system has been lacking in these industry schemes and regular monitoring has been conducted only in the Eastern Pacific by the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission and through national programs in the United States and Mexico. In addition, recent attempts by industry to have their nominated monitors replace international and national observers on board vessels in the Eastern Pacific may be a step backwards. This is because these industry monitors may only be observing the dolphins caught in fishing operations rather than all the species caught in purse seine nets. LACK OF CONTROL ON THE HIGH SEAS: Literally hundreds, if not thousands, of fishing ships operate without any monitoring or control at all. They use flags of convenience to avoid regulations, or change their names to avoid inspection. In some cases, it is impossible to identify and charge the owners because they are only identified by a postal box. The vessels are able to move from ocean to ocean very quickly when necessary, mixing tuna caught in different regions and using different methods. For instance, a boat can fill most of its hold with tuna caught in areas where there are no observers and control, and then "launder" its catch by a brief trip to the Eastern Pacific, where there are inspectors and controls. How is it possible to tell which tuna were caught using which method? Transport ships which carry the tuna to port are large enough to carry the catch of many fishing vessels at once. Once the tuna arrives in port, it is further mixed with tuna from other ships, coming from other areas. By this point, buyers have an enormous choice of tuna, caught in different areas by different ships, and reliably identifying where and how the tuna was caught is almost impossible. LITTLE CONTROL ON LAND: Once on land, tracing tuna is even more difficult. Tuna caught in either the Western or Eastern Pacific can be first left for months in cold storage containers on an island, then be shipped to one of hundreds of docks in Thailand. After unloading, it can remain in a cannery for weeks before being stripped of its bones, turned into fillet and shipped again to another cannery in an entirely different country for processing into cans. The cans are then distributed to warehouses before being trucked to hundreds of different retail stores. By the end of the process the tuna may have travelled all over the world, from one side of the planet to the other. To further complicate things, during this process the tuna may pass through the hands of several different companies. For example, a fishing ship carrying a flag from Cyprus is owned by a Spanish-Korean joint venture but its home port is in Venezuela. It can land its catches in Colombian docks because fuel is cheaper there. Some of the catch is then sent to Asia for processing while the rest is sold to Bolivia to be processed into fillets (because in both places the work forces are cheaper). Part of this tuna, once it has been canned, is sent to an American Samoan facility to get its so-called "dolphin safe" label and then sold in the United States where the tuna is sold for more money than in other countries. The result is that by the time the tuna reaches a store, it is practically impossible to know its origin. Two identical cans of tuna from the same company and wearing the same label could have been caught in completely different oceans or with different fishing gears. Code numbers on the tops of tuna cans will trace the product to some extent, but will not reveal when or under what conditions the tuna was caught, the trail it followed to market, or whether it was mixed with different loads. This is hardly a situation in which consumers should feel reassured that the can of tuna they are buying is "dolphin friendly." "DOLPHIN SAFE" DOES NOT MEAN ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY: Even if it was possible to create and manage a perfectly reliable programme for identifying tuna which had been caught by killing dolphins, that would only be addressing a part of the tuna fishing problem. The modern tuna industry is a dangerous giant running out of control. The damage it is causing is not confined to dolphin deaths in the Eastern Pacific, but also includes: bycatch of marine turtles, seabirds and many marine species loss of unknown tonnages of fish thrown overboard as waste encirclement of whales and whale sharks encirclement of dolphins in other ocean areas fishing of small fish which are discarded overfishing of the tuna stocks overall impact on the ocean systems decreases in the diversity of marine life overexploitation of food resources in poor countries' waters by rich countries' fleets displacement of artisanal fleets because of the competition of industrial fleets overall decreases in employment because of overfishing In short, we do not have "dolphin safe" tuna and, even if we did, this would not make it environmentally friendly. The current situation perpetuated by transnational tuna companies simply masks the worsening environmental and social problems caused by the tuna industry, and therefore works against their eventual resolution. THE PRECAUTIONARY APPROACH NOT CONSIDERED IN "DOLPHIN SAFE" SCHEMES: The environmental movement demands a precautionary approach to fisheries. This means that in the case of doubt or where scientific evidence is lacking or uncertain, the benefit of the doubt must go to the environment. When there is not enough information to evaluate the impact of a type of fishing, that activity must not be considered as "healthy" or "safe". In this light, the main problem with "dolphin safe" promotions is not that companies may be wrongly labelling some cans of tuna, but that corporate greenwashers are attempting to convince the public of their good conduct while ignoring the broader environmental problems their industry is causing. Much work remains to be done to bring about solutions to the global crisis in tuna fishing. Too narrow an approach and may work against the development of effective solutions to the global environmental problems in commercial tuna fishing. For too long, industries have been given the benefit of the doubt about the possible consequences of their activities. The result has been the overexploitation of countless fish stocks and the possibly irreversible degradation of many ecosystems. It is time to adopt a precautionary approach to fishing. Despite the honest intentions of various organizations in promoting "dolphin safe" campaigns and the public in buying tuna labelled "dolphin safe", the label has been used by the industry for its own financial benefit and with little regard for the impacts of tuna fishing on the diverse environment. This strategy of "greenwashing" is harmful for the environment in the longer term and confusing to people who want to contribute in a positive way to protect our planet. A truly "environmentally friendly" can of tuna would be produced by an industry which did not catch and waste enormous quantities of other species, which did not deplete stocks of fish, which did not discharge pollutants in the canning process, which did not displace local people from their communities and ways of life and which was adequately managed, controlled and monitored. It wouldn't kill dolphins, either. CONCLUSION AND GREENPEACE DEMANDS Some of the most effective tools for change is your voice and your participation. The more government decision makers and tuna company executives are made aware through your letters, telephone calls, petitions, testimonials, and outcries to the media, the more they will take concerns into account and act on solving the grave problems in commercial tuna fisheries. Greenpeace asks all citizens and organizations to join us in calling for: GLOBAL MANAGEMENT, CONTROL AND COORDINATION: A globally coordinated and comprehensive regime for the management of tuna fishing in all the ocean areas where it occurs, including legally binding dispute resolution, enforcement and compliance mechanisms. The adoption of a precautionary approach to tuna fishing which puts conservation of the tuna stock and reduction in bycatch as primary objectives of management. Tuna management bodies must be given a mandate and resources to conduct and share necessary scientific research and monitoring. One hundred percent scientific observer coverage by an international authority for industrialized tuna fleets to monitor fleet activities and levels of bycatch. In addition, immediate investigations, assessment and publication of data on the mortality of marine mammals and other ocean species in commercial tuna fishing operations in all oceans. The acceleration of the current agreement to reduce dolphin mortality in Eastern Pacific to ensure elimination as soon as possible, not later than 1999. Development of protocols to reduce and ultimately eliminate all other forms of bycatch in all ocean areas. Effective surveillance and enforcement programme, coordinated at a global level, with standardized penalty provisions for violations. Internationally funded research programme to develop less environmentally destructive fishing gears and practices, which must then be made available to all fleets and implemented to achieve fleet transformations to limit impacts on ocean ecosystems and human communities. This funding should be made available by private industries and transnational corporations that profit from exploiting ocean life but rarely pay the long term costs for conserving the environment. Limited entry schemes for vessels into the tuna fisheries around the world, coordinated on a global basis, based upon equitable principles and informed by conservative assessments of how much tuna is available to be caught. Public participation and oversight in the development and implementation of policies, mechanisms and programmes to manage commercial tuna fishing. APPENDIX Many months of research, scientific publication searches and correspondence with experts took place in the preparation of this report. Below is a selected reading list of papers for more information. Annual Reports of the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, La Jolla, USA International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas Report for the Biennial Period 1990-91, Part II (1991). Madrid, Spain Alain Fonteneau and J. Marcille (editors). 1988. Resources, Peche et Biologie des Thonides Tropicaux de l'Atlantique Centre- Est. Food and Agriculture Organization Document Technique sur les Peches No. 292. Rome Report on the Stock Assessment of Yellowfin Tuna in the Indian Ocean. 7-12 October 1991, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Indo-Pacific Tuna Development and Management Programme IPTP/91/GEN/20 Henri de Saram (editor). 1991. Tuna 91 Bali: Papers of the 2nd World Tuna Trade Conference. 13-15 May 199l Bali Indonesia. Infofish. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia GREENPEACE INTERNATIONAL, KEIZERSGRACHT 176, 1016 DW AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS