Sea Turtle Restoration Project

Endangered Species in a Can?

Wed, 12 Apr 2006

Published by Ethical Corporation (UK), Post-Courier (Papua New Guinea), Canberra Times (Australia), San Francisco Examiner (US), and others
April 2006, by Robert Ovetz, PhD

Turtles Imperiled, Biologists Say

Fri, 17 Mar 2006

Science
ScienceScope
Volume 311, Number 5767, Issue of 17 March 2006

Despite a letter of protest signed by more than 100 scientists, a regional fisheries council has moved to open a protected area of the U.S. Pacific coast to drift gillnet fishing, a practice that kills many marine species. Since 2001, this type of fishing has been seasonally banned along most of the Oregon and California coast to protect critically endangered leatherback turtles. But the Pacific Fishery Management Council says that regulations on fishing vessels, including closing all fishing if two turtles are caught during the leatherback annual migration, are sufficient to protect the species while increasing commercial access to fishing grounds during their most productive season.

Conservation scientists fear that the turtles will be pushed even closer to the brink of extinction. "There is not a lot of leeway with this species," says David Ehrenfeld, a biologist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, who signed the protest letter. In April, the council also will consider whether to allow longline fishing, which often catches turtles and other marine species as well. Both decisions must be approved by the National Marine Fisheries Service, which is expected to make a decision on the proposal by the end of July.

Big Tuna is the New Big Tobacco: Op-Ed

Fri, 16 Dec 2005

ENN.com published a recent Op-Ed entitled "Big Tuna is the New Big Tobacco" by Eli Saddler of GotMercury.Org.

Big Tuna is the New Big Tobacco

December 16, 2005 � By Eli Saddler, GotMercury.Org

Big Tuna is the new Big Tobacco. How did the �chicken of the sea� become such a big turkey? Last year, consumer awareness of mercury in seafood drove US canned tuna consumption down 10 percent, costing Big Tuna $150 million. Instead of dealing responsibly with the public health threat of mercury, Big Tuna has taken pages from the tobacco industry�s playbook to claim their products do not cause harm when the science demonstrates otherwise.

Mercury in seafood is well-documented health risk. When the medical community called for stronger federal warnings about mercury in fish, including tuna, Big Tuna lobbied to prevent it. While the FDA and EPA finally issued an advisory in March 2004, they failed to educate the public subsequently, leaving it to the nonprofit community.

The federal advisory states that women who are or might want to become pregnant, nursing mothers, and young children should not eat swordfish, shark, tilefish, and king mackerel. Buried in there, the advisory also tells women of childbearing age and children to limit the amount of tuna they eat.

A simple message, right? However, Big Tuna contradicts ANY medical study that shows risks from mercury and twists science to advocate tuna consumption regardless of actual findings.

For example, a recent Harvard study found that �higher mercury exposure in pregnancy is associated with lower offspring cognitive scores, even at these relatively low levels of exposure.� Mothers who �consumed more fish but had lower mercury levels� saw the benefits of fish. The study said nothing to advocate tuna consumption.

Big Tuna�s interpretation? Women who eat tuna have smarter children. Study after study, Big Tuna generates consumer confusion by spinning studies in their favor. Science tells us mercury is bad and fish without mercury are good, but Big Tuna continues to claim its products are safe. New TV ads encourage young women to eat tuna as a low-calorie meal.

California stood up against Big Tuna. Attorney General Lockyer sued stores and restaurants to post mercury health warning signs, something endorsed by the American Medical Association and required by California law. Big Tuna�s response? The industry sent letters to grocers asking them not to post signs and offering to indemnify stores against liability. Big Tuna even fought against a new San Francisco law requiring the warnings in Spanish and Chinese, too.

Why isn�t the federal government doing something? It is � the Bush administration is promoting tuna, not warning families. The FDA responded to California�s lawsuit by asking the AG to drop the suit because of federal preemption. Wait � the FDA doesn�t want California to require posting the FDA�s warnings? This smells fishy.

Adding to the smelly politics of Big Tuna � NOAA Fisheries, part of the Department of Commerce, is sponsoring a conference in December with a one-sided, pro-industry agenda on health and seafood. The result is a misuse of tax dollars to subsidize tuna when it�s losing customers because of health concerns � wait, that smells of tobacco, too.

Also, NOAA Fisheries may approve regulations to permit an ad council, similar to the �Got Milk?� campaigns, to spend $25 million. Big Tuna calls their campaign �Tuna � A Smart Choice�; we call it �Got Mercury?�

Many supermarket chains promised to post mercury warnings where seafood is sold, similar to California�s signs. This is a simple, inexpensive method of educating consumers. So far, surveys show only Wild Oats is warning consumers in all stores and their customers buy more seafood because of the confidence they have when the information available. The federal government should stop siding with Big Tuna and require mercury warnings where seafood is sold.

So is tuna a �smart choice�? No, the smart choice is eating a balanced diet, which may include low-mercury-level fish. Until Big Tuna has to put labels on its cans, like cigarettes do for pregnant women, the smart choice is to select fish lowest in mercury found at GotMercury.Org, an online mercury calculator.

UN vote urges fishing limits to protect turtles

Wed, 30 Nov 2005

By Irwin Arieff
Reuters
November 28, 2005

The U.N. General Assembly urged governments and fisheries management groups on Monday to take urgent steps to protect endangered sea turtles and sea birds from an indiscriminate fishing technique.
A resolution adopted by consensus by the 191-nation assembly is aimed at restricting a form of industrial fishing known as longline fishing.

It is used by large fishing vessels in the Pacific Ocean that trail lines studded with hooks that can stretch out as long as 60 miles (100 km) behind them, snaring millions of sea turtles and birds along with the fish they intend to catch.

The resolution calls for urgent implementation of measures set out in U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization guidelines intended to reduce such incidental sea turtle and bird deaths.

The measures include closing some fishing areas on a seasonal or continuous basis as well as restricting particular types of fishing equipment.

But they fall short of the moratorium on longline fishing sought by more than 1,000 scientists from 97 countries in a letter delivered to U.N. delegates in May.

Longline fishing is practiced by vessels from many nations including the United States, Japan, Taiwan, Spain and other Asian and Latin American nations.

The value of its take at dockside is estimated at $4 billion to $5 billion a year.

Tuna and swordfish are longline fishing's most common targets, but the lines also snag as many as 4.4 million sea turtles, bullfish, sharks, marine mammals and seabirds every year, according to a study of the practice conducted by Robert Ovetz of the California-based Sea Turtle Restoration Project.

One of the hardest-hit creatures is the migratory leatherback sea turtle, whose numbers in the Pacific have declined by 95 percent since 1980, according to Ovetz.

Scientists warn the leatherback could disappear in the next five to 30 years unless fishing techniques are altered.

Ovetz hailed the U.N. vote as a good first step. But a moratorium "would give us the time to put proven conservation measures into place to keep the leatherback from dropping off into oblivion forever," he added in a statement.

U.N. General Assembly adopts resolution to benefit endangered turtles

Wed, 30 Nov 2005

by Seana K. Magee
Kyodo News (Japan)
November 29, 2005

The General Assembly adopted a resolution Tuesday calling on countries to close fishing areas where large numbers of endangered turtles and other animals are killed or injured each year and to protect other marine species.

Of major concern to environmentalists is the future of the Pacific leatherback. The 100-million-year-old creature is on the brink of extinction within the next five to 30 years if current long-line fishing practices, which involve setting out hundreds of baited hooks on lines that extend up to 96 kilometers, are not scaled back.

The indiscriminate fishing method often catches much more than the intended tuna or swordfish and snags a host of other animals, referred to as bycatch, including the sea turtles, seals, sea birds, dolphins, sharks and whales.

Japan, Taiwan and South Korea are reportedly among the nations in the Pacific with the largest long-line fishing fleets and China is increasingly using the method for its catch.

In a portion of the resolution's 18-page text, states, regional and subregional fisheries management and other international organizations are urged to eliminate or reduce bycatch and to consider measures regarding ''closed seasons and areas and zones reserved for selected fisheries.''

Specifically, states and other related organizations are called on to implement guidelines to ''reduce sea turtle mortality in fishing operations and the international plan of action for reducing incidental catch of seabirds in long-line fisheries'' to prevent a further decline in their populations.

In addition to laying out guidelines related to the fisheries bycatch and discards portion of the text, the resolution also addresses other issues ranging from combating illegal and unregulated fishing to fishing overcapacity. While environmentalists are pleased that the United Nations has taken the step they ultimately believe that a moratorium on the fishing method is necessary to ensure that the Pacific leatherback survives.

''I am happy they have taken the first step because the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step,'' James Spotila, chaired professor of Environmental Science at Drexel University told Kyodo News in a phone interview, referring to the move by the General Assembly.
''I think it is essential that we have a moratorium on long-line fishing because the leather back turtle is very near extinction in the Pacific Ocean,'' Spotila added.

As a scientist who has tracked the mortality rates of turtle populations he noted that there are only about 900 adult female Pacific leatherbacks remaining in the Eastern Pacific, primarily in Mexico and Costa Rica, and about 4,000 adult females in the western Pacific, which includes parts of Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and other Pacific Islands.

In 1980, there were approximately 70-90,000 adult female turtles in the eastern Pacific. As a significant nesting area in the Pacific, Malaysia now only has a couple of animals whereas there were more than 5,000 female decades ago.

Accordingly, scientific journals report that there has been a 95 percent decline of the population of female nesting leatherbacks since 1980.

While the conservationists are concerned with the plight of the turtles, long-line fishing proponents worry that if the method were eliminated altogether there would be an impact to the industry and a significant loss of jobs.

''To some degree you are playing roulette with the turtles,'' Spotila said. ''If we are wrong about long-lining it causes an economic impact or it has a bad effect on an industry for five, or 10 or 20 years, but if we are right about it and we don't stop it, then you are talking about extinction of the animal.''

In June dozens of schoolchildren dressed in turtle costumes rallied in front of the U.N. headquarters where they delivered a petition to Secretary General Kofi Annan that was signed by 1,007 scientists from 97 countries and 281 nongovernmental organizations urging that the fishing method be stopped. The protest coincided with an open-ended meeting at the United Nations on oceans and the law of the sea.

The language that endorsed a set of guidelines was drafted earlier by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization at the June meeting and urged countries to reduce interactions with the sea turtles and called for time and area closures to reduce the bycatch, which includes the endangered sea turtles.

''The descent of the leatherback toward extinction is a global ecological tragedy that affects us all. As goes the leatherback, so goes the ocean,'' warned Spotila when he testified in June before the United Nations.

A recent study in the scientific journal Ecology Letters estimates that some 50,000 leatherbacks and about 200,000 loggerheads, also a threatened species, are caught by long-lines annually.

Spotila is also worried about the future of the Pacific loggerheads. Japan has a total population of about 1,500 loggerheads with about half of them being females who nest. Also in the Pacific, Australia has an estimated total population of about 1,000 turtles, with approximately 500 of those being adult females.

Although the 191-member world body adopted the resolution by consensus, it is a nonbinding one.

Sea Turtle Savior: Profile of Todd Steiner, Director

Tue, 30 Aug 2005

by Rick Polito
Marin Independent Journal
Sunday, August 28, 2005

Todd Steiner couldn't stop at the beach.

The founder of the Sea Turtle Restoration Project started with a simple concept on a single beach. ..

Ban on Long-Line Commercial Fishing May be Lifted: Styled Hook Won't Spare Sea Turtles, Opponents Contend

Mon, 08 Aug 2005

by Glen Martin
San Francisco Chronicle
August 5, 2005

Marine conservationists say the West Coast's last sea turtles could be wiped out if federal agencies decide to overturn a ban on long-lining, a form of commercial fishing that has killed hundreds of thousands of turtles over the past 20 years.

The National Marine Fisheries Service, a subsidiary agency of the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, banned long-lining for swordfish off the California coast in 2004 after concluding the practice was destroying sea turtles -- especially leatherbacks, huge marine reptiles sometimes exceeding a ton in weight.

By some estimates, Pacific leatherbacks -- which lay their eggs on beaches in Southeast Asia but frequently migrate through California's offshore waters -- have declined by 95 percent since 1980.

But the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which sets policies on commercial fishing in federal waters, is pondering a proposal by long-line advocates to overturn the ban. Any recommendation the council makes will be referred to the fisheries service, which will make the final decision.

Long-lining involves setting out thousands of baited hooks attached to a single line over miles of ocean. It is a highly effective way to catch large pelagic fish.

The management council's decision could come as early as today. It will be based largely on the use of circle hooks, a recent fishing innovation that prevents turtles from deeply swallowing baited hooks. Using circle hooks, long- liners returned last year to waters off Hawaii, where they were banned from fishing in 1999 because of heavy turtle mortality.

But critics say the efficacy of circle hooks in preventing turtle deaths is not fully known.

"A (fisheries service) report that recommended them was not peer reviewed and was not published" in a scientific journal, said Robert Ovetz, the Save the Leatherback campaign coordinator for the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, based in Marin. "We don't think that's adequate proof they're acceptable."

Ovetz acknowledged that circle hooks do less internal damage to turtles than standard hooks, "but they still hook turtles."

A recent Duke University study concluded that virtually every sea turtle left in the world is caught by a long-line every two years, Ovetz said. Not all turtles die after being hooked.

"We know there is a degree of mortality associated with hooking, no matter what kind of hook is used," Ovetz said. "And it's not just the hooks. A study conducted in Ecuador concluded turtles become entangled in lines with baited circle hooks. It's simply a fishery that's extremely destructive to turtles, and we shouldn't allow it back to the California coast."

The fishery council's designated contact for the long-lining issue, Kit Dahl, could not be reached for comment.

Todd Phillips, the Central California recreational fisheries survey supervisor for the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, said he could see both good and bad aspects of circle hooks.

"If it can be truly demonstrated that turtles going after baits won't be deeply hooked by circle hooks, then they could work for the fishery," Phillips said. "On the other hand, if line entanglement is really a problem, then the management council needs to look at that."

Mike Hirshfield, the chief scientist and vice president for Oceana, a marine advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., said circle hooks can be useful in minimizing turtle deaths.

"There's some indication they can work, but further field testing is the key," Hirshfield said. "We need to know how they do in different areas at different times of the year, with turtles of different species and age classes. "

Moreover, said Hirshfield, sea turtles are in such dire straits that long- lining as a general practice should be discouraged.

"We're against expansion of existing long-lining operations, and we're against establishing long-lining in areas where it's currently banned," he said.

Hirshfield said sea turtle populations were slipping catastrophically around the world, including in the United States. He noted that turtle nests at the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge in Florida had declined from 18, 000 in 1998 to 8,000 in 2004.

"About 25 percent of the Western Hemisphere's loggerheads use that refuge, " Hirshfield said. "It's a very grim situation."

On Thursday, Oceana filed a petition with the U.S. Department of Commerce to invoke additional protections for sea turtles.

"We asked for in-water surveys of turtle populations, not just nesting beach surveys," Hirshfield said, "and we're asking for more observers on fishing boats and fishery closures when specific numbers of turtles are taken."

E-mail Glen Martin at glenmartin@sfchronicle.com.

MTV Gets into Hot Turtle Water

Tue, 26 Jul 2005

BBC Radio 1
July 13, 2005

MTV's being given a pasting by environmentalists who say it threatened the lives of endangered turtles for a reality TV show.

The channel was filming a new programme called 'The Gauntlet' on Turtle Beach in Tobago earlier this month.

The Sea Turtle Restoration Project claim eight nests containing around 400 eggs were destroyed, and more were buried by constantly moving heavy equipment.

Producers say they did what they could to ensure they didn't damage the place or the turtles.

UN Asked to Halt Fishing That Endangers Sea Species

Thu, 07 Jul 2005

Bloomberg
June 6, 2005

A coalition of almost 1,000 scientists asked the United Nations today to ban commercial fishing that the group said annually kills 4.4 million endangered animals, including sea turtles, sharks and whales.

James Donofrio, director of the Recreation Fishing Alliance, told reporters in New York that companies that catch $3 billion worth of tuna using hooks on miles of lines strung by fishing boats in the Pacific Ocean are committing ``ecological genocide.'' He said vessels from 40 nations, led by Japan and Taiwan, place 1.4 billion hooks in the water each year.

The scientists, representing 230 environmental groups, want the UN General Assembly to use authority under the Law of the Sea Treaty to adopt a resolution halting long-line fishing for up to 10 years, allowing sea turtles to recover from the brink of extinction. Donofrio said the deaths each year of 60,000 sea turtles could lead to their disappearance within five years.

``For so many years, ocean protection groups have been working in isolation,'' Robert Ovetz, coordinator of the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, told reporters. ``The current crisis has united us around the solution. We need a moratorium.''

`Extremist Ideas'

Yoshiaki Ito, an envoy to Japan's mission to the UN, said his country is no longer a leader in long-line fishing, after reducing the practice by 20 percent within the past five years. At the same time, Ito said Japan wouldn't support UN action calling for a moratorium.

``Japan is very much committed to protecting the environment, but cannot go along with such kinds of extremist ideas,'' he said.

Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, representing 25 groups along the U.S. Pacific coast, said commercial fishermen need time to develop new types of hooks that won't catch sea turtles. He said the industry has been working with environmental groups to adapt their techniques.

``Our industry has an obligation and we can do it, but we need help and for environmental groups to work with us,'' Grader said in an interview. ``What irritates the fishing industry is that they keep looking at us instead of developing a comprehensive program.''

New Approach

The Washington-based World Wildlife Fund in April awarded a $25,000 prize for an idea aimed at reducing the so-called by- catch in sea turtles. Steve Beverly, who has worked as a fisherman and fisheries official in the Pacific, won the International Smart Gear Competition by proposing that long lines be set at depths greater than 100 meters, where turtles are less likely to be found.

Grader said the scientists should press the U.S. and other UN member governments to protect sea turtle shoreline nesting areas, including steps to limit residential development and the access of trucks that go onto beaches to load oil from offshore drilling platforms. Law enforcement agencies need to do more to catch sea turtle poachers, he said.

``The environmental groups always go after the easy things,'' Grader said. ``It would be much more difficult to take on the Bush administration over its relationship with the oil industry. The U.S. has a lot of cleaning up of its own to do.''

Todd Steiner, executive director of the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, said that while environmentalists have been working with industry groups, they ``don't want to hear the issues.'' He called for creation of marine protection areas where fishing would be outlawed, a UN investigation of ``destructive'' fishing techniques and a ban on the selling of shark fins.

Activists Seek Protected Marine Areas

Thu, 07 Jul 2005

United Press International
June 7, 2005

The restoration project said industrial longline fishing in the Pacific Ocean annually "catches or kills as many as 4.4 million billfish, sharks, sea turtles, seabirds and marine mammals.

Varied activists have joined together at a U.N. Law of the Sea panel to seek sustainable use of a string of marine protected areas in the Pacific Ocean.

The Sea Turtle Restoration Project and the International Game Fish Association Monday joined together at U.N. World Headquarters in New York to voice support before a Law of the Sea panel to endorse a moratorium on fishing in the Pacific with lines up to 60 miles long with as many as 2,000 baited hooks. The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition opposes bottom trawling, notorious for damaging virtually everything nets draw across.

The latest report from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on "Oceans and the Law of the Sea," published in March, points out they "are threatened by climate change, natural disasters, environmental degradation, depletion of fisheries, loss of biodiversity and ineffective control by the "flag states" of fishing vessels.

The report suggested a series of actions be taken to deal with the problems, including "overexploitation of marine resources."

It recommended, "urgent action and adopt innovative measures to eliminate over-fishing and illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing" and called on member states of the United Nations "to prevent further destruction of marine ecosystems and associated losses of biodiversity" and engage in conservation discussions.

Calling Leatherback sea turtles, the "canary in the mineshaft" of the high seas, James Spotilla of Drexel University, said they "urgently need the help of the United Nations," and advocates a "network of sustainable use high seas MPAs" as key to saving the turtles.

He said the number of nesting females have dropped "from about 1,300 in 1998-1989 to about 50 this past year."

Spotilla said "longline fishing" was killing them off at about 20 percent a year, meaning the leatherbacks could go extinct in as soon as five years.

"What we are seeing is the extinction of a species," he told reporters at a briefing in connection with the U.N. Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea, as the hearings are billed in U.N.-speak. The aim is establishing marine protected areas where industrial fishing would be prohibited.

"For so many years, ocean protection groups have been working in isolation. The current crisis has united us around the solution of sustainable use high seas MPAs," said Robert Ovetz, coordinator of the Save the Leatherback Campaign with the project.

"The high seas make up the majority of the world's oceans and large parts of the high seas are devoid of effective internationally agreed controls," the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition said in a statement, adding fishing was stripping the bio-diversity of the world's oceans and primary among the unregulated threats was high seas bottom trawling.

The coalition describes itself as "an alliance of over 40 international organizations, representing millions of people in countries around the world," calling for a moratorium on high seas bottom trawling until the nations of the world can establish strong management measures for deep-sea fisheries and protect biodiversity on the high seas.

Such a practice was universally accepted as "the most destructive in use and which wipes out entire ecosystems for the sake of a few commercially valuable species," it said. Scientists estimated if urgent action was not taken to regulate bottom trawling, most deep sea fish stocks on the high seas currently being caught would be commercially extinct in 20 years.

The coalition is calling for UNICPOLOS, the hearing panel, to send a recommendation to the U.N. General Assembly for a moratorium on high seas bottom trawling. It would not be the first time.

The turtle restoration project and the game fish association were another pair of advocates out of 281 non-governmental organizations from 62 countries joining 1,007 scientists from 97 countries calling for the moratorium.

The restoration project said industrial longline fishing in the Pacific Ocean annually "catches or kills as many as 4.4 million billfish, sharks, sea turtles, seabirds and marine mammals."

Matthew Gianni, political adviser to the coalition, said the U.N. panel, "cannot simply call for action again, it has to play a part in precipitating it and the ground work is now there for that to happen.

"Countries which had previously opposed and blocked measures to protect the high seas are now changing their positions and we have a real opportunity to finally translate the fine words into a commitment to take concrete action," he said.

The major obstacles to progress have been Iceland and the European Union, led by Spain, the single biggest high seas bottom-trawling nation among nations reporting their catch, the coalition said. However, there has been a strong shift in the stances taken by individual EU countries during the last few months, with Spain accepting that the practice is a highly destructive and proposing limited measures for addressing it.

The Law of the Sea panel was to discuss this week the contribution of fisheries to sustainable development.

Without sustainable and effective management of the world's fisheries and oceans beyond national jurisdiction, deep-sea fisheries, together with many irreplaceable habitats and unique species will be quickly wiped out and many may be lost forever, said Gianni.

"It is high time that the high seas were firmly on the agenda for action. Until the global commons of the high seas are subject to proper management, illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing will continue to flourish," he said. "Unless bottom trawling in these areas is controlled, there will be very little left to manage. Tackling bottom trawling is the key to unlocking a genuinely sustainable approach."

UN Asked to Ban Fishing Practice, Save Sea Turtle

Thu, 07 Jul 2005

Reuters News Service
June 6, 2005

UNITED NATIONS - Costa Rica and more than 1,000 scientists from around the world will ask the United Nations on Monday to ban a form of industrial fishing they say menaces an endangered sea turtle and other marine creatures.

The technique, known as longline fishing, is used by large fishing vessels in the Pacific Ocean that trail lines studded with hooks that can stretch out as long as 60 miles (100 km) behind them.

The main problem with the technique is that it is indiscriminate, according to its foes.

Tuna and swordfish are the most common targets, but the lines also snag as many as 4.4 million sea turtles, bullfish, sharks, marine mammals and seabirds every year, according to a study of the practice conducted for Costa Rica by Robert Ovetz of the California-based Sea Turtle Restoration Project.

One of the hardest-hit creatures is the migratory leatherback sea turtle, whose numbers in the Pacific have declined by 95 percent since 1980, according to Ovetz.

Scientists warn the leatherback could disappear in five to 30 years unless fishing techniques are altered.

Because it is migratory, traveling thousands of miles (km) every year to nest, international action is required to save it, according to the study.

The question of sustainable fishing practices will be one of several controversial practices on the agenda next week when delegates from 148 nations meet at UN headquarters in New York for consultations on oceans and marine law.

The conference will also focus on trash in the ocean and how to discourage dumping.

Longline fishing is practiced by vessels from many nations including the United States, Japan, Taiwan, Spain and other Asian and Latin American nations.

The value of its take at dockside is estimated at $4 billion to $5 billion a year.

Supporting Costa Rica's stand, 1,007 scientists from 97 countries have signed a letter to meeting participants urging decisive UN action to ban all fishing techniques that menace the leatherback "until such activities can be conducted without harm to the species."

Also backing the initiative are 281 private organizations from 62 countries.

New Fishing Hooks May Spare Sea Turtles

Tue, 03 May 2005

National Public Radio
May 2, 2005

STRP's Save the Leatherback Campaign Coordinator Robert Ovetz, PhD is quoted in the story.

Prominent Scientists Join Call for UN Moratorium on Longline Fishing: 705 International Scientists from 83 countries Have Signed

Wed, 06 Apr 2005

The Baltimore Chronicle
February 2, 2005

Each year, in addition to endangering sea turtles, about 4.4 million sharks, seabirds, billfish and marine mammals maimed and killed by longlines in the Pacific.World-renowned primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and UN Messenger of Peace, has added her voice to 705 international scientists from 83 countries who are urging the UN to implement a moratorium on longline fishing in the Pacific Ocean to prevent the extinction of the critically endangered leatherback sea turtle. The scientists are joined by 230 non-governmental organizations from 54 countries. The list of signers includes biologist E.O. Wilson, oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle, a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, and former US astronaut William Harris, M.D.

According to the statement, �An International Call by Leading Scientists to Reverse the Pacific Leatherback's Extinction Trajectory,� the scientists warn that �The Pacific leatherback sea turtle is at the top of the list of species being driven to the brink of extinction by increased efforts of global industrial fishing.� Also impacted are about 4.4 million sharks, seabirds, billfish and marine mammals maimed and killed by longlines in the Pacific each year.

�Sea Turtles are endangered everywhere. Unless there is a concerted effort by all the groups and individuals who care, the Pacific Leatherback Sea Turtle is almost certainly doomed to extinction. And these efforts would be greatly strengthened by the support of the United Nations,� said Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, in a prepared statement to the press. �How tragic it would be if future generations know these wonderful animals only from photographs and films.�
Because sea turtles are migratory, traveling thousands of miles each year to nest, an international solution is needed.

The female nesting population of highly migratory leatherback sea turtles in the Pacific Ocean has collapsed by 95 per cent since 1980. Eminent scientists warn that the leatherback could go extinct in 5-30 years unless the threat from longline fishing is reduced. Because sea turtles are migratory, traveling thousands of miles each year to nest, an international solution is needed.

The UN General Assembly passed a resolution last November calling for prohibitions of destructive fishing practices. The first place to start, according to the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, is by implementing a moratorium on longline fishing. In the past, the UN has banned destructive fishing methods, such as through the international moratorium on high seas driftnetting.

The petitions, originally submitted to the UN in February 2003 with the names of 413 international scientists and 113 NGOs, have not yet received a formal response from the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Longline fishing is reducing our oceans to biological wastelands

Wed, 06 Apr 2005

by Robert Ovetz, PhD
Op Ed
The Canberra Times� �
Monday, 6 December 2004

O N A RECENT trip to Bangkok, I visited the Shark Fin Soup restaurant. There wasn't much to see.
The spacious restaurant, situated in the midst of a bustling market, was completely empty and the staff greeted me half-bored in their chairs outside the front door.
We can only hope that recent efforts by the United Nations, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, and the United States to ban the shameful practice of cutting off shark fins to feed wealthy patrons of this high- priced and nutritionally empty luxury will keep many more such restaurants empty.
Using data supplied by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency, we recently reported that shallow longline fishing captures and kills about 4.4 million sharks, seabirds, billfish, marine mammals and sea turtles each year in the Pacific Ocean.
Sharks make up more than two- thirds of this total.
What few realise is that the problem of shark finning is really the problem of industrial high-seas longline fishing in which monofilament lines stretching as far as 60 nautical miles are lined with thousands of baited hooks.
Two recent scientific studies have warned that top-of-the-food-chain predators such as sharks have declined by as much as 90 to 99 per cent in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.
Since the UN Food and Agriculture Organization recently warned that about 70 per cent of our global fisheries are near full capacity, at full capacity or already over-depleted, one of the few remaining big fish around to be hooked on longlines are sharks.
Alongside sharks, leatherback sea turtles have also been driven to the precipice of extinction by longline fishing.
Female nesting leatherbacks have declined by 95 per cent in the Pacific since 1980.
Scientists have warned that the leatherback could go extinct in the next 5-30 years unless the threat of longlines is significantly reduced.
Longlines also pose a significant threat to the survival of the black- footed albatross seabird in the Pacific.
Because there is little demand for shark meat, the lucrative demand for shark fins has propelled sharks, the most abundant catch by longline fisheries, into the spotlight.
This recent global market opportunity has turned a fish once regarded as a trash fish - a nuisance to both target fish and fishermen - into the primary motivation for longlining.
Pull away the veneer from global fisheries most at risk, and one will find illicit shark fin fisheries posing as swordfish, tuna and billfish fisheries.
The Sea of Cortez, off the US Pacific North-West coast, once teaming with incredible life and marvellously chronicled by novelist John Steinbeck, is rapidly becoming a biological wasteland.
Many longline vessels licensed for some depleted billfish are in actuality targeting sharks.
An international chorus is attempting to reverse the pillaging of our ocean that is driving sharks, the leatherback and the black-footed albatross to the brink of extinction.
Last month, the UN General Assembly strengthened the language of a resolution it passed in 2003, this time calling on nations to ban shark finning fisheries.
Days later, about 60 countries belonging to the regional fisheries organization for the Atlantic tuna fishery, ICCAT, joined the US in calling for a ban on shark finning.
The same week, the World Conservation Union also announced it support for a global ban on shark finning.
The US itself took the first step by banning the wasteful practice in the late 1990s.
Our organization has also been engaged in an effort to ban the landing of shark fins in Costa Rica by Taiwanese vessels.
Another NGO is also carrying on a campaign in Asia.
Banning finning is a courageous first step to protecting endangered sharks, but without efforts to inform consumers about the need to end the consumption of fins and put a halt to the technique of longline fishing, millions of more animals will die each year in the Pacific and globally.
Nearly 700 international scientists from 54 countries, among them the famed biologist E.O Wilson, primatologist Dr Jane Goodall and oceanographer Dr Sylvia Earle, have called on the UN to implement a moratorium on longline fishing in the Pacific.
If we are to save sharks, the leatherback and the black-footed albatross from extinction, we need to heed their call and stop longline fishing long enough for there to be something other than sharks to catch.
Robert Ovetz is the Save the Leatherback Campaign Coordinator with the US-based NGO Sea Turtle Restoration Project. robert@seaturtles.org]

Fishing: The New Resource War

Wed, 06 Apr 2005

by Robert Ovetz
Op Ed
San Francisco Examiner
Thursday, March 31, 2005

Until the mid-20th century, the ocean was a key watery terrain of conflict between competing colonial powers seeking to expand their control over territories and natural resources.
Today, the ocean is again a renewed place of conflict.
These battles, raging from California to Canada to Chile to Scotland to Taiwan, are the newest round of hot and cold global resource wars between small fishers, governments and industrial fishing vessels.
Earlier this year, small Bay Area Dungeness crab fishers found their fishery wiped out in a matter of days by large crab boats moving in from the Pacific Northwest. When the price fell too low, the large vessels dumped their catches. Now the California Legislature is considering legislation banning large crab boats.
The fish wars are flaring out of control across our planet. In just the past few months, Italian fishing boats fired on Croatian boats, fisher strikes have rocked India, angry clashes have broken out in Chile and Taiwan, and Australia has seized and burned illegal fishing vessels, just to name a few.
Long left vulnerable to the vestiges of the global market, our fisheries are being rapidly depleted. New developments in industrial fishing over the last few decades have led to a rapid oversupply of super-sized vessels plundering the ocean. According to the United Nations, about 70 percent of our global fisheries are now being fished close to, already at or beyond their capacity.
Flush with subsidies, the growing global industrial fishing fleet is rapidly outstripping the supply of fish. Scientists recently warned that large predatory fish such as shark and marlin have been depleted by as much as 99 percent in the past century.
The first to suffer the consequences of the global plunder are ocean wildlife and local subsistence fishermen. "Dirty" fishing gear such as longlines � monofilament lines stretching up to 60 miles and baited with thousands of hooks � catch and kill large numbers of nontarget catch.
A recent report estimates that longlines catch and kill 4.4 million sharks, sea turtles, seabirds, billfish and marine mammals in the Pacific each year. Scientists warn that the endangered Pacific leatherback sea turtle, often caught on longlines, could go extinct in the next five to 30 years unless the threat of longlines is reversed.
Environmentalists and small-scale fishing people have responded with protests, lawsuits and extensive campaigns for reform. Likewise, recreational fishermen, faced with a threat to their lucrative industry, worth many times more than revenues from industrial fishing, have responded in kind.
Heavily indebted developing countries are pushing local subsistence fishing communities out of waters that have sustained their families and local communities for centuries, in order to allow foreign vessels in.
As Jean Ziegler, a United Nations expert on the right to food, said in a recent report, "In the drive to industrialize, privatize and orient fish production towards exports, poor fishing and fish-farming communities are often left behind."
The consequences are not surprising. Job losses are mounting among coastal fishing communities already hit hard by erosion and climate change. As foreign vessels export fish once destined for local markets, local prices have shot up.
In order to solve this problem, a number of nations are calling for moratoriums on destructive fishing such as industrial longlines. Last November, the United Nations itself called for prohibitions of destructive fishing techniques.
Let's hope this is more than talk. The survival of the ocean and the people that depend on it for their survival are at risk.
Robert Ovetz, Ph.D., is the Save the Leatherback Campaign Coordinator with the U.S.-based Sea Turtle Restoration Project. He can be reached at robert@seaturtles.org.