NEWS

GREENPEACE RELEASES SHOCKING VIDEO FROM TUNA INDUSTRY WHISTLEBLOWER

Shocking video footage captured by a tuna industry whistleblower has been released by Greenpeace, revealing the routine careless slaughter of marine species, including sharks, rays and whales, as purse-seine vessels deploying Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) cut a swathe through the Pacific Ocean.

Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) are floating devices used to attract fish to the surface and are one of the most aggressive fishing operations used by the industry in the face of declining fish populations due to overfishing. While they have been banned in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean for three months of the year, this is not enough and Greenpeace is calling for their ban in purse seine fisheries on a year-round basis.

Simon Clydesdale, Oceans campaigner for Greenpeace UK, said: 'The leadership shown by companies in the UK, the world's second largest tuna market, proves that this industry can operate without such indiscriminate destruction - large scale change is urgently needed, and we've already shown that it can be done.'

Several tuna brands, including UK tuna giants Princes and John West and all the major UK supermarkets, have committed to not source tuna from operations using FADs, as well as tuna caught in the Pacific Commons. Greenpeace campaigns in Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Canada and the United States are putting the pressure on retailers and tuna brands to take steps to rescue the Pacific for the benefit of the region's food security and economic prosperity.

'Consumers have the right to know what is destroyed and discarded in order to fill their cans with tuna,' said Casson Trenor, Greenpeace USA oceans campaigner. 'This shocking video is a wake-up call: we as consumers, can demand that retailers give shelf-space only to responsibly-caught tuna. Without significant changes to global fishing practices and more protected marine reserves across the world's seas, we will literally fish away future tuna supplies, jobs and healthy oceans.'