Greenpeace are at it again!

Give us a call Owen; we'll admit you into the university free of charge (perhaps in the optometry clinic), just as we will George Clement.

Shame on the both of you
 
Sorry to bombard, but this is rather important.


PRESS RELEASE: Deep Sea Conservation Coalition * (New Zealand arm)

Media Release: Friday 10 June 2005:
Today the New Zealand arm of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (1) released a report and photographs that debunk the fishing industry's claims that the high seas bottom trawling industry is sustainable.

The report, "Red Herrings" (2), written for the DSCC by the Washington-based Marine Conservation Biology Institute, addresses, and scientifically debunks each industry claim about high seas bottom trawling.

It provides new evidence of the destruction of important deep sea biodiversity by bottom trawling in New Zealand and international waters. The report's findings contradicts Nelson high seas bottom trawling company Amaltal's director Andrew Talley's comments that talk of bottom trawling damage and the unsustainability of the industry is "unsubstantiated claptrap".

"This report shows that the bottom trawling industry's denials lack credibility. Over 1000 international marine scientists agree that the damage caused to the seafloor is huge," said Shirley Atatagi-Coutts, Greenpeace campaigner.

"Less than 4% of our ocean floor is comprised of seamounts, - these small areas are the 'national park forests' of our waters," said Forest & Bird Conservation Officer, Debs Martin.

"Around 85% of these seamounts in New Zealand waters have been trawled. On the Challenger Plateau (east of Taranaki), some of these seamounts have been trawled to the point where stocks of orange roughy are only 3% of their original population and 97% of their coral forests cleared. This kind of overfishing is abusive, indiscriminate and may already have caused extinction."

Evidence shows it's not just orange roughy caught in these nets, but giant coral forests, starfish, kina, squid, and deep sea sharks.

"One sweep with the bottom trawl, and it's as though you've felled a forest. Considering these 'forests' take hundreds of years to grow, the fishing industry is doing some of the greatest destruction on this planet," said Cath Wallace of ECO.

The information in the report has been backed up by first-hand reports from people active in the fishing industry in Nelson, where members of the DSCC have been speaking with people at information stalls over the past month.

"I have been overwhelmed by the number of fishers who approach us and say 'well done'," said Ms Martin. "One woman told me: 'I've been working for them for years. You should see the stuff that comes in * coral, crabs, even a giant squid. It's disgusting. I just hope you're not too late'."

The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition is joining with the international scientific community in calling for a UN moratorium on bottom trawling. The issue is being discussed at the UN this week.

"New Zealand must make the commitment to stop this damaging practice. New Zealand is one of the top 11 bottom trawling nations on the high seas. Our fishing fleets are dragging these devastating trawls across seamounts right now * and Government attention is needed to stop it," said Cath Wallace.

Contacts:

Debs Martin, Conservation Officer, Forest and Bird, 027-684-0599

Cath Wallace, ECO, 021 891 994

Shirley Atatagi-Coutts, Greenpeace 021 858 010

Notes:

1) The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition is an international organisation. New Zealand members are Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society (Inc), Greenpeace NZ, and the Environment and Conservation Organisations of NZ.

2) The Red Herrings report can be found at:

Greenpeace Aotearoa - Greenpeace Aotearoa

Information specific to New Zealand is on pages 9, 10 and 11.

=============================================
IMAGES AND VIDEO
=============================================
http://www.greenpeace.gen.nz/gallery/press
LOGIN: media
PASSWORD: download
 
well, we really should forward this site and particulary this thread to poeple since most are too ignorant to even know what is bottom trawling....only 10& of poeple in our school has heard of bottom trawling and less than 1% actually understands how bottom trawling works, it's a disgrace....

Another interesting facts, I seem to sense that these reports are starting to sound similar to how the War on Iraq was reported...

But still, at least Greenpeace is doing something...unlike me, that is.
 
Here's an industry worth almost twice as much as the orange roughy industry!! We supposedly protect the whales, but we don't protect the environment in which they live AND FEED. Check out those whale diet threads on this forum. There'll be some interesting posts in those shortly.

Nevertheless, malnourished whales are stranding on New Zealand beaches; whales with the remains of Antarctic squid in their stomachs, and very few, if any locally sourced squid.

Owen and George - your industry is not worth as much to this country as you think it is. You are expendable. Your time is running out.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3301056a7693,00.html

Live whales worth $120m to NZ - report
03 June 2005
By SUE ALLEN

A new report into the economic value of whale watching in New Zealand will be used to boost the growing anti-whaling lobby against Japan.


Introducing the report yesterday, Conservation Minister Chris Carter said it demonstrated in graphic financial terms "why living whales are so much more important than dead ones".

More than 425,000 people went whale or dolphin watching in New Zealand last year - almost double the 1998 figure of 230,000 - contributing an estimated $120 million to the economy, the International Fund for Animal Welfare report said.

The 2001 Hoyt Report estimated whale watching was a US$1 billion (NZ$1.4 billion) industry worldwide, attracting nine million participants in 87 countries.

"I hope this will go some way to supporting New Zealand's strong argument that whale conservation, besides its intrinsic value for biodiversity, is also really important from an economic point of view," Mr Carter said.

The report was made public as Prime Minister Helen Clark met her Japanese counterpart, Junichiro Koizumi.

Though the issue was expected to be on the agenda, Miss Clark said it had not been raised because time was short.

Miss Clark has told Japan's Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura that New Zealand is taking part in a 10-country campaign to persuade Japan not to push for an extension of its whaling programme. Australia, the United States and many European countries have also signed up.

Mr Carter said he would formally issue the New Zealand economic report at this month's International Whaling Commission in Korea.

Japan is expected to push to extend the number of minke whales caught each year to 900 and to resume whaling of humpback and fin whales at the same meeting.

Concerns are growing that Japan might quit the IWC and that it is using aid money to buy support from poorer member countries.

Mr Carter said he hoped Japan would stay in the IWC and that leaving could expose them to more wrath from environmental groups like Greenpeace.

As well as diplomatic pressure, Mr Carter said New Zealand had "good opportunities" to sell its argument through Japan's growing environmental movement.

There is a concern that an increase in Japan's scientific whaling quota could affect New Zealand's whale-watching industry. Only about 2000 humpbacks migrate past this country to Tonga, but they could be killed by Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean, Mr Carter said.

"The biggest threat to our multimillion-dollar industry is the threat of increased whaling," Mr Carter said.

The fund's Asia Pacific director, Michael McIntyre, said that more than 24,000 whales had been killed by Japan and Iceland under scientific quotas and by Norway, which killed commercially, despite a 1998 moratorium on whaling.

"Let me make this clear today: This so-called scientific whaling programme is a sham. There is no science in this programme, it has never been peer reviewed, it is just commercial whaling in disguise," he said.
 
Owen and George, it's a political issue now. You'd best be voting National, because I cannot see our Labour or Greens parties tolerating your practices for much longer!!

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10330131

Greens target bottom-trawlers

11.06.05

By Kevin Taylor

An end to bottom-trawling in domestic waters will be a high priority in any post-election talks between the Greens and Labour.

The aim is a major plank of the Green Party's conservation policy being launched by co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons at tomorrow's Forest and Bird annual meeting in Wellington.

She said the "massive devastation" of New Zealand's undersea environment had to be stopped.

Although the Greens are not talking bottom lines before the election, it is understood the issue will be given high priority in any post-election talks with Labour to form a government.

Ms Fitzsimons said bottom-trawling was one of the main focuses of the policy, under which fishing companies would be forced to prove their methods did not cause damage to marine ecosystems and protected species. This would end the practice in many areas surrounding New Zealand.

Greenpeace this week released a striking photograph of coral dredged up by a New Zealand bottom-trawler, and the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior trailed such a vessel off the North Island's west coast.

On Wednesday, protesters from the Rainbow Warrior used inflatables to dart near the Ocean Reward, owned by Nelson fishing firm Amaltal.

The activists cabled shut giant doors so the net could not be released. They also attached floats to the net to prevent it being lowered to the sea floor.

There were angry scenes the day before as frustrated crew on the trawler fired potatoes from compressed-air guns and aimed high-pressure water hoses at the protesters.

There is increasing concern internationally about bottom-trawling, in which nets up to 40m wide are dragged along the sea floor.

Huge chains or rollers attached to the front of the nets destroy everything in their path. The method is the most common way of fishing in New Zealand's exclusive economic zone and internationally.

Ms Fitzsimons said if New Zealanders could see what was happening, they would be outraged.

"The best way to illustrate it is to imagine a large bulldozer crashing its way through a forest, crushing and destroying everything in its path in an effort to net a handful of fantails."

It was abhorrent to think that such an environment was being shattered for the sake of fishing company profits.

"New Zealand's undersea forests deserve the same protection as those on our land."

But, said Seafood Industry Council chief executive Owen Symmans, "New Zealand fishers simply do not drag heavy trawl gear across pristine sea floor as suggested. Fishing only occurs in a very small area of ocean, which has generally been fished for many years."

Greenpeace itself had identified New Zealand bottom-trawlers as "good operators" in a report in March, he said.

George Clement, chief executive of the Nelson-based Orange Roughy Management Company, said any type of food-production business changed the environment to some degree, but it was a matter of balance, and the impact from bottom-trawling was extremely small compared with the amount of ocean.

Two-thirds of New Zealand's zone was not trawled because it was too deep or closed by regulation.

additional reporting NZPA
 
Bureaucrats everywhere!!

http://www.bridlingtontoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=803&ArticleID=1049216

Area may face a trawling ban
TRAWLING could be banned from the sea around Flamborough Head.

The North Eastern Sea Fisheries Committee, which manages the coastal waters, is to carry out further research to find out if trawlers are damaging the site of special interest.
Environmental body English Nature has told the committee it believes trawling is damaging rare chalk reefs, fauna and corals around the headland and wants it to bring in a ban. But chief fishery officer David McCandless says the evidence for that is "inconclusive". "We want to do further seabed study work in the Flamborough area to see if we can improve our knowledge of what impacts, if any, affect the site. We may be able to put a strong enough case together that trawling does not damage the site." If not, a ban of sorts is inevitable under environmental legislation.
At its meeting on Tuesday the committee set up a working group to look at changing the rules for trawlers. It is looking at allowing existing licensed vessels to continue trawling in the area but the right to trawl would cease if the vessel was sold and new vessels would not be allowed to trawl.
"Ultimately it will lead to a total ban as existing users cease operating," said Mr McCandless.
The committee has until December 2006 to complete its studies or bring in the changes. Crab and lobster fishing is not affected.
10 June 2005
......................

It will be too late before this 'committee' reaches a verdict.
 
Thank you Steve for keeping us up to date on the issue...it is very interesting...however, it hits the feelings pretty hard. I have been busy closing out my school year..

Gaetan

ps..Just found the article on the giant squid featuring yourself and roper in the "Ranger Rick" magazine. Have you ever presented for young children?
 
I've done many a talk in my time Gaetan. I wasn't too happy about the factual errors in that article; I had corrected them once before ... I was not impressed that they perpetuated that nonsense - the animal is cool enough without exaggerating.
 
I would have to agree with you. It is the sad thing that is happening in society, Steve. If you, as a teacher are not standing on your head every day or projected on a tv screen in a video game the kids are not interested. The magazine is trying to pull the kids in, and hoping that they never find the truth.....wrong..I have the habit of being very honest in school..sometimes getting in trouble for it...you know biting my tongue and such. Thanks for the response...

Gaetan
 
:mad:

Check out the text in red!! Any Brits out there, be wary of what you eat!!

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3289667a1864,00.html

Rosy future for seafood
23 May 2005

The audience at the annual seafood conference last week was told changing habits are creating opportunities for the industry, writes Adrian Bathgate.

Fresh fish is riding a culinary wave.

In London, young professional people with high discretionary income but low amounts of spare time want a meal that is quick to prepare and healthy.

It's a scene that market research shows has already begun to be played out, and the prediction is that it's a trend that will continue.

Fish might even be the new chicken.

Last week, more than 400 delegates gathered to hear words of optimism about New Zealand's ability to compete and supply into this equation.

Problems that have plagued the $1.2 billion industry in the past few years have been well documented. The kiwi dollar has skyrocketed into territory almost unthought of in the halcyon days when it was at US45c.

Prices for fish have remained stable while the biggest ongoing cost to operators, fuel, has also risen. Although the rise in the kiwi has offset this impact to some degree, fishing companies are faced with a different cost structure to that of a few years ago.

Fishing operators are facing the prospect that the conditions they are operating under are structural not cyclical, with neither the United States dollar nor the cost of oil showing any signs of returning to former levels.

This is significant because this is the year that many operators' currency hedging arrangements begin to expire, meaning they will bear the full brunt of currency changes.

But a recent review of the sector done by the ANZ Bank says "fundamentally the sector looks sound".

It says the supply side, governed by the quota management system, has established a sustainable management system which will provide long-term security at a time when some international stocks are in danger of collapsing.

Also late last year the Aquaculture Reform Bill was passed, lifting a moratorium on new developments. However, strict controls were placed around new marine farming developments.

The ANZ says the industry is set to "ride the cyclical trough" and its sustainable foundations give it a solid longer-term outlook.

The great opportunity for seafood is based around consumers, and the changing face of both society and the way we eat, says Ed Garner, communications director with the British arm of research giant TNS.

These changes will not be news to New Zealanders, as they can be seen here. Basically, more people live alone, on average they earn more and are willing to sacrifice cost for convenience and quality. The so-called breakdown of the nuclear family is well known. Now, 50 per cent of "meal occasions" take place alone, compared to 15% 20 years ago.

Perhaps the statistic which can best encapsulate the seafood opportunity is that average meal preparation times have dropped from 60 minutes in the 1980s to 19 minutes in 2003.

Meals are becoming "lighter", using fresh produce, often picked up on the way home from work. This is especially true of younger, more wealthy and more health-conscious consumers.

What these changes represent is a potential move away from the mainstay of exporting – frozen fish – towards fresh or chilled fish. Not only that, but fish which is pre- processed and ready to cook straight out of the packet.

Garner says looking at the research, these are the consumers who will pay more money, more often, for a premium quality product.

Even though Garner has looked mostly at the British market, obvious parallels can be drawn with lifestyle changes evident in the wider European and North American markets. Europe takes about 20% of New Zealand's seafood.

In 1997, British consumers spent about 659 million ($NZ1.7 billion) on chilled fish and slightly less than that on frozen fish. In 2005, expenditure on chilled fish had risen to 1.1b, but frozen had only risen to 711m.

Garner said the indications are this market will continue its steep growth curve of about 10 to 15% a year.

The ANZ says this demand for seafood could lead to a lift in prices. The increasing Chinese market and resurgent European and American markets could also lead to export growth which is less cyclical than other commodities.

The challenge now is to get Kiwi fish in front of these consumers.

New Zealand has a natural advantage it should play on, the clean, green quality image already present in front of the British consumer in products such as lamb, says Jeremy Horton, category development manager of Young's Bluecrest, Britain's largest seafood chain.

This is combined with the fact the average British consumer is getting more adventurous in the foods they will eat, Horton says.

Young's Bluecrest does catch some of its supplies itself, but it is increasingly sourcing fish from outside Europe. "A key part is making the right connections, getting that product into the restaurants and onto the shelves," says Ross Graham, a New Zealand Trade and Enterprise sector specialist.

Kiwi fish is already present in Britain, but the opportunity is there. While concerns over the state of the cod fishery lingers, opportunity for whitefish such as Hoki remains.

Many New Zealand players already have a degree of presence in Britain and will be looking to the opportunities, says Owen Symmans, chief executive of the Seafood Industry Council.

Horton advocates development of the "New Zealand brand" when it comes to seafood, as the British consumer still does not associate New Zealand with fresh seafood. He says many Kiwi exporters already have the initial contacts – it's just waiting for someone to try to grow the market opportunity with consumers themselves.

"In theory, New Zealand has a massive opportunity to grow its presence, not just in Britain but in Europe as well."

He says one of the biggest opportunity is in shellfish. This is a relatively new area to the British market, but one that is driving the growth in fresh seafood.

Seafood is enjoying a resurgence in Britain and the US, driven by government recommendations about the health benefits. While the positive benefits of fish can be countered by negative images of overfishing, or the dangers of high levels of mercury in some fish, by and large the industry has a good image.

.............

SNORT
 
chrono_war01 said:
the red word sound like some sorta bull**** to me. :shock:
:lol:

Yeah, that red text shows how some people value advertising and images over what the product is and how it is made.

Quite frankly, I think this whole planet's mentality is moving in the wrong direction. There is too much unneccessary deliberation and when a decision is made, it is either too late or not enough help.

__________________
Ban bottom trawling BEFORE 2006!
 
sorry for sounding off topic, but it does have some relevence. I was reading a book by Tom Clancy called Rainbow Six and it has a bunch of "Enviromental Activists" forming a Geneticly Modified Ebola Virus and plans to spread it around the world, wiping out all humans in a single year, except for poeple with super immune systems and the Enviromental Activists themselves, who have a "safe house"...suppose this really happens, with nobody in the world to operate the houses and no demand for fish, bottom trawling will come to a halt, along with the rest of humanity. A scary prospect, but it might work and save the planet, will it?
 

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