Greenpeace guarding our Pacific waters

The Greenpeace campaigners are back in the Cook Islands as part of their expedition to call for all Pacific governments to come together and collectively agree to close off pockets of areas beyond EEZ which are beyond scrutiny.
Earlier this year, they visited the Cook Islands as part of their goodwill visit in their Climate Change and Voices of the Pacific campaign and on this latest expedition, the campaigners have acted as eye witnesses to the illegal plunder of Pacific fish stocks by foreign unlicensed vessels illegally fishing within the boundaries of the EEZ of the Pacific nations.
Greenpeace say they have long suspected this practice so were determined to find evidence of this during this campaign and were determined to document it and to make the world aware of that.
When challenged, the ships are found to have licenses to fish on the high seas but this is only a guise as their real objective is to fish within the EEZ of Pacific nations but without having to pay for it and without permission.
The campaigners report all such illegal activities to the appropriate authorities for the relevant countries along with photographs and GPS position as hard evidence of illegal fishing activities. This is what happened with the Japanese vessel ‘caught red handed’ while illegally fishing in the northern waters of the Cook Islands. They reported its position to Cook Islands Marine Resources who confirmed back to them that the vessel did not have a licence to fish within our waters and later requested copies of the photos taken as hard evidence of their activities.
Other illegal practices are illegally transferring fish on to refrigerated mother ships on the high seas to escape having to pay fees or having to report their catch on the statistics.
Oceans campaigner, Lagi Toribau says it is “daylight robbery “and must be stopped with more action than on the seas which has limited effect considering there are several thousand vessels It is about trying to protect a valuable resource from over fishing because the Pacific is the only remaining area with relatively healthy fish stocks with that of Europe and Asia almost depleted from the destructive and wasteful practices.
They say there are hugely destructive and wasteful such using FADs (fishing aggregate devices) to lure the fish into large schools of fish which are then scooped up by large purse seiners with all unintended by-catch such as sharks and reef fish in addition to the valuable tuna stocks which are the real target of the ships. Greenpeace have three vessels patrolling 17 Pacific nations including Australia and New Zealand and if they catch any such boats, the catch are confiscated and reported them to the authorities as well as to the Tuna Commission as happened with the ship with a PNG licence but was flying a Philippines flag and found to unlicensed to fish within the EEZ in which they were found.
Greenpeace recognize there are limits to the effects of the island nations, so their UK counterparts in the UK have persuaded large retail buyers to switch to purchasing only fish caught using pole lines and long line methods only. They are also provided with a list of the blacklisted ships to ensure they do not inadvertently buy the product of pirate fishing boats and by closing the market for illegally caught fish, they will help put a stop to the pirate fishing or at least slow it down.

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