Under a Tahitian cloud
This article continues from a previous post.
After enduring a few unfortunate customs snags and transit delays, I finally joined the crew of the Esperanza in Papeete, the commercial center of Tahiti and the capital of French Polynesia, on Saturday, November 7th.
Tahiti is not like the other parts of the Pacific that I’ve visited. First of all, it’s wealthy. Its political connections to France (French Polynesia is still dependent territory under French rule) and the resulting subsidies have brought a tremendous amount of money to the island. As such, being a tourist in Tahiti is not cheap. I was dropping between eight and ten dollars for a beer.
Still, Papeete is a nice place: the harbor and streets are festooned with ivory tiare flowers, and an incomprehensibly verdant mountain tears its way skyward a stone’s throw from the center of town, providing a heart-melting south Pacific backdrop.
Capt. Habib and President Timaru - reunited
The President of French Polynesia, the Honorable Oscar Timaru, stopped by to say hello and to voice his support for Greenpeace and for the campaign. President Timaru and Captain Madeline Habib, the skipper of the Esperanza, actually spent some time working together on a nuclear campaign in Moruroa in 1995.
After President Timaru left, the Esperanza steamed out of Papeete harbor. The next few days were spent heading north around the western edge of the Tuamotu Archipelago and then northeast towards the Marquesas Islands.
We’ve now been at sea for one week, and life on board is casual and relaxed. The crew is experienced and capable, and the captain runs this ship with a steady hand and a positive attitude.
A FAD from yesteryear
On Friday, November 13, we encountered our first FAD. It was floating in the open sea southwest of the Marquesas, and appeared to be derelict – there was no radio transmitter attached to it, nor were there any markings to suggest ownership or origin. The FAD itself was basically a makeshift bamboo raft fixed to a nylon rope, which vanished into the depths (it was presumably attached a weight of some kind). A thick crust of gooseneck barnacles encased the entire FAD; it had clearly been in the water for some time.
The camera team was deployed to investigate and catalog the FAD and the ecosystem that had developed around it. We counted at least eight different species of fish schooling around it, and that was only what were were able to positively identify. Seiners are only after one of those species — skipjack tuna. The other seven would all end up dead, tossed over the side as bycatch.
Wrong place, right time
The FAD had done its job — it had become a sort of floating reef, attracting numerous forage fish as well as several different types of predatory animals. A few oceanic white-tip sharks haunted the area, skirting the edges in search of an easy meal. If this FAD were found and fished by a purse seiner, those sharks and everything else around the raft would be caught in the net and killed.
As we continue traveling north towards the Equator, we’ll move into a latitudinal band known as the Doldrums, an area between 5° N and 5°S known for having weak currents and lackluster wind. This is a preferred target area for skipjack seiners, as they are able to drop FADs with little worry of the devices being carried away by a restless ocean.
More updates as we move onward.
This article continues in a subsequent post.
Tags: bamboo, equator, esperanza, FAD, france, marquesas, oscar, papeete, president, raft, seine, seiner, shark, skipjack, tahiti, timaru, tradewinds, tuamotu
Posted by Casson on Jun 15, 2009 in
Uncategorized 
Hail to the reefs
On Friday, June 12, 2009, President Barack Obama announced “National Oceans Month.” This was a powerful gesture, and will no doubt serve to increase awareness of our current plight. I applaud the President for making a public statement about this tremendously important issue. Quoting directly from the proclamation: “we celebrate these vast spaces and the myriad ways they sustain life. We also pledge to preserve them and commend all those who are engaged in efforts to meet this end.”
Hear, hear!
But, alas — I wouldn’t be a blogger if I didn’t use my little cyber-soapbox to pick, prod, and critique. So, in the spirit of constructive criticism, I’d like to point out a minor issue that I feel merits a bit of discussion:
There is no such thing as a “national ocean.”
What, this isn't good enough?
Now, I can already hear the whistling of the incoming artillery that my snarky little comment has invited. “It’s a month about national recognition for the oceans, not recognition for national oceans,” or “He’s only the President of one country, he can only make national statements.” I know, I know. But bear with me for a minute.
It’s not that I don’t feel that “National Oceans Month” is important. It is. I’m ecstatic that President Obama has taken the time to affix federal letterhead to his views on our planet’s seas. It is, as I opined earlier, a very good thing.
The problem is that oceans are not national. They are the very definition, in fact, of international. And national proclamations won’t fix them.
Blue ocean, red ocean
The reasons behind many of our ocean’s most imposing environmental challenges are international in nature. Ocean acidification, a creeping decrease in pH that spawns from climate change, pollution, and overfishing, is not the fault of any one country, nor can it be solved by any one government. Solving this problem will take the cooperative action of all the world’s nations.
Bluefin tuna, a favorite punching-bag subject of mine, is similar in nature. The bluefin is a migratory, pelagic species. It does not spend its entire life within the exclusive economic zone of any one country. International agreements that are in place to “manage” it continue to fail in any number of ways. For example, ICCAT (the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas) is a multi-state body tasked with managing bluefin tuna stocks in the Mediterranean and surrounding waters. Unfortunately, it has proven to be a toothless paper tiger whose enforcement prowess is somewhere between the Keystone Cops and the guy who sends you to jail in Monopoly.
Arrr! We've come fer yer orange roughy!
Pirate fishing in the Southern Ocean, across the South Pacific, and along the African coast is perpetrated by ships from dozens of countries, many flying flags of convenience. These illegal catches are taken from flagging fish stocks and are landed in backwater ports where many strangely well-off harbormasters have a curious amnesia when it comes to remembering to record landings in log books.
Addressing these types of issues through the instrument of national policy will land only a glancing blow at best. If President Obama truly wants to be a leader in the realm of ocean conservation (and I, for one, believe he does), he needs to approach these issues from an international perspective.
Ocean acidification? Get real on climate change. Go to Copenhagen in December willing to make a real commitment. Throw out the ineffectual Waxman-Markey Bill and actually work with the international community to reduce carbon emissions by a meaningful amount.
Put me down! I'm endangered!
Bluefin tuna? Sponsor its inclusion under CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species). That will tighten our import regulations as well as give the patrols in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean the power and resources they need to save this animal from total extinction.
Pirate fishing? Push for international agreements that require chain-of-custody documentation for the seafood trade. Promote the development of international certification standards that require full transparency. Hold countries like Liberia, the Bahamas, and Panama responsible for the illegal actions of ships that are registered under their flags. And most importantly, lead an international effort to establish no-take zones in spawning grounds and environmentally sensitive areas throughout the world’s oceans.
It's an international ball game
It’s true, Obama can only speak for one country, not for the world. But addressing ocean conservation this way underscores the unfortunate tendency of the United States government to approach climate change and other mammoth (no pun intended) issues from a unilateral perspective. This indefensible promotion of environmental isolationism is precisely the perspective the White House was employing when Reagan dismissed UNCLOS, not to mention when Bush emasculated Kyoto.
Last time I checked, the United States still carried a pretty big stick in the international arena. If our government got serious about the idea that our globe is in fact global, we could make major changes… we might even be able to heal our oceans.
It’s great to have a National Oceans Month — it’s an important step, and it’s a whole lot better than nothing. But if we’re serious about this, it needs to be International… and it needs to be a Year.
Tags: acidification, barack, bluefin, change, climate, convenience, copenhagen, flag, ICCAT, kyoto, liberia, markey, month, national, obama, oceans, pirate, president, proclamation, UNCLOS, waxman, waxman-markey
