The year in review: 2009

Days gone by

It’s been quite a year.

As the last few heartbeats of the year 2009 fade away, it is natural to take stock of how far we have come.  It’s important to recognize our victories, as well as to isolate and examine our shortcomings.  After all, there’s certainly no need to make the same mistakes again in 2010.

I’m also happy to say that it was Sustainable Sushi‘s first birthday at some point in the last few weeks.  Over this past year, this website has afforded me with the opportunity not only to explore many  fascinating issues, but to discuss them with people commenting from all across the globe.  It has been a wonderful experience, and I thank you all so very much for helping to make it happen.

So, 2009: a tumultuous year by any standard.  The oceans have had a tough time of it, but in other ways, we’ve achieved more than we could have possibly hoped for.

There have been times over the past twelve months when things have seemed bleak.  It is beyond debate that the oceans took some major blows this year, and some of the ominous clouds on the horizon have grown even darker:

• 

  Banzai

  The efforts of Prince Albert II of Monaco, the first head of state to stand up for the bluefin tuna, were undermined by France’s President Sarkozy, EU Commissioner Joe Borg, and the governments of several other Mediterranean countries.

• A swarm of gargantuan jellyfish attacked Japan, causing tremendous damage to the fishing fleet.

• A disease outbreak in Chile’s salmon farms led first to an egregious abuse of antibiotics, and then to the catastrophic collapse of what was formerly the largest segment of the world’s salmon farming industry.

• The ICCAT meeting in Recife, Brazil, failed inexcusably in its charge, setting bluefin tuna quotas far exceeding any scientific ally defensible numbers and underscoring yet again the need for CITES Appendix I protection for this animal.

• 

  We will rue the day

  The Copenhagen climate change conference missed the mark and fell short of setting any global reasonable emissions goals, paving the way for the increased acidification of the world’s oceans.

• December’s WCPFC meeting in Tahiti should have resulted in protectionary measures to forestall these practices, but thanks to pressure to the contrary from Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, the talks collapsed.

At the same time, we’ve seen some incredible successes this year.  All across the planet, people stood up for the oceans, bringing their passion for a better planet with them as they cooked, shopped, wrote, worked and marched:

• TIME Magazine ran a front-page article on the disappearing bluefin tuna, waking millions of people across the globe to the plight of the world’s largest bony fish.

• 

  Sound the alarm

  Greenpeace conducted a series of campaigns across the Pacific Ocean, drawing attention to the ecological carnage wrought by many skipjack tuna seiners.

• Japanese pole-caught skipjack tuna attained Marine Stewardship Council certification, becoming the first Japanese fishery to do so.

• The World Wildlife Fund and other participating stakeholders completed and ratified a global standard for tilapia farming.  Regardless of whether or not one supports the standard itself, the groundbreaking idea of using an open-stakeholder system to develop guidelines for sustainable aquaculture is something to be commended.

• 

  Unwanted attention

  The End of the Line, a documentary on overfishing and the state of the world’s oceans, was released.  This led to increased pressure on Nobu restaurant to discontinue the sale of endangered Northern bluefin.  This momentum manifest in celebrity petitions, dozens of articles in trade and mainstream press, and a Greenpeace campaign.

• Many major seafood retailers in the United States discontinued problematic seafood items in an effort to become more sustainable in their practices.  As an example, Wegmans, Target, and Whole Foods all stopped selling orange roughy due to the irresponsible catch methods used in the fishery.

• Mashiko restaurant in Seattle, WA, converted to a fully sustainable menu, becoming the first conventional sushi bar in the world to make such a transition.

• 

  It's finally over

  The Cove, a shocking documentary about the Taiji dolphin slaughter, was released worldwide.  Broome, Australia, discontinued its sister-city relationship with Taiji over the fiasco.  Taiji has temporarily halted its dolphin drive, but other communities in Japan continue to hunt dolphins.  The Cove has even been nominated for an Academy Award for “Best Documentary.”

• 2009 marked the first year in a world beyond the grindadrap: the annual Faeroese pilot whale drive that had caused much consternation among environmentalists.  In response to warnings by their chief medical advisors, the Faeroese practice of slaughtering pilot whales and distributing the meat throughout the community was halted permanently in November of 2008.

The majority of these positive changes are part of a greater pattern: an accelerating increase in our overall awareness of the problems faced by our oceans.  Movies, magazine articles, and activist campaigns have brought the health of our fisheries to the headlines and to the tips of our tongues.  The amount of conversations we are having at coffee shops, in grocery stores, and around backyard barbecues about seafood sustainability and environmentally responsible fish consumption has never been higher – and rising faster than ever before.

Stand and fight

Yes, it’s true that the bluefin tuna is in dire straits.  It is true that eel poaching continues unabated, that bottom trawlers still prowl the seas, and that we are on pace to empty the oceans of all seafood in less than forty years.  Still, as menacing as these threats are, they are not the most important issues at hand.

The single most powerful and meaningful thing that happened to our oceans this year is that we truly began to wake up to the truth of what we are doing to our planet.  We are more aware.  We are more alert.  And we are much more energized and focused.

Hundreds of new ocean activists are standing up every day to make a difference.  Maybe they write a check, or they buy a different kind of fish, or they have a conversation with a chef or grocer.  Maybe they simply have coffee with a good friend and spread the word.  It doesn’t matter – it all helps.  Every day we come closer to achieving critical mass, a fully realized awareness that will mobilize our true potential to save our oceans.

A brave new world

So let’s make 2010 the year that we redouble our efforts.  It is time to capitalize on our momentum and push even harder, accomplish even more for the sake of planet and our future.  There is still a tremendous amount of work to do, but make no mistake: we are stronger than the forces that would hold us back.  And on those particularly gloomy days, when bad news comes crashing down and the future looks insurmountably bleak, just remember: you are not alone.  We’re all in this together – you, me, and the millions of other people that are out there fighting every single day, working to make this world a better place for all of us.

Take heart — we are winning.

Tags: 2009, 2010, birthday, bluefin, borg, bottom trawl, copenhagen, cove, eel, greenpeace, grindadrap, ICCAT, japan, jellyfish, mashiko, monaco, new year, sarkozy, skipjack, sustainable sushi, tahiti, target, time, WCPFC, wegmans, whole foods, WWF

The usual suspects

Same old same old

Sometimes when I sit down to write one of these posts, I get a sort of melancholy déjà vu.  So many of the problems that plague our oceans stem from the same root causes; it’s almost like writing the same article over and over again.  Avarice, financial myopia, cultural misunderstandings, and apathetic complacency are frustratingly ubiquitous when we try to decipher and disassemble the tangled, parasitic relationship that we’ve developed with our oceans.

It also seems like every time we start digging into ocean conservation issues anywhere on the planet, we find ourselves up against the same culprits: a small clique of nations that have taken to fishing in a serious way.  I suppose this is logical given the total consumption (as well as the per capita consumption) of seafood in these particular countries: they are the source of a tremendous share of the world’s seafood demand, and thus have a vested interest in access the supply freely and without interference from other parties.  Still, one would think that their respective decision makers would understand that in order to have fish tomorrow, we have to take proper care of the fish today…. right?

Anyhow, onto the matter at hand.

Perks of the job

Last week, the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), a body which oversees the regulations governing tuna fishing throughout much of the world’s largest ocean, came together in Tahiti for its annual meeting.  Representatives from over a dozen countries flew to Papeete in order to discuss the worrying state of Pacific tunas, concentrating especially on skipjack and bigeye.

There was a great hope that much could be achieved at this meeting.  Scores of artisanal fishermen teamed up with local and international NGOs in any number of demonstrations to drive home the fact that these animals are in need of protection.  The Pacific is the last ocean with bigeye tuna populations anywhere near healthy levels, and it was made clear that unless stringent and effective quotas are implemented — in conjunction with new closures and off-limits areas — we may lose this stock as well.

Catch us if you can

As I discussed in a previous series of posts, a great deal of the Pacific bigeye stock is taken as bycatch by seiners that are seeking skipjack tuna.  In the Western and Central Pacific, these seiners tend to operate in what are known as “donut holes” or “high seas pockets”: areas of ocean that are surrounded by the territorial waters of various countries but are just beyond the 200-mile exclusive economic zone of any of them.  Seining was banned in two of the four major pockets in the Pacific Ocean during the WCPFC meeting in 2008, and most of the Pacific island nations were hoping to seal the deal and protect the remaining two this year.

Alas.  Enter the usual suspects.

There are three key states that have a long-standing track record of blocking this kind of progress in the Pacific: South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan.  These countries tend to work as a bloc to forestall regulatory measures that would preclude their fleets from plundering the Pacific at will.  Lamentably, this meeting proved to be no exception.

On my own

A group of small island states proposed a 50% reduction in the overall bigeye tuna quota.  South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, joined by China and the Philippines, opposed the measure — even though their own scientists advised them to do otherwise.  In the face of this obstinacy, the proposal never had a chance.  It died horribly right there in the room and left the Pacific bigeye populations unprotected.

To add insult to injury, I should note that it was actually the Japanese that raised the issue about tuna welfare in the first place.  The Japanese delegation went on record early in the meeting stating that no other tuna species can be allowed to decline to the point of meeting the CITES Appendix I criteria, as the northern bluefin does (this was, by the way, the first time that the Japanese government has admitted that northern bluefin qualifies for CITES protection.)  Japan also expressed concern over the state of sharks, especially hammerheads, in the Pacific.  This is good news, right?  The largest per capita seafood consumer in the world standing up for the oceans?

Well, a couple of days later, they reversed their stance, blocked all precautionary proposals and quota reductions, and ensured that bigeye and yellowfin tuna continue on the fast track to endangered species land.  Thanks guys.

Yeah... like an impoverished puppy

To be fair, there’s really no room for any kind of flag-waving on my part.  The US delegation actually arrived at the meeting planning to oppose these precautionary measures as well.  In the end they were persuaded to abstain from the vote, but still, hardly a pride-inducing course of action.

The presence of a new and woefully inexperienced chairman did not help matters.  At one point, when one of the delegations raised concerns about the state of porbeagle sharks in the Pacific, the chairman was quoted as saying, “What?  What’s a pork barrel shark?”

Yeah.  I’m not kidding.

Catch of the day

In the end, it pretty much all fell apart.  Despite strong efforts from France, Australia, numerous Pacific island nations, Greenpeace, and several local environmental groups, the meeting ended not with a bang, but with a whimper.  Two enormous high seas pockets remain open to purse seiners that regularly take large quantities of juvenile bigeye.  Sharks and tuna are still without succor, their diminishing populations at the mercy of relentless longliners.

Still… there’s gotta be a silver lining here somewhere.  Hang on, I’ll find something…

Oh, yeah.  Here we go.

This miserable outcome has upset many of these Pacific island states to no end.  In fact, it may lead renegotiation of access agreements by these tiny countries: if the WCPFC can’t effectively protect these delicate fisheries, the Pacific island governments may just have to go it alone.  They’re even talking about withdrawing from the Commission if it can’t serve it’s purpose, and relying on bilateral negotiation in an attempt to keep these foreign fleets out of their waters.

Preach on

Wait a minute — that’s it?  That’s the silver lining?  We’re finding our solace in the breakdown of an attempted multinational management body in favor of a clutch of one-off two-party agreements of dubious strength and effectiveness?  In an emergency backpedaling in the face of failure?  In the inability of key stakeholder countries to see the writing on the wall and to take the simple, logical action necessary to protect their economy, environment, and children?

Wow.  Whatever’s happening in Copenhagen right now must be contagious.

Tags: bigeye, china, commission, high seas, japan, korea, pacific, papeete, pockets, porbeagle, quota, seiner, skipjack, spain, tahiti, taiwan, tuna, WCPFC, yellowfin