The Sustainable Business Online Resources website defines sustainable development as: “ a concept based on the integration of environmental, economic and social concerns. It also involves improving and maintaining the quality of life for people, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” The idea is one that we don’t fully understand, or practice, rife as it is with political, environmental, and economic pitfalls.
The penny has certainly not dropped in the case of deep-sea fishing. Under the current situation, bluefin tuna could be effectively extinct by 2030. In a recent website article based on information provided by Greenpeace, Rob Taylor of Reuters highlighted the illegal fishing practices of large European fishing fleets. These firms are over-fishing endangered stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean, most notably around tiny nations such as Kiribati and the Cook Islands. Greenpeace has named three large European companies, Albacora, Calvopesca, and Conservas Garavilla that send fishing fleets into the Western Pacific under Venezuelan, Panamanian, Ecuadorian, and Netherlands Antilles flags. Oagi Toribau, the Greenpeace Oceans Campaigner, has warned all Pacific island nations that when, “negotiating fishing agreements with the European Union…be fully aware of the track record of Spanish and Dutch-owned vessels in the region, including their pirate fishing operations.”
Under the present system of exploitation, the idea of sustainable resources, let alone leaving something for future generations, is not even considered. Calvopesca, a Spanish company, and Albacora, have no intention of cutting back to save endangered stocks; indeed, these companies not only catch huge stocks of tuna, but also refrigerate, transport, and store over 300,00 tonnes of big-eyed and yellowfin tuna each year in the Pacific. In addition, these companies, and others like them, distribute, and sell in European, Asian, Scandinavian, South American, and American markets.
The catch of southern bluefin tuna is unsustainable at this time. A 2006 report produced by Australian, New Zealand, South Korean, and Japanese officials stated, that if the current rate of catch continues, those bluefin capable of laying eggs will have disappeared by 2030. Extinction is not resource management; it is resource suicide. It is now 2008; twenty-two years is not a long time to stop the pirating of tuna.
The tuna are not the only ones who suffer from this folly. The World Wildlife Fund, in an October 11, 2007 report carried by Reuters, stated that long-line fishing in the Southern Pacific is killing endangered seabirds, sharks, and turtles. According to estimates, up to 13,500 seabirds, including 10,000 albatrosses, are caught every year by long-line fisheries, targeting southern bluefin. Most of the fishing boats are from Japan.
Long-line fishing is particularly nasty. Each line trails up to thousands of hooks and the fleets using the lines are willfully ignorant of the devastation caused to threatened species, both plant and animal.
There has been a little progress made toward conserving the ocean’s resources. Oceana, an international marine conservation organization, in an internet article dated March 20, reported that the European Court of Justice refused an exemption to the use of driftnets to catch bluefin tuna and swordfish by the French fishing fleet. The fleet has used driftnets in the Mediterranean several times in past years, contrary to the European Union outlawing them in 2002. This type of net can reach up to dozens of kilometres behind the boat, threatening cetaceans, sea turtles and sharks.
The French fleet had been able to skirt around the prohibition, with support from the French government, because, until 2007, no legal definition of “driftnet” existed in European law. The resulting loopholes have been closed by the new definition, effectively preventing the French government from supporting this egregious practice.
Another recent victory appeared in an online article published February 10, 2008. Oceana, announced that Unilever, the international manufacturer of cosmetic and household products, has agreed to refrain from using squalene in its products. Instead, Unilever will obtain the product from olives, at no loss of product quality.
Squalene, which is the technical name for shark liver oil, is used in such products as creams, lotions, and glosses. Obtaining this ingredient from deep-sea sharks, those that live at depths up to 1500 metres, threatens the continued survival of these unique animals. Deep-sea sharks produce large amounts of squalene, as their livers can comprise up to one-third of their total body weight. Over-hunting of these sharks has resulted in steep declines in the numbers of some species and the IUCN has placed some types on its Red List of threatened species. Unilever’s decision to switch to olive-based squalene, places the company with a growing number of cosmetics manufacturers who have either phased out shark-derived squalene, never used it in the first place, or who are in the process of changing to plant derivatives.
Sharks, especially deep-sea sharks, play a vital role in the health, balance and survival of ocean ecosystems. However, they are particularly susceptible to over-fishing because they grow slowly, live a long time, and produce few offspring. All these factors dictate that their populations grow and recover slowly. Many national fisheries target sharks and rays, and they can be caught as a by-catch of boats pursuing other species.
We have to speed up the process of protecting, not only land-based ecosystems, but also ocean environments. There is little doubt that money will always trump the environment, so it is imperative that laws are put in place to punish those who willfully degrade our world. Without cross-border environmental laws, supported by strong penalties for eco-criminals, our world and our existence are not sustainable.
