Greenpeace New Zealand Weblog

The National-led Government is declaring its true environmental colours and green seems to be missing from the palette.

Over the last few months it has revealed a pro-mining mindset, it’s looking to increase the quota on our critically endangered southern blue fin tuna and now it’s advocating a deal that would allow a return to commercial whaling.

Last weekend former NZ Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer tried to broker a deal at a meeting of a small working group of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) which would allow Japan, Norway and Iceland to openly hunt whales including in the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary.  A final decision is expected in June. Read more »

About the video

Our Ocean Wonderland was created and written for Greenpeace by Steven Appleby and Pete Bishop, and was directed by Pete and designed by Steven.
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Watch the action through the onboard web cam.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Today we stepped up the pressure on Foodtown to get serious about putting in place a policy that would ensure it will only sell truly sustainable seafood.

We’ve just returned from the Quay St Foodtown in downtown Auckland where two of our activists hung a large banner above the front entrance of the store. The seven metre long banner was painted in the Foodtown blue and white and we used the same font so it appeared that today their company motto was ‘Foodtown costing us our oceans?’

Last week we attempted to attach a much longer banner with the same message on the hull of an orange roughy bottom trawler which we’d chained to the wharf in Auckland to stop it leaving port. That one didn’t go quite as planned because the fisherman on board managed to wrestle it from us before it was fully unraveled. Read more »

Foodtown costing us our oceans

It was sad to see the Seamount Explorer leave the port of Auckland this afternoon. Police had removed our activists from the vessel as they tried to prevent it from leaving port on its destructive business. The Seamount Explorer would be more accurately named the Seamount Destroyer – it uses a heavy bottom trawl net which lays waste to the seabed as it fishes for orange roughy and other deep sea species. It is now on its way to destroy the delicate marine environments on the seafloor in seach of orange roughy to be sold on the shelves at Foodtown.

Bottom trawling is one of the most destructive forms of fishing. A landmark study published this month identified a ban on bottom trawling as an urgent step to halt the biodiversity crisis now happening in the Oceania region. Orange roughy is just one of the casualties – with three of New Zealand’s eight stocks fished to collapse already. Bottom trawl nets used to catch it bulldoze the seabed and rip up corals that are hundreds of years old. Greenpeace put together a video showing the destruction that bottom trawling causes, and is calling on countries the world over to put an end to this ocean destruction.

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This week environmental and non-commercial fishing groups have put aside their differences and formed an unprecedented alliance to combat the decline of fish stocks and marine ecosystems in New Zealand.

The groups include the NZ Recreational Fishing Council, the NZ Big Game Fishing Council, option4, the Hokianga Accord, Forest & Bird, Greenpeace and ECO.

All are concerned about the decline of many fish stocks in New Zealand waters, and are calling on Fisheries Minister Phil Heatley to take urgent action to return the marine environment and fisheries to good health.

This week they met Mr Heatley to ask him to take a more holistic and cautious fisheries management approach.

The groups are troubled by the Government’s strategic vision for fisheries – Fisheries 2030 – which Mr Heatley is considering now.  Read the press release here.

Guest blog from Sara Holden, our International whales campaign coordinator

Just a few minutes before the opening of the 61st International Whaling Commission meeting, a large rat was seen scuttling through the hotel and out the door. As metaphors go, it was a good one. The IWC meeting venue is another. Hosted at a casino hotel in Madeira, Portugal, it is fast becoming apparent that anyone betting on a good outcome for the whales is unlikely to win.

After 12 months of talking and achieving nothing of substance, the smart money says another 12 months of talking is the only thing on the cards.
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Extreme fisherman and star of the Ultimate Fishing Show Matt Watson talks about fishing, sustainability and the Greenpeace report: While Stocks.

Sustainable pole and line tuna available in supermarkets in the UK. Currently the main New Zealand retailers have no policies in place to ensure the seafood they sell is sustainable, and many species fished and sold here are not sustainable.

Our fishing industry is doing us a disservice. As a small nation that relies on our primary industries and exports, we want to see New Zealand products flying off the shelves because they reflect genuinely sustainable practices that match our clean green reputation. Instead, we are seeing more and more New Zealand products being taken off shelves because they are failing to meet the sustainability demands of consumers and retailers in our export markets.
Recent announcements include that by Compass Group USA, the leading food service company in North America, of their sustainable seafood purchasing initiative. Over three years, Compass Group has taken 1.5 million pounds of unsustainable seafood off their catalogues – including orange roughy. This is a clear signal to the New Zealand fishing industry, which continues to catch and export orange roughy even though three of the eight stocks have collapsed and the Australian Government has declared it a threatened species.

This week Wegmans, a major US supermarket chain, has also taken orange roughy off their shelves. If our fishing industry had not yet got the message, Wegman’s statement should leave no room for doubt about the need to pick up our game: Read more »