Honolulu, Hawai'i – Greenpeace ship, the Rainbow Warrior, has completed a five-week expedition in the North Pacific Ocean to document destructive fishing practices and labour conditions of Taiwanese longlining vessels encountered around the Emperor Seamounts, a chain of more than 800 seamounts and a Greenpeace priority site for ocean protection under the new Global Ocean Treaty. Historically, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing is the biggest threat to the unique biodiversity spot.
This is the first time Greenpeace investigators documented full length hauls of longliners on the high seas. Longliners fish using vast cables up to 100 km in length, with thousands of sharp hooks attached. The indiscriminate method leads to significant and varied bycatch.
The investigation recorded:
- Across 25 hours of documentation, a devastating 84 sharks were hauled out of the water, either already dead or quickly killed on board, at a rate of three sharks per hour, with no apparent consideration for age of the sharks or if endangered species.
- The impact of industrial fishing on the health of marine ecosystems, with the captains sharing their disappointment in the size of their catches and as well as illustrated by the approximately 4000 empty hooks documented.
- The stark difference between the working realities for vessels at sea for around three months, as noted in the Greenpeace investigation, as opposed to those at sea for six, eight or over twelve months at a time who are at greater risk of forced labour abuses.
"We came to the North Pacific to investigate fishing vessels, on their fishing and labour rights practices but what we found were sharks indiscriminately pulled out of the ocean, often fighting for their lives, amongst seemingly endless empty hooks. This pattern was repeated across all five longline hauls observed and is a worrying indication of the increasing emptiness that destructive fishing practices have caused in our oceans, enabled by woefully inadequate high seas regulation," said Charli Fritzner, On Board Lead, Greenpeace Beyond Seafood Campaign
Greenpeace investigators, with permission from captains, also engaged with fishers on board the Taiwanese flagged longliners. Access to a satellite internet connection from the Rainbow Warrior was provided to over 45 fishers, who were able to contact loved ones for likely the first time in months since they had left port. It is common for distant water fishing vessels to be at sea for many months, or sometimes even years, without any chance for the workers to contact the world beyond the vessel nor to alert authorities to issues happening on board.
Fritzner continued: "Out here on the high seas, far from the public gaze, industrial fishing vessels can pillage the oceans at will. This same industry is also notorious for poor labour conditions for fishers on board. We urge governments to ratify the Global Ocean Treaty in 2025 and protect the Emperor Seamounts as part of a global network of protected areas covering at least 30% of the world's oceans."
The Rainbow Warrior will continue on through the islands of Hawai'i to work alongside Indigenous Leaders and highlight their efforts to protect the ocean.
