PNA - free School Skipjack Fishery certified!

Totally unsustainable - purse seining around FADs.

Bravo PNA - again!
The Parties to the Nauru Agreement are the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu, and this confederation of Tuna fishing countries have long been trailblazers in trying to manage their fishery sustainably.
The MSC certification is a well deserved recognition of those efforts - and what is even more important, it looks like the market loves it!

Free school means FAD-free.
As last posted here, FADs and the so-called Dolphin safe Tuna fishery are an ecological catastrophe and this fishery is finally completely doing away with it - incidentally, very much in spite of the strong objections of ISSF and others that I would generally file under the usual shenanigans, as recently confirmed by the arbitrator.
Coupled with their advocacy against abusing Whale Sharks as FADs, the PNA are truly showing the way forward to many other much bigger and one would think, much more progressive and enlightened countries - much like the small Pacific countries that have enacted the Shark Sanctuaries.
Kudos!

And what about the certification of Fiji's Albacore fishery?
We shall see. I read

Principle 2: Measures are in place to limit bycatch (living creatures caught unintentionally, including other fish species and marine animals such as turtles and dolphins). This could mean changing how fish trimmings are discarded so that seabirds are not drawn towards hazardous fishing gear.

Sharks are certainly other fish species.
As I said, we shall see.

Dolphin-safe Tuna - Video!

Talking about David.

Two of his most memorable posts are his award-winning The ecological disaster that is dolphin safe tuna and Dolphin-safe tuna: conservation success story or ecological disaster?.
Please do read them.

Enter Greenpeace.
They are tackling unsustainable practices within the Tuna industry, and FADs are one of them. Now, they have released this whistle-blower video showing the revolting prectice of purse seining around FADs.

Required viewing!

Dolphin-safe Tuna - epic Post!

Once again, huge kudos to David!

He continues to expose the smoke & mirrors that is Dolphin-safe Tuna.
Having expanded on his previous award-winning post, this is as crystal clear as it gets, and great reading on top of it. Extremely well researched and brilliantly formulated, it is also highly thought provoking as it sheds light on the complexity of conservation where nothing is just simply black or white and everything is interconnected.

There are no simple solutions here.
Like it or not, humans will continue to consume animal protein and satisfying that demand will always come at a cost, and any viable solutions will always have to be pragmatic compromises. Amid a multitude of bad alternatives, the best ones will be those focusing on long term sustainability and adequate management measures. This also implies a commitment to preserving biodiversity as a whole rather than attributing special status to selected pet species.

As David writes
A conscious choice to go back to a previously-banned fishing method that kills large numbers of charismatic animals puts a bad taste in my mouth, but the fact is that fishing for dolphin-associated schools of tuna catches primarily non-endangered dolphins and adult tuna. Dolphin-safe tuna fishing is killing dozens of species, many of whom are endangered, and threatening the integrity of entire ecosystems.
The old way may be the better of two bad choices.

Totally agree!
With one caveat: are we really unable to develop techniques allowing us to segregate among the bottom-oriented Tuna and the surface-oriented Dolphins when catching Dolphin-associated Tuna?
Really?

Required Reading!

This February, Why Shark Matter has come up with this epic post.

It discusses the following data.

“Ten thousand sets of purse seine nets around immature tuna swimming under logs and other debris will cause the deaths of 25 dolphins; 130 million small tunas; 513,870 mahi mahi; 139,580 sharks; 118,660 wahoo; 30,050 rainbow runners; 12,680 other small fish; 6540 billfish; 2980 yellowtail; 200 other large fish; 1020 sea turtles; and 50 triggerfish.”

“Ten thousand sets of purse seine nets around mature yellowfin swimming in association with dolphins, will cause the deaths of 4000 dolphins (0.04 percent of a population that replenishes itself at the rate of two to six percent per year); 70,000 small tunas; 100 mahi mahi; 3 other small fish; 520 billfish; 30 other large fish; and 100 sea turtles. No sharks, no wahoo, no rainbow runners, no yellowtail, and no triggerfish and dramatic reductions in all other species but dolphins.”

A whopping 198 (!!!) responses later, the debate is far from being over.

It is intelligent, controversial, passionate and highly entertaining and goes right to the heart of the complexities of conservation, one of the ongoing threads on this blog. It is great reading and I invite you to go explore it - and to add any opinions you may wish to share.
There - not here!

Dolphins suck!

Being Mammals, they must!
End of debate!

Why I even bother to meddle in Cetacean matters is that like Blogfish, I do read Southern Fried Science - and I could not agree more on his take on them!
They are certainly thought provoking and eminently debatable!

Wanna really know where Dolphin-mania (too good a link for not re-posting it!) has led us: read this remarkable post!

Then marvel at the take of FAO, a United Nations org, on the "main negative impacts" of purse seines! Tho I must say that people with long memories cannot be surprised: it was the same FAO that recommended and promoted the use of long lines, drift nets and purse seines in the fifties and thus started the industrial pillage of the Oceans in the first place!
In the meantime, the Tuna management madness continues, with some species on course for extinction within the next few years.
Just Great!

But back to the Blogs: bookmark them both!