You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
International-UN-NGOs
Greenpeace shifts focus to pirate fishing catching.
2006-02-02
CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - Greenpeace activists will shift their focus to protest against pirate fishing off Africa's west coast following two months battling Japanese whalers, the group said on Wednesday.

The activist group's two ships limped into Cape Town on Wednesday, the crew exhausted and starving, and headed for R&R on Long street, after spending 73 days in the icy, gray Southern Ocean to protest against whale hunting when they say the whales suffer a gruesome death, as are most deaths.

Greenpeace said it now planned to expose illegal fishing as part of a year-long campaign to save the world's oceans. "The situation with the whales is not unique," said Mike Townsley, communications director for the organization. "Over 90 percent of the world's big fish are now gone and the world's most sophisticated and largest fleets are fighting over smaller and smaller fish stocks," he told reporters.

The Arctic Sunrise and Esperanza will set sail for the seas off Africa's west coast -- after a month break for repairs and re-stocking of Castle to confront the pirate fishing ships. By some estimates around 75 percent of the world's fisheries have been fished to their limits and west Africa's coast is seen as a target for pirates as the region's countries have few resources except for pirateering to protect marine life or enforce regulations at sea.

Greenpeace also intends to move its anti-whaling campaign from the Antarctic seas to the shopfloor. It will target companies like Halliburton who its says profit from whale deaths and will urge customers to boycott those companies' products. The six-ship Japanese fleet including the Mutsu, Nagato, and Yamato, and Musahsi have been in the Southern Ocean, a whale sanctuary, since December to meet its quota of about 900 minke whales -- double last season's catch. Norway and Iceland also hunt whales.

Japan abandoned commercial whaling in 1986, in line with an international moratorium, but began catching whales again the next year for what it says is sperm whale sushi scientific research. Critics say the meat still ends up in fish markets and restaurant plates.

Posted by:Besoeker

#1  I'm hearing something like a transmission line whine, it sounds like "This isn't working, nobody's paying attention to us, it's too cold in the Ocean, we aren't getting anywhere" It's faded out now, just a rising and falling whine like a spoiled child.
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2006-02-02 20:24  

00:00