February 2011

It’s on. Today the High Court gave the green light to our legal challenge against new licenses for deep water drilling in UK waters.

Discards are disgusting. No-one with any sense can support the catching, killing, and throwing away of fish. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Fish Fight – which Greenpeace has supported from the outset - has at long last made the waste of perfectly good fish a national outrage. It is a pointless waste of life, and potential resources. It’s abhorrent whether you eat fish or don’t.

Now I'm back in the office and finally warmed up after yesterday's trip to visit Princes in Liverpool, I've been able to browse through some of the slogan suggestions which have been sent in. There are some absolute crackers in the 1,000-plus ideas we've received.

Unfortunately I can't say the same for sharks in the oceans. They are getting caught up in Princes' nets along with other fish, rays and even turtles because Princes relies on fish aggregating devices (Fads) used with purse seine nets even though they know that's a sure-fire way to haul up plenty of bycatch along with the tuna.

Have a look at this great infographic to understand how ocean destruction can end up in your can. Here's a higher resolution version.

Update, 9 March 2011: both Princes and Asda have committed to removing tuna caught using fish aggregating devices in combination with purse seine nets from their supply chains by 2014. Read more >>

By the time you read this, I'll be at the head office of Princes in Liverpool where a frenzy of sharks is demanding an end (a fin-ish?) to the dreadful fishing methods that kill other marine species like sharks, rays and even turtles which Princes relies on for its tinned tuna.

The first round of our photo competition asking Facebook to ♥ Renewable Energy (and thus Unfriend Coal) has just closed but the entries have been so amazing we're launching another round straight away.

In this day and age, commercial whaling is out-of-date and should be out-of-the-question. Sadly it isn’t, but maybe the news that the Japanese whaling fleet might be cutting short its stay in the Southern ocean is cause for some optimism.