Also by Willie

Negotiating with biology

Posted by Willie - 11 November 2009 at 11:24am - Comments

As I write this, I'm sitting in the plenary room of the ICCAT meeting, whilst Charles Clover's film 'The End of The Line' is being screened. This in itself is a great coup.

In a memorable scene from the film, whilst attending a previous ICCAT meeting, Clover himself chastised the bureaucrats in that meeting for setting irresponsibly high quotas that ignored scientific advice. In his words they were '…negotiating with biology. And you just can't do that, and expect to see the biology survive'.

Article tagged as: atlantic, bluefin, iccat, oceans, tuna

Too chicken to protect bluefin?

Posted by Willie - 9 November 2009 at 9:37pm - Comments

There are a lot of chickens around Porto de Galinhas, in Brazil , where ICCAT, the body responsible for mismanaging bluefin tuna, and other fish species, is meeting this week.

Article tagged as: atlantic, bluefin, iccat, oceans

The End Of The Line: UK TV premiere

Posted by Willie - 19 October 2009 at 2:21pm - Comments

It's finally here.

The movie that changed the way people think about what’s on their dinner plate is hitting a small screen near you. The End of the Line will be screened at 10pm on More4 tomorrow night, Tuesday 20th October.

Article tagged as: bluefin, channel 4, charles clover, destructive fishing, end of the line, films, oceans

26 Governments protest at Iceland's continued whale hunt

Posted by Willie - 2 October 2009 at 4:53pm - Comments

Today 26 governments made an official protest (called a 'demarche') to the Icelandic government, caliing on them to reassess their current whaling operations, and end commercial whaling.

Article tagged as: fin whale, iceland, japan, whale watching, whaling

Bluefin-Eating Surrender Monkeys?

Posted by Willie - 21 September 2009 at 7:13pm - Comments

It's de rigueur in some quarters to dismiss France jokingly, as the Simpsons and some US political-types famously have done in the past. But the news today from Brussels suggests that the French government have made an embarrassing volte-face on bluefin tuna.

Article tagged as: bluefin, CITES, EU fisheries, france, monaco, nicolas sarkozy, tuna

EU breakthrough on bluefin

Posted by Willie - 8 September 2009 at 7:22pm - Comments

Breaking news just in from Brussels - despite all the doubts and concerns some of us have harboured over the past few weeks, it seems the EU Commission is throwing its weight squarely behind the call for an international ban on the trade of Atlantic bluefin tuna!

This is big news - actually let's make that BIG NEWS.

Article tagged as: atlantic, bluefin, CITES, EU, tuna

Good news for fisheries - if we take the right action?

Posted by Willie - 31 July 2009 at 1:34pm - Comments

So. Is the glass half full, or half empty?

There are of course other options, and it may well be difficult to tell because you are looking at the glass from a funny angle. That certainly seems to be the conclusion when reading the various media interpretations of an important new study published in the journal Science on the world's fisheries.

Article tagged as: boris worm, end of the line, marine reserves, overfishing

Seafish - set to save the bluefin?

Posted by Willie - 23 July 2009 at 12:23pm - Comments

As per the great British tradition, there was something fishy in yesterday's news: an interesting little snippet in PR Weekly, announcing that a new PR firm has been hired to work for Seafish.

Article tagged as: bluefin, north sea, overfishing, tuna

Tuna get political support

Posted by Willie - 17 July 2009 at 4:03pm - Comments

Great news from the world of politics today for bluefin tuna, as reported in the Independent, although you might want it explaining a little.

The UK and French governments have both said that they will back a proposal by Monaco to have bluefin tuna listed by CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species).

Article tagged as: bluefin, CITES, fishing, oceans, tuna

The ones that got away

Posted by Willie - 16 July 2009 at 12:31pm - Comments

Despite the old adage, it seems that crime does pay... at least if you are the Stevenson family of Newlyn.

As reported by the BBC, the family, who operate fishing trawlers in Cornwall, were prosecuted for routinely landing illegal fish. Not only were they landing species they had no quotas for, but they were doing so by passing them off as other species, so it was all pre-meditated and well-orchestrated. They also conveniently ran the auctions where the fish are sold, and falsified the records of what fish had been sold to match what the skippers said they landed.

Article tagged as: cornwall, oceans, overfishing

Greenpeace UK