user%gn@cdp.uucp (10/08/89)
Date: October 4, 1989
Via GreenLink:
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NEW YORK, NY (GP) -- Members of the international environmental
group Greenpeace attending a meeting of the United Nation's
(U.N.) General Assembly, supported New Zealand Prime Minister
Geoffrey Palmer in his condemnation of fishing with high seas
driftnets known as "Walls of Death."
At the U.N. on Monday, Palmer called for immediate international
action to ban the unregulated use of driftnets. For several years
Greenpeace has condemned the use of these destructive nets, up to
40 miles long, because they threaten future fish stocks and many
forms of marine life.
High seas driftnets are large-scale, monofilament plastic
gillnets appropriately called "strip mining the sea" because they
indiscriminately catch and kill virtually everything in their
path from entire schools of tuna and salmon to dolphins, whales
and sea birds.
In 1983, the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior documented driftnet
devastation in the North Pacific. One year later Greenpeace went
to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization with its concerns.
"Greenpeace warned of the dangers of driftnet fishing six years
ago at the U.N. but our call for a phaseout was ignored," said
Greenpeace Ocean Ecology Campaigner Mike Hagler. "Since then the
use of these nets has spread around the world and threatens to
destroy many of our living marine resources."
On Wednesday, Palmer will tour the Rainbow Warrior at its South
Street Seaport berth in New York before the ship leaves next week
to carry on the work of its predecessor ship destroyed by French
Secret Service. In December, the arriorwill confront the driftnet
fleets of Japan and Taiwan to photo-document the destruction to
ocean life there.
"We need to act on this issue now," Hagler said. "The U.N.
General Assembly must do more than simply pay attention to
driftnet fishing. They must pass a resolution condemning
driftnets and call for a world-wide ban against their use on the
high seas. Failure to do so will mean irreparable damage to the
worlds marine environment."
Contacts: Mike Hagler, Ben Deeble, Greenpeace: 212/840/3080
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