American corporate fishing practices are devastating ocean ecosystems. To end these destructive practices and move toward small-scale sustainable fishing, Greenpeace has launched a campaign to ban the US fleet of factory trawlers. Factory trawlers are industrial-scale fishing vessels capable of catching as much as 400 tons of fish per tow. On August 15 in Seattle, Washington, Greenpeace released the report Sinking Fast which details the environmental damage caused by factory trawlers. This was followed by a day of direct action to bear witness to this environmental atrocity.
Sinking Fast explains how factory trawling fleets have transformed the fishing trade into a globalized extraction industry dominated by multinational corporations and industrial economies of scale. Factory trawlers use nets with openings two miles in circumference and catch an enormous amount of incidental species (bycatch) each year. In 1994, factory trawlers threw overboard, dead, more than half a billion pounds of fish because they were the wrong sex, size or species.
The US factory trawling fleet did not exist prior to 1983. It currently consists of approximately 60 vessels. Most are based in Seattle and fish the North Pacific. They represent less than one percent of all US commercial fishing boats over five registered tons, yet by the early 1990s their annual catch was well over a million tons of groundfish off the coast of Alaska alone and accounted for 21 percent of the total US catch.
This environmental tragedy isn't being perpetrated by a developing nation desperate for cash. This is an American fleet, backed by Norwegian and Japanese investors.
On August 16, Greenpeace "impounded" several trawlers. The vessels were docked at Pier 91 in Seattle and were preparing to leave for the North Pacific fishery off the coast of Alaska to begin this season's overfishing.
The action was underway hours before it hit the surface. Greenpeace divers chained the propellers of five US factory trawlers owned by American Seafoods, a wholly owned subsidiary of Resource Group International, a Norwegian-based multinational conglomerate. To reach the ships without being detected, divers had to swim several miles towing hundreds of pounds of equipment. No easy task, the entire project took hours to complete. The factory trawlers were immobilized and did not leave for the fishing grounds off Alaska on schedule.
Soon after dawn, dozens of Greenpeace activists arrived via inflatables to call public attention to this "impound" and the strip-mining of our oceans. This group was comprised mainly of Greenpeace canvassers from local offices in Seattle, Portland and San Francisco. Twelve swimmers in survival suits took to the water and formed a human chain. They locked to a floating oil boom in order to further barricade the trawlers. Several climbers attached themselves to various points on the trawlers. Two women grappled onto the anchors of two abutting trawlers, the Pacific Explorer and the Pacific Navigator, and hung a banner reading, "Factory Trawlers: Strip Mining the Ocean." Other climbers faced opposition from factory trawler deckhands. Two people attempted to lock into one ship's discharge ports. Despite being sprayed with high-pressure hoses, one managed to lock in securely, but one was blown into the water by an intentional discharge of oil waste and bilgewater.
Two women tried twice to deploy a banner that read, "Strip Mining, Clearcutting, Factory Trawling . . . Get the picture?" They first ascended the bowline of the Ocean Rover but were quickly lowered back into an inflatable by irate deckhands. Next, they climbed a hanging ladder of Pacific Explorer and moved along the outside of the rail. The police nabbed one while the other was able to drop over the side and deploy a small banner which said "Ban Factory Trawlers."
A pirate radio station, KELP, broadcast from an unknown location in Seattle playing reports about the action and highlighting environmental abuses perpetrated by factory trawlers.
On the surface, the action lasted ten hours and got the word out internationally that factory trawlers are destroying ocean ecosystems.
Several of the swimmers remained in the water for over nine hours and unlocking them from the oil boom required scuba divers. The climbers also stayed up well into the afternoon. Eleven activists were arrested and await charges.
Beneath the surface, the actual "impoundment" lasted throughout the weekend. The propellers were not completely unchained until some time the following Monday, August 19.
Greenpeace was joined by several Alaskan and Seattle fishermen. Many small-scale fishing jobs have been impacted by the corporate overfishing practices of factory trawlers. Banning US factory trawlers would allow community-based fishing to continue sustainably in US waters and maintain the coastal ecosystem.
Concerned citizens can send a free fax in support of the ban to the CEOs of Tyson Foods and American Seafoods (the largest owners of these trawlers) by going to www.interactivism.com on the Internet. The full report is on Greenpeace's website www.greenpeace.org