Longline Fishing Decimating Seabird, Turtle Populations - ENS

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CAMBRIDGE, UK, March 9, 2005 (ENS) - The first review ranking the environmental performance of the world’s 19 intergovernmental Regional Fisheries Management Organizations finds that that most are failing to safeguard albatrosses, and the seabird populations are headed for extinction as a result.

The review by BirdLife International discovered that three of the 16 active regional organizations do little to prevent the slaughter of the world’s albatrosses in longline fisheries. More than 300,000 seabirds, including 100,000 albatrosses, and thousands of marine mammals and turtles are killed by both legal and illegal longline fishing fleets every year.

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The Regional Fisheries Management Organizations of greatest concern, BirdLife found, are the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna, and the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna. BirdLife says these organizations are doing "little or nothing to reduce the bycatch of seabirds, sharks and turtles in their fisheries, while at the same time many of their fish stocks have declined by more than 90 percent."

“These organizations have a legal and moral obligation to force the fisheries they govern to reduce this wildlife toll,” said BirdLife’s International Marine Policy Officer Dr. Cleo Small. “But they are only as strong as the political will of the countries making them up," said Small. "Maximizing fish catches for export is still the top priority for many member countries, an approach which has left fish stocks and other marine species decimated with dire consequences for marine ecosystems and local fishing communities.”

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http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2005/2005-03-09-02.asp

Not sure if this link will work.